This is the greatest struggle.

: I often think that the greatest struggle of all time,
is self-love and self-care.

"True self care is not salt bath and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don't need to escape from. " - Brianne West

Most of the bad choices we made, probably stem from deep-rooted self-doubt, self-hatred etc. We probably may not even be aware of it in the first place. How our reaction to external situations reflects our inner selves. 

But, the hard part is that being aware is the first step, yet doing it, actually practising this self-care thing takes time, takes years. It's not a one-time destination where you wake up one day and suddenly could be okay with who you are. Sometimes, you will fall back into this deep abyss of darkness where you feel that you will never be okay again.

Here are some of the self-care routine that helped me :

• Meditation 
• Yoga 
• Working Out 
• Reading 
• Baking/Cooking/Grocery Shopping
• Writing 
• De-cluttering 

I believed everyone's list will look different. It's a list of things that truly made you feel good about yourself because you are being the most 'Authentic' you.  

I've been reading this book 'Authentic - How to be yourself and why it matters'. There is a small segment which says that a newborn infant is authentic, we do not need to teach him/her, it is innate. Yet conditional regard from our caregivers throw us off track. When we do something wrong, we are not blamed for our actions, but rather us as a person.  We believed that we need to be in a certain way in order to be love.  

There was once I visited this therapist, it was really just a one-time session, for apparently mental health is just very costly.  Looking back I could see how my vision of myself, the things around me were very distorted. In repetition, I keep saying how I feel I'll never be "good enough".  So she asked me, " You said that you are not good enough, so then, what is your definition of good enough? It's just something forever out of reach, isn't it? " 

That was what it appears to be at my lowest, that I will never ever be "good enough". That other people's words have the power over me, and my own self-worth. And I was always amplifying the negative voices in my own head. 

Sometimes, the lack of self-love shows up in different ways. Like staying a relationship that is toxic, like seeking validation from others or like a constant outburst of bad temper. 

If I can't control someone else, the only person I can control is myself. Many of the times, we feel that we are powerless. Yet, no we still have a choice, to our mistakes to define us or not. Every day we have the power to become someone better, and also the choice to let negative things affect us detrimentally or not. 

It's not about being happy-go-lucky, and sweep all these things to one side. It's about allowing these bad things to slowly flow through and realised that at the end of the day you still can be okay. It's about being a friend to yourself, to hold your own hand when you realised that you have no one beside you. 

We don't talk about the importance of self-care enough.  Even for myself, I would feel ashamed to talk openly about it. The best I could is really just to write about it. 

It's even more important during this difficult period of time for everyone, the world is going through a change during and also after the pandemic. Perhaps more people are suffering silently that we are unaware of.  Or perhaps that person is ourselves. 

Yet, today can we not forget?

That you still have power, 

over you.