Why is it So Hard to Love Ourselves?

Why, as women, do we struggle so hard to love ourselves when we can so easily love others?

I am friends with many different women who make up many different shapes and sizes, and I love them all individually. Each one of them has their own personal attributes that make them amazing, and I'm very fortunate to be surrounded by so many incredible women.

Some of my friends are similar sized to me, or even bigger. Some have big bums, big arms, a muffin top, loose skin... you name it. And when I look at my friends and see their big bums, big arms, muffin tops, and loose skin, I don't think anything of it. I think they're all beautiful, sexy, attractive women. I don't even look at them and think 'they're beautiful in spite of their stretchmarks' or 'they're beautiful because they proudly show off their scars', to be entirely honest, their stretchmarks and big bums and bellies don't even register in my mind. They are so normal and so common for women to experience, I don't even notice they're there.

So why is it then, that when I look at myself in the mirror, and see my own muffin top, the little purple lightning strikes across my skin, the bumps in my thighs, I don't think the same?

Stretchmarks and cellulite and loose skin and the rest... all are things which society have told us are not normal. When in fact, they're quite the opposite. I read a really interesting quote that said that your stretchmarks and scars are just evidence of your body growing and the journey you've gone through. And yet, every day online and on my social media I see posts from celebrities and companies denouncing these 'flaws' and providing remedies for them.

Why?

I think, in part, capitalism has a role to play in this. For too long companies have been profitting off the insecurities and shame women experience, insecurities and shame which we are taught to have, about natural things to do with our bodies. Women are sold the story that their stretchmarks and cellulite and 'wrong' and 'unnatural', so in the same breath they can also be sold remedies for said flaws. 

And I'm not talking about makeup or cosmetics, which I personally believe can be used to uplift women (after all, eyeshadow is not marketted to us because we're told it's wrong to have plain eyelids) but the industry which sees oils and serums being sold to rid stretchmarks, or exercises to minimise your cellulite.

And don't even get me started on meal replacement shakes.

But I also think another part of it also stems from the patriarchy, and the role men play in the female identity.

I am not saying that men do not experience their own unecessary and harmful body expectations, but I think we can all agree that it is nowhere near the same extent as that which women experience.

But for years now, men, whether subconciously or with intention, have also profitted and benefited from the insecurities women are told to have. It makes for a much easier pick-up when the woman you're trying to woo has low self esteem. Isn't that why they sat fat girls are the best lay, because they're so grateful for the attention?

What it comes down to is the realisation that there are many outside forces which try and tell you that you are not worthy of love, or have no value to society and others. Or at least, that you're not worthy of love unless you try this MUST have remedy which absolutely gets rid of all flaws and blemishes in only three minutes!

And once you realise that, you can begin the process of freeing yourself.

It's not easy. In fact, if I'm being honest, it's a journey which I and many of my friends are struggling with and will likely not achieve for a long time. But it's a journey which is necessary, and one which we must undego together.

I know for a fact that if I were to see somebody with my exact same body type, from my hair colour down to each individual scar, I would think they're beautiful. And yet it's hard for me to think the same thing when I look in the mirror.

We need to begin the process of unlearning the narrative that we are not worthy of self love. It's simply not true. We are worthy of love whether we are fat, skinny, covered head-to-toe in stretchmarks, have scars, smooth skin, acne, or whatever else. And whether it takes reminding ourselves of this every day until we believe it, we will.