It’s easy for me to write posts about things that I need to work on – my need to let go of control, balance myself out more in life, stop being so selfish, meditate more, move my body, say sorry more, stop being so stubborn, focus less on my physical appearance and more on my internal self, be more physical…and that’s just a few moments of me opening the floodgates for a few moments…geez!

I find it a lot harder, however, to talk about and acknowledge what I am good at and why I love myself. Writing this post has been torture, I’ve walked away several times, watched some trash TV and found myself focusing on any distraction to avoid writing out it. Not to mention nearly stopping several times because of the thoughts in my mind:

People will think you’re so vain talking about why you love yourself

You’ve got such a big head wanting to talk about your good points to the world

Who’d want to hear you go on about why you’re so wonderful? NO-ONE!!!

It’s not your place to fill up the internet with comments about why you’re so great

That’s why I know that **BINGO** this is a post I’ve got to finish. It’s not for the world to hear (although, if you get something from this, I’m really glad and I’m so grateful for you supporting my journey by reading this), this is for me. To prove to myself that it’s ok to love myself and to start to be openly proud about who I am.

So, why do I love myself? It was a question that was quite difficult to answer – even allowing myself to think of 5 reasons was a mission…but I got there and, as I explored in my vlog, here they are:

1. I love myself because of how I can often tell when someone is feeling a bit left out or uncomfortable and my gut instinct is to go and help them out by chatting to them…which leads me onto point number 2:
2. I love myself for being a kind person. Don’t get my wrong, I can be unkind, but my default is to be mostly kind and caring and I love that about myself.
3. I love myself because I am brave, gutsy and bold. Just writing this post, even though it goes against my every grain, is bravery and it makes me proud to be me.
4. I love how I am silly and funny…when I sing the ballad of the sad chicken to Gregg, laugh until I cry with Nadine, speak in silly voices with my sister. I don’t always take myself so seriously and love this about me.
5. I love myself because I have talents that I’m proud of. I’m good at this wordpress/vlog/writing malarkey for example – not everyone can talk at a camera or would feel comfortable recording themselves for the world to see and I love myself for that.

I expected there to be a big high-five in my heart at the end of this – a big celebration of loving myself and knowing that I’m fan-bloody-tastic but to be honest, that’s not the case. And I can see the logic – 32 years of telling myself all the things that I’m bad at and frustrated with means the things I love myself for don’t filter through to that easily. But at least it’s a start.

Practicing loving myself is what I need to do and this is the very first step.