By Brieanna Knepper

Self love. You hear it all the time and how important it is. It’s definitely something that I’ve struggled with my entire life. I know it started with feeling unworthy as a child and being in an abusive relationship that trained me to think I was nothing. So how do you love yourself when your entire life has felt reinforced with the thought of not being good enough?

I decided that my first weeks task would be to show myself some love. I racked my brain, my friend’s brains, and good old Google to find an answer. One of the things that jumped out to me was writing a love letter to yourself. It seemed easy enough but at the same time intimidating. Perfect first step for pushing myself outside my comfort zone!

I got my pen and paper and sat down to write. And I sat. And I sat. I looked at my blank paper and nothing was coming to mind. I would have a thought and then come up with a reason why it wasn’t good enough. I was judging my thoughts even on the good things about myself!

I decided to start with something physical. I like the color of my eyes. Good! Ok, now what’s something else? Those thoughts started to roll into others. I like my compassion for animals. I like that I can be spontaneous. I started to write whatever popped into my head without giving it a chance to meet the negative.

Once I was done I looked back on my work and felt a deep feeling of pride. I read the list to myself and felt like the person on this paper would be someone I would like. This would be someone I would want as a friend. It made me feel so good. I decided that I would hang it by my bed and read it first thing in the morning and right before bed. I’ve done this for several days and it has really changed how I feel about myself. I know that at least twice a day I will be kind to myself. If I’m feeling particularly down I will give it a read to bring myself back up. I’ve even started to catch myself thinking something good about myself and how it would fit into my letter. It’s been amazing!

Writing myself a love letter has given me the chance to fight the negative thoughts and to lay some groundwork for more self love. I can’t wait to build on and deepen this feeling for myself. I hope that all of you give it a shot and write a love letter to yourself!