The ‘L’ in ‘SELF’ should be silent.

I believe that our sense of security gradually alters just as we age, as we experience other people and the things that they choose to show us, how they

treat us and/or what they teach us. Just as we learn languages and Mathematics, we are molded too into our present personalities and into insecurities. Everyone around us; the ones we may know and the ones we don’t but pay close attention to, affect us and just may influence the way we choose to perceive ourselves when we stare at our reflection in the mirror. Funny that we use another person’s eyes to look at ourselves and how sometimes our own perceptions of self aren’t enough to apply. 

Since I love using metaphors, I’ll choose hurricanes. Look how they approach and destroy us and after they have passed, how we’re left with an ultimatum: we either have to learn to live with the wreckage bestowed upon us be it mentally, physically or emotionally (which really isn’t the best idea) or we recover from it, build back what was lost and reform the resistance of things to make it stronger. Much like our stability in the various aspects of our well-being, if we keep allowing hurricanes (which in this case, people) to trample, wear off, destroy and wash away the things we should be protecting without learning how to fix it or avoid it altogether, it deteriorates until the barrier disappears inevitably.

I am not a fully confident person. I rarely exude any clue of self-assurance. I cannot blame others for my current perspective and the way I tend to handle things because I should have been able to fix it myself. However, I can blame them for choosing to be such vindictive pricks to say some of the things that they did, especially when they had no reason to. It too has had a crucial part to play in my poor mental health. 

The way we feel about ourselves is rooted as far back as family. Our parents may have said some things that they could have conveyed better to us, our siblings could have slipped in a positive comment every now and then rather than throwing jabs at us all the time. Sometimes they don’t mean it but sometimes we don’t tell them that we believed that they meant it and so they just continued. Other times, we just may second guess the apology because they’d thought to say it even when claimed they never really meant it. 

Welcome to school! As a kid, we’re exposed to twelve more personalities we don’t yet understand and then twelve more moving up a few grades that don’t understand you, and the cycle continues with age as the crowds multiply. She called you ‘ugly’ and everyone laughed, another girl was ‘pretty’ and everyone complimented her and never you. See even when something wasn’t directed at you, you begin to believe your own negative implications instead of any positive ones instead of it being the other way around. Academically and/or creatively too we begin to limit ourselves. Someone else is good at this, you’re good or possibly struggling at that and because you’re not an expert at both or any at all you have deemed yourself a failure.

You just haven’t found your thing yet—it could just be a way cooler skill!

Relationships swing past and now you lay more of your trust into someone else’s opinion of you rather than your own. Gradually, the trend in key words frequently mentioned around you become a trigger and you either think you’re not good enough or not doing well enough. You tread further, engaging in other relationships expecting the patterns to change without any self effort and pretty soon a partner becomes like a therapist when he/she should not be. Another person cannot always undo what you have allowed to poison you. 

So, learning to instill in ourselves our own positive affirmations is important and learning to radiate them are also as important. Learning to regulate and/or balance out the in’s and out's for our well-being goes a long way with interactions and our sense of worth. 

I am not a motivational speaker but I have learned a lot from experiences.

So, here are four things I’d advise if anyone asked:

1. Learn to be honest with people about your feelings. Talk about it and let others know, especially those who are closest to you. Let them know how a statement directed to you made you feel. Also, be honest with yourself. If you are too afraid to say out loud, you write it. Find a journal and fill the pages with your feelings. Hell, find all the journals you can get. Venting on paper that could be crumbled and burnt is like therapy.

2. Discipline yourself to excel in something you’ve recognized that you are good at or would like to be good at. Invest time into skills, let it be something you eventually can proudly add to your list. 

3. Learn to say at least one good thing about/to yourself every day, be it in the mirror or walking, laying staring at the ceiling, showering—anything. The repetitive affirmations become a habit. 

4. Surround yourself with amazing friends. Let them inspire you, love you and motivate/push you. Let them make you laugh, let them help you forget. The good in people reflects the good in you too.

I’m done.