Don’t change yourself

The other day, my shrink told me, “To truly love yourself, you have to start by loving your unloving yourself.”

This is how it is now, she said. You don’t love yourself yet. But this is not how it’s going to be forever.

The key to loving yourself is acceptance. Even if it means accepting your inability to accept or love yourself.

The older I get, the more I see: all people have stuff. Everyone has baggage. We’re all imperfect and we all have demons and skeletons in our closets that haunt us while we try to fall asleep. The question is, how do you deal with those demons? For me, it’s always been running. And not just literally.

For as long as I remember, I couldn’t sit still. I would read, work, study, watch a TED talk, listen to a podcast, run. All to escape stillness. All to avoid facing my demons. I used to take pride in my ability to do never get bored. I used to brag about my ability to discipline myself and outread and outwrite and outwork anyone I knew.

Now I see it as anxiety.

It’s not just that. Running — as a metaphor for life — exhausts me. Drains me. It leaves me emotionally empty. Sometimes, I have to stay in bed for two days, just to recover from pushing myself so hard. Other days, I’d have panic attacks.

Surely, that’s not self-love. (On the other hand, people have way worse ways to battle their demons. Perhaps setting high expectations and trying to get everything done is not the worst of sins.)