You Can’t Hate Yourself Into Growing

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been at war with myself.

I learned how to hate my body before I ever really learned how to love it. I remember staring at my reflection in the mirror as a kid tugging at my shirt, sucking in my stomach, wishing my thighs didn’t touch. I hated my belly. I hated my “big” thighs. I hated my chubby cheeks.

At dance class, I’d look around at the other girls and think, Why don’t I look like them? I’d notice how their leotards sat perfectly flat, how their legs looked longer, how they seemed so effortlessly confident. I wanted to disappear into myself, to trade places with anyone who felt comfortable in their own skin.

And it didn’t stop there.

All through high school and even into my twenties, I carried that same quiet shame. Every photo became a test. Every mirror felt like proof that I wasn’t enough. I thought if I could just fix myself, lose the weight, clear my skin, become prettier, quieter, smaller – then maybe I’d finally deserve love.

But the truth is, you can’t hate yourself into changing, you must love yourself into growing.

You can’t build a life on rejection. You can’t punish yourself into becoming someone you love. For years, I thought that being hard on myself meant I cared, that I was trying. But all it did was create a version of me that was constantly trying to earn worthiness that was already mine.

Now, at 23, I look back at that little girl, the one standing in front of the mirror, holding her breath, wishing she was someone else and I want to hold her. I want to tell her she’s beautiful, even when she doesn’t feel like it. I want to apologize for every time I looked at her body like it was something to fix instead of something that was trying its best to carry me through life.

I want to tell her she deserved softness. That her worth was never meant to be measured by numbers or reflections or comparisons.

I’m learning that loving yourself isn’t about waking up one day and suddenly feeling confident. It’s about choosing, over and over again, to stop being the enemy of your own existence. It’s about looking at yourself with compassion instead of criticism.

These days, when I catch myself picking apart my reflection, I try to pause and remember that little girl. I remind myself that she’s still here,  still learning, still growing, still trying. And she deserves my kindness.

I owe it to her, to little me who thought she had to change to be loved – to love who I am, who I was, and who I’m becoming.