A big love to myself

I've come to realise, more so lately, that I put myself down. A lot.

I know I do it, and others can see I do it, but somehow, somewhere that little man inside my head overrules the cool guys in my head, and tells me that certain achievements aren't worth writing home about, and that people aren't really that interested in you. It's a silly man to be fair, and writing this makes it sound even sillier with me wanting to evict this little man out of my head, but he's there. And I'm sure there's one in your minds too.

You see, I've always been insecure and I touched on it two years ago where I expressed my fear that by wearing my hair up I'd be mistaken for a boy. Admittedly since then, I don't do it regularly, but there are the occasional days in a month where I will head to the shops with a hair tie in. And with that one small step made a huge difference to the way I thought - actually people really don't care less about how my hair looks, and nobody even questions to ask if I know my own gender. I'm just another normal girl going about her life. But with finding out that my insecurities are secrets to others, came the constant debate of putting myself down.

I'm not talking a huge scale of bringing myself down, and I'm aware we all have our own flaws (and I deal with them in my own way), but there are days when I meet somebody new and I constantly worry what they think of me. Why should I even care? If they don't like me, then what's the big deal, I have other friends who like me? Or when I've been asked to do something with my blog and the reoccuring questions begin. But why did they pick me? I'm not even what they're looking for? Are people going to be meet me and feel disappointment? 

These thoughts I constantly think are actually pretty stupid when I read them back to myself, but I spend far too much time never appreciating praise which is a strange one considering I crave praise. All I ever wanted as a teenager was to be told by 'the popular girl' that I was alright, I was cool. All I ever wanted in past jobs was to be praised on the work I did, the help I gave them and the extra mile I went. All I ever wanted from boys was to be seen as the hot one, the beautiful one and the one they'd like to date. And although I get a ridiculous amount of love from my family, my friends and those closest to me, it's almost like it's not enough for me to believe that when they tell me I did good, that I really DID good. It's as though it won't digest in that brain of mine, (and I then doubt whether they actually mean it, or if they're just being nice!) - that I still could have done better. Or even somebody else has done it better.

I guess there's two ways of looking at it, because on one hand it could push me to do better, but on the other hand, sometimes all we need is to accept that maybe we did do alright, and maybe you are actually an alright person. Maybe those girls who read your blog and then meet you don't actually think you're a disappointment from what they read online, maybe some guys do actually think you're not bad looking, and maybe, just maybe you DID deserve that achievement because you worked hard for it.

And maybe, it's time to start taking your own advice that you give out so willingly to others, and tell yourself that - You know what, you're doing OK, some people will like you, some people won't but it's your life that you're in, you earn your hard work so you deserve it and putting yourself down will only make you eat more chocolate. And chocolate grows hips. You know that better than anyone.