Self Love is the Cure to Self Hate

The Shimmer, Sparkle, Shine Project is excited to share the first, of two February guest bloggers, supporting our efforts leading up to Self Worth Awareness Day on February 26th. Kim Parrales is the founder of Locks of Promise and the artist behind the pieces we are giving away this month. 

 

 

Although the execution is different, the intent behind our organizations is to empower girls and woman who are struggling. The home page of their website reads "Some people believe that in order to effectively help others you must start taking care of yourself first. At times our busy lives tend to take over and we often don’t realize how easily capable we are of making a positive impact in someone else’s life. Something as simple as sharing words of encouragement, holding the door for someone, or even a smile make such a difference in another persons life. The Locks of Promise team believes that one can evolve by helping and empowering others. We believe that some individuals need that extra push to overcome a struggle because at one time or another we have experienced it as well. This right here is what Locks of Promise is all about: Empowering Lives."

 Guest Blogger: Kim Parrales

When the Shimmer Sparkle Shine Project first suggested the idea of me writing a little bit about what Self worth means to me, I thought “Awesome! I could write so much about it!” I said this because at 28 years old, I consider myself a pretty confident person. I can say that I know and see my value not from what the outer world had instilled in me but, from what I have genuinely learn to see in myself.

Then, once I decided to start writing about it, I couldn’t think about anything. I stared at my laptop’s screen for a while and got a little worried that I was not going to be able to make this post work. But then, I went back to that moment when I felt confident writing about this topic. This moment made me question my confidence, it made me ask myself “how did you become confident? How did you learn to see your worth? How did you learn to love yourself? 

To answer these questions, I had to take a moment and really dig into my past to come up with something. Once I started doing this, I realized that there have been some experiences I have used to help shape my character and the person I am today. I can give so many examples about my childhood but one of the most important ones, and the one I consider key to my self worth development, is the fact that I grew up with a father who would constantly criticized everything I did. There were times when I felt that it didn’t matter if I did good or bad,my intentions were never good enough. As a young person, this can affect tremendously in the developing of the self, especially self-worth; however, I think that instead of letting this criticism put me down, I used it as fuel to make me stronger. I was blessed to have this outlook because I know there are people who would give up on their selves causing them to feel worth less. I was also blessed enough to have a strong relationship with God at such an early age, this relationship molded me and pretty much gave me the strength I needed to believe in myself, and most importantly to learn to love myself as imperfect as I was. If God loved me, I could love myself as well.

At 28 years old, I can say that I have learned to genuinely see myself with my own eyes and not from others’ vision of me. I have learned to accept that I am not perfect and I will never be. I have learned that not matter how much I try, there will always be someone out there in the world trying to tell me that I am wrong. I have learned to accept this but not let it have an effect on me. I have learned to accept myself as raw as I am, and by me doing this it has allow for other people to accept my true self as well. Of course, not everyone will accept me or like me, but I have learned that whatever others think of me it is none of my business (I read this somewhere). 

This has been a process and I think that as long as I live, the process will continue. Every day, it is an opportunity to evolve and become a better human being; this is why I believe that as long as I live, the process will continue. 

For me, self worth is not just about how we see ourselves despite of other people’s opinion but, it is about how we genuinely see and feel about our inner self.

For anyone reading this, if you are going through or have gone through moments when you feel worth-less due to other people’s opinions about you, remember that these thoughts are powerful if you give them power. Remember, self-worth is a journey, be patient with yourself and learn to see yourself through your own eyes. One of my favorite quotes out there is by Tyrese Gibson’s , “Self love is the cure to Self hate”