A Butterfly is Blind to it’s Own Beauty

Written By Karina Jackson

Listen to the audio version of the piece below

I hate the saying, "No one could possibly love me until I love myself." 

It's an outdated claim that says whoever you currently are is not good enough. While self-improvement is always a great thing to strive for, there is no destination to the "perfect" you. We humans constantly evolve, learn, and become (hopefully) better people. 

So, it's completely okay to admit that you are not yet 100% in love with yourself. 

It's also okay to really love yourself one day, and not so much the next. 

That, my friends, is called ~BALANCE~

I would also like to point out that you do not have to be healed from past or current trauma to be lovable. I for sure wasn't! I hadn't even become aware of some of my own trauma until I was in a healthy relationship. When I met my boyfriend (now husband) in 2017, I did not 100% love myself. I didn't look at my body with kind eyes, I didn't view my failures as lessons, and I definitely didn't think my big, frizzy, untamed hair was beautiful. 

So, side note…I have naturally curly hair, and one day I woke up with crazy frizzy bedhead. My partner and I had some errands to run and had already slept in. He wanted to hurry out of the house and I told him I couldn't possibly go out looking like that. He was extremely confused and replied with a "why not!". I replied with a "well, I kind of look homeless, don't I?" He said, "of course not! I love your hair, and I think you look beautiful."

I was shooketh. After years of being told I looked homeless with frizzy hair, I had finally believed it and was saying it about myself. I crumbled inside myself that day. Now, that was sort of a small example of how being loved helped me love myself but that moment was huge for me. It was actually the act of being loved in its entirety that really changed my view on life. When I saw how a true life partner could love me, it was very healing.

With the help of the current book I'm reading called "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck” by Mark Manson, I've realized we are the worst at knowing who we are. Our patterns, habits, and reactions are hard to see when we're the ones doing them. But from an outside view, those things can be pretty obvious. 

Simply put, I could describe my husband down to a T. His quirks, personality traits, interests, how he will react to something, what he loves and doesn't love. Yet, if you ask me to describe myself, my mind goes blank for half a minute. The only things that automatically come to mind are my name, age, and occupation.

Having to describe who or what you are takes you out of yourself, and that's not something we humans do very often. It's much easier to judge and perceive others than to perceive yourself; the same goes for love. It's easier for others to love you more than you love yourself simply because they see what you cannot. This love can come from friends, cousins, parents, siblings, and especially from a partner.

Please know, the point of this rant is not to say you couldn't possibly love yourself until someone else does, but to say that you are lovable, even if you yourself can't yet see that. You are loveable, even if it takes someone else to say it for you to realize.

So I hope the takeaway from this article is that you are fantastic even with your faults, trauma, scars, and not-so-healthy habits and patterns. I hope you've made it to the end of this feeling better than before. Try to be kinder to yourself from now on. If it's hard to see how lovely you are, ask someone you love for help. A nonchalant way of bringing it up might be asking them to describe you. In turn, they then might ask you to describe them. This could be a very fun exercise to grow closer to those in your life and to hopefully find some insight on how to let yourself be loved.

Thank you, and I love you for reading this!