Wallflowers and Self-Love

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”

Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)

Self-love is something we all struggle with at least every once in a while. For others, it’s more. I know I struggle with it everyday. But here’s the thing about self-love: if you don’t learn to love and appreciate yourself, it will hurt you much more in the long run.

I’m assuming many of you, or at least some of you have read/watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower. If you haven’t, go do so. It is on Netflix and I’m sure you can borrow the book from a local library or something like that.

Anyways, the sister in the book/movie is dating this guy and when she doesn’t have sex with him, he hits her. There’s another character who is gay and his boyfriend isn’t out of the closet yet, so he bullies his boyfriend in front of his popular jock friends to keep up with his straight image. And then there’s the main character, who deals with depression and he dates a girl he doesn’t really like because he thinks the girl he is in love with it out of his reach.

Since when have we told ourselves that someone else is ‘out of our limits’? Since when do we have limits? If we don’t start looking at ourselves in a more positive light, then none of us will ever be enough for someone else, or more importantly; we won’t be enough for ourselves.

We are all beautiful/handsome.

We are all deserving of someone’s love.

We are all worth it.

And on a scale from 1-10, we are all 10s.

Don’t let someone else bring you down. We all need to stop comparing ourselves to Kylie Jenner or Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson. They are great and amazing, but so are we. Don’t let society’s idea of beauty affect what you define as beauty. Because even though I may never have met you, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.

Let me get back to the point I was trying to make earlier. “We accept the love we think we deserve.” So if you don’t think you deserve love, than you are going to end up in an unhappy relationship. If you love yourself and know you deserve better, then don’t settle. Don’t ever settle.

So love yourself and make sure that you always come first. Don’t let anybody (and yes this includes yourself) tell you that you aren’t worth it, that you aren’t beautiful, that you’re feelings are valid, etc. Because none of that is true. You’re worth everything. You deserve the best type of love.

And if you never find that epic love, don’t worry about it. Because this isn’t some old school Disney movie where you need to find a significant other to make you happy. Create your own happy ending. But always make sure that you love yourself. Because you are worth it. And you always will be.

Georgia