A Love Letter To The Girls Who Don't Love Themselves

To truly love who you are is the epitome of living your best life.

woman hugging herself Hector Roqueta / Shutterstock
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By Nicole Garbanzos

To love yourself is to honor everything inside you that makes you powerful.

It’s something you must commit to doing. If you don’t, you won’t discover how capable and intelligent you are, and how much love you can give.

Loving yourself gives you the strength to love others without fear.

Loving yourself is more than a tagline you see on advertisements for beauty products. It’s about acknowledging and celebrating the abilities you possess, the heart you have to give, and the life you have to live.

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RELATED: 10 Reasons Why Self-Love Is The Best, Most Important Type Of Love

I understand how getting to this point is a process. I understand that it will take a while until you can get there.

But trust me when I say that there are people who have succeeded in being happy with the way they are, who have healed their hearts and who have overcome experiences they never thought they’d survive.

You learn to love the worst parts of you and turn it into something better than it was before.

As the renowned American actress Lucille Ball said: “You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”

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She explains how throughout every trial and tribulation we go through, if we do not possess any ounce of self-love inside us, then nothing worthwhile in our lives will ever be done, let alone done well.

She was right.

When you love who you are, you also learn to let more people into your life.

You won’t be suspicious or look for excuses to push them away. You will learn to trust and see the good in them instead of worrying about fear and pain.

You’ll understand that every single one of us is human and that making mistakes is normal. You’ll react less abruptly towards any hate or negativity aimed at you.

You will see past the aggression, the tension, the bad temper and discover the pure and usually emotional/logical reason people are acting this way. You’ll learn to accept them for who they are, only see and encourage the best, and inspire them to pursue the best lives they could live.

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It is so empowering to learn how to embrace the very worst parts of you, to see your imperfections with open eyes and understand that everyone is just like you — imperfect.

You will be kinder to yourself and to others. You will understand that everyone is out there doing their best.

Then, you will learn how to be fearless.

By the time you start loving yourself completely, you will have had to overcome many things that were meant to harm you or bring you down.

You will have had to survive loss and heartbreak that tempted you to give up. You’ll have grown through tragedies and disappointments and triumphed over days that were meant to bring you down; you will discover things about yourself you never knew existed.

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You will learn to believe in yourself.

After you’ve survived numerous storms, you will finally have proof of how strong you really are.

You’ll know how much pain you can take and how you deal with it rather than running from it. However, you’ll also learn that it’s OK to cry on days when you just need to. Or to admit you’re hurting when the world feels too heavy.

When you love yourself, you accept the emotions that wash over you. You experience them without the fear of judgement or hearing the word “weak.”

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To truly love who you are is the epitome of living your best life.

Self-love is the secret to creating the best possible version of who you want to be. It’s more than pretty words on a page and much more than an advertising tagline.

To love yourself is to admire your soul for everything that it’s been through. Because through thick and thin, it celebrates you.

RELATED: 5 Toxic Things That Will Happen If You Don't Learn To Love Yourself

Nicole Garbanzos likes writing about the concepts behind relationships, loving yourself, and female empowerment. For more of her content, visit her author profile on Unwritten.