Hi! My blank questionnaire went up a few days ago in case anyone wanted to answer them, but what I was most excited to post were the answers I received. Be warned now, this is a lengthy post. I considered breaking it up into two parts, but I think leaving it whole would be best. I asked a few people in my life to answer these questions for me, and even though the initial goal was to have an even amount of men and women answer them, I ended up with significantly more female responses. I was even able to get an ex to make a cameo, which was unexpected but rather cool. lol He's not the most expressive man to ever hit the Earth, so his answers will probably be easy to distinguish. I know which ex to speak to if I want deeper answers...but I also know that Pandora's Box is shut for a reason, ya know? I chose the lesser of the two evils. LOL
Anyway, everyone's answers excluding mine (bc duh) are anonymous for privacy reasons; the goal was to create a roundtable discussion (of sorts) on the topic of self-love. I hope it encourages you to do the same in your circle. I did not ask everyone all of the questions, so while some questions have several answers, some only have a couple. I lightly edited the answers where necessary, but otherwise here are everyone's unfiltered answers to the Self-Love Questionnaire.
Me: Yes. It's not 100% of the time, but I'm batting a solid 90%.
a- Eh not really. I'm worse on myself than anyone else. At the age I am now, I'm learning to be able to appreciate who I am, but I'm not there yet. It's a really hard process to come to terms with.
b- Yes
c- No. I don't love myself the way I should. I love myself at times, but not enough.
d- No
e-Yes.
f- It's about half and half. So in majority terms, no.
Me: When I didn't love myself, it was mainly because I felt inadequate in comparison to my peers. I wasn't pretty enough, wasn't fun enough, in general I just wasn't enough. I wasn't super deep as a teen so I wasn't overly concerned with the internal bits; it was primarily because I knew I was an ugly nerd and nobody was interested in me that way. I always felt that this was because there was nothing about me to love; the rejection from my peers of the opposite sex was as good as gospel to me at this time and that rejection is what I took to heart.
a- I don't know. I don't like the person I see when I look in the mirror. I'm sure majority is weight. Growing up, I wasn't someone to have the guys all over me....saw it constantly with a friend though, which is discouraging. If someone told me something positive I would shut it down.
c- Because time and time again, I find reasons to convince myself I'm not worthy of it.
d- I can't find enough things about myself that I think are good enough to love.
f-Because there are certain parts of me that I'm still unhappy with, and I don't see the positive things others say about me.
a- I was 24 when I had my first kid and I gained a ton of weight that I couldn't lose. Around that time was when I first realized that I didn't love myself the way I should.
c- I remember loving myself as a child. I was so care free. I thought there was good in everyone and everything. It was when I was a little bit older that I lost this ability.
e-Forty.
f-Forty.
Me: There wasn't a lot of focus on loving oneself growing up. I don't think the foundation was there to teach me how to properly love myself or even that I should because of the unhealthy relationships that were going on in my family while I was growing up. I was told to, but I wasn't told what constituted it, so I just had the assumption that I already loved myself and never thought more about it. Now of course I heard all of the platitudes about what not to allow someone to do to you, but what I was never told was how to not allow it. You don't realize how easy it is to allow certain things until you're there, allowing a hell of a lot more than you bargained for. You never think you'll be 'that person' until you become 'that person.' I got warned about what to reject from others, but nobody warned me about what I should reject from myself. Loving myself was a lesson I had to learn. And relearn. And relearn again.
a- It was there but it wasn't. My mom taught me that natural beauty was the best. But we never had discussions on believing that you're beautiful. Being proud of how you look, opinions don't matter etc. So it's something I'm learning now.
b- It was something I was taught growing up. The relationship you have with yourself is what determines whether you stay sane or not.
c- I was taught to love myself. I learned how to criticize myself and lost a lot of the love I used to have.
d-Something I learned later.
e-I didn't really know what self-love was growing up, so I had to learn it later.
f-Growing up, there wasn't an attitude about self-love one way or the other. It wasn't talked about, it was just assumed that you already loved yourself. So this was something I had to learn.
Me: It was a combination of things. Looking at the actions of someone who claimed to love me yet did terrible things to me, reading about loving oneself and analyzing whether or not I did, then taking a step back and realizing I couldn't possibly love myself because of what I allowed (from others and myself) is what did it for me.
a- It was more myself. I've been seeing it more recently because it puts strain on my relationship with my husband. I don't see what he sees so I don't understand why he finds me attractive when I can't even bear to see myself in the mirror.
c- I learned from watching others and seeing the standards they'd set, the value they'd put in their own worth.
d-Self-analysis and looking at my behaviors in past relationships.
e-Being married to an arrogant and selfish person, someone similar to my mother, was what triggered it for me. I realized that the way I was being treated both in my marriage and in my younger years was not love, and I had to find out what actual love was. It took me 10 years after ending that marriage to find it, but being in said marriage is what showed me. Learning that I lacked self-love, which is what impacted my feelings toward myself and allowed me to seek out similar people to what I'd escaped from living with my mother, was another thing that triggered it.
f-My daughter's self-love journey. When she spoke about her growing self-love and her desire to fully love herself before moving on to love someone else, it made me look at myself. That made me realize that I needed to love myself instead of just settling for whatever came along.
Me: The month following my first breakup. I really thought that was my only chance to find someone to love me, and when that relationship ended I felt that nobody else would find me worthy enough of their attention. I thought I was the lucky one because this person loved me despite my not being attractive, interesting and a bit too smart. I went off the rails for awhile because of that viewpoint alone. If I'd loved myself back then, I never would have felt or been that desperate to cling onto something that clearly was not made for me.
a- My husband's family and I do not get along, and they often have negative commentary on my parenting and spousal abilities. They don't mind sharing this commentary with me, but they avoid sharing it with my husband. I shared it with him, but he didn't listen and this caused me to shut down. I took all of what they said to heart, and this caused me to feel extremely low on myself, which I'm still trying to come back from. By the time his family's feelings towards me became apparent to him, I'd already closed myself off for so long that his attempts to bring me back up didn't work. I wouldn't have allowed their comments to affect me so deeply and cause me to feel so negatively about myself if I'd had more confidence.
c- When my mom married and my innocence was taken from me for so many years, I lost my trust and faith in people. I thought this meant that I must be a bad person. I know now that I'm not a bad person but I still fight a lot of demons.
d-My decision not to go to college. I felt that I didn't need it, wouldn't benefit from it. It took me years, but I've gone back. I wish it was something I hadn't written off when I was younger, though.
e-My entire life, but the last five years were what have been the most eye-opening for me.
f-Twenty.
Me: Baby girl. STOP FUCKING CRYING. It's going to be fine. Intelligence is not a weakness. Never was. I know why you believe that and I know exactly who put that shit in your head, but it's not true. Your intelligence is your greatest strength. Never be ashamed or willing to change your intellect for ANYONE. That fool was not your only chance at love. Don't be so down on yourself that you honestly believe God only gave you one chance. Karma comes for everyone, and she'll be paying him a visit in due time. Don't beg him or anyone else to validate you as a person again. You exist, don't you? There. You're fucking validated. Don't ever hinge your view of your worth and value on someone else's opinion and don't you ever again attempt to determine whether or not your life is fit for you to live off of some fuckboy dumping you. Dick ain't that serious, babygirl. You'll have more. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself, stop with the comparisons and learn to love you. You are enough. You are worth it, you deserve better and you are worthy enough to be loved. But be enough for you first. Be loved by you first. Love will blossom for you again, I promise. Be patient and it will come. I love you.
c-I'd tell myself that I'm not to blame. I was a child. Not all people are the same. I deserve to forgive myself and love myself just as I am.
d-Take some time for yourself. Learn more about who you are, what you want, and what you expect so that love will come.
e-Don't listen to the negativity. And RUN! Run away when you get out of high school and don't ever come back. And when you see that idiot? Run, Forrest, run.
f- Snap out of it. You're better than this. You don't have to settle for this. You and your baby deserve more than this. Do what you need to do for yourself instead of trying to please others.
Me: Everything that it could mean in relation to another person, just directed at yourself. Loving someone else means accepting them as they are, being generous with your attention, time, actions and words and creating a mutual flow of reciprocity. Honesty, trust, communication, and even the ugly things like having to admit when you're not being such a great person, having to eat crow and apologize to others, all of that to me is self-love. If you can give it to others and want it from others in return, you should be giving it to yourself first. It also means establishing standards for both yourself and others, what you will and won't allow in or out.
a- Accepting who you are, flaws and all. It means realizing that it doesn't matter what the world thinks of you as long as when you look in the mirror, you see a badass who can conquer the world.
b- Your personal respect level for yourself.
c-It means knowing my worth. Respecting myself. Understanding that it's ok to do for myself sometimes.
d-Putting yourself first and not allowing it to be compromised by someone else, making a point to do your best and being happy with the results, and taking care of yourself.
e-Being able to look at myself and not hate what I see, trying not to always criticize every little detail, and being strong and confident in what I do see now. This is something I have to tell myself everyday.
f-It means loving who you are, inside and out and having the courage to say that without being ashamed or caring about what others think about it.
c-Yes. Loving yourself and taking care of your needs are different.
d-Yes.
e-Yes. You can always care for yourself without loving yourself. You have to care for yourself because that's common sense, but you don't technically have to love yourself.
f-Yes, because you can always care for yourself without giving any thought to it. If you love yourself, though, it's harder to just go through the motions of life and taking care of yourself. Any attention you pay to yourself when you love yourself will be genuine.
c-I had an a-ha moment losing it, not gaining it.
e-Yes.
f-I realized that after both of my marriages, I was still picking the same kinds of men I was married to, creating the same kind of unhappiness I'd already experienced. Just like those men, I was still relying on men to validate who I was and taking their word as truth.
c-I love my imagined self, the one who really is strong all the time. I have real issues with my external self. My internal self I definitely have a little more self love for. I've figured out I'm not such a bad person.
d-My imagined self. I would seek validation from outside sources because I did not get it growing up, and I took this into my romantic relationships. When those relationships would end, I was back at square one single and needing someone to validate me. My imagined self didn't need validation or attention, things I did need, so it was easier to turn inward and love the imagined version of myself.
e-My internal self, then my external self. I don't have an imagined self. My imaginary friends won't let me. They take over and I'm not allowed to have other imaginary people in my life. (Mandy's Note: This is really the answer I got. Their identity is anonymous to you, but I know exactly who this is. Please don't judge them. The people in my life have no sense. lol)
f-My imagined self. It was easier to love the imagined self because it was something to help me see what I could be, and I liked that version of myself better.
a- That it doesn't matter what gender you are. Everyone needs to have self love and if you don't people need to work together so that can. Have an open line of communication and don't shut the person down. Build them up instead.
b- It shouldn't be a problem. Any man that would be ashamed of encouragement to better themselves is stupid.
c- Quit being so judgmental. You haven't walked in their shoes. Ask, don't assume.
d-It would be hard for me to answer this question because everyone is different. This question is subjective so I don't have one universal answer; I'd want to know more about the individual before giving them any advice. People may have different issues and require different approaches so what I advise may not work. I would say for everyone, regardless of gender, to focus their attentions inward, not outward.
e-If more men loved themselves, they wouldn't treat women (or men, we don't know your life) the way they do. I think that we as women need to stop letting men get away with bullshit and make them accountable for their actions, and teaching boys the same lessons we teach our girls will do a lot. No longer categorizing them by their gender and just looking at them as humans will help a lot with the lessons we teach them, so that they can grow into men.
a- I don't know really. When I'm feeling down I try and talk about it. But I don't often get far.
c- Sometimes I put makeup on and it makes me feel nice. But the time it takes annoys me so I don't do it more often.
d-I don't know that I do any actions to show myself love on a daily basis. If I do, it isn't intentional.
e-I don't havemuch time anymore, but something I always make a point to do everyday is stand in the mirror and say I love you to myself, and when I do eat, I try to eat a bit healthier. I try not to absorb as much stress from others anymore and I meditate a lot more than I used to.
f-I take selfies and find something positive about every picture rather than immediately talking down about my appearance, I try to keep my nails in good shape because they make me feel pretty, and I allow myself to feel good about the way I look without becoming overconfident.
a-Not focusing so much on the opinions and knowing my worth, what I'm good for. But I'm still working on that.
c- The biggest lesson not loving myself has taught me is that no matter how much of a smile I put on, it's still kinda lonely when you don't enjoy your own company sometimes. I've learned a bit of my own worth and been able to raise my standards.
d-It's a lesson I'm still learning, but working to love myself has taught me to stop looking for outside validation of my feelings and find it from myself instead.
e-I'm beautiful and intelligent, I do have worth, and a man can love a woman like me but I no longer need him or his love to validate me. I've learned to push past the negative stuff in my head to look at myself genuinely.
f-Not to let anyone sway me from how I feel about myself. What matters is how I feel about myself, independent from the thoughts and feelings of others.
b- Cheaters, thieves and liars.
c- Lies, drama, and taking advantage of my kindness.
d- Lying, cheating, lack of respect from others, and creating excuses for questionable things from myself
e-I try not to allow someone to tear me down anymore and when I realize that they're doing it, I step away from them because this is something I'm still working on not doing to myself. It's a bit of a trigger for me to allow someone else to do what I'm fighting not to do, and I have to work twice as hard with positive reinforcement if something they say cuts me deep.
f-Anybody putting me down or telling me I'm not good enough for something, or settling for men who only want physical needs met rather than trying to create a deeper connection.
a-I focus on the negative things I am, say or do because I've always heard more negativity about the person I am instead of the positive, so I want to improve on that.
c-I know all the steps to treat myself better. I'm my worst enemy. I just don't know how to make myself do it. I can give the best advice but can't follow it.
d-I would say that I need to get better at finding things about myself to love, and I need to get better at providing myself with the attention I seek from other people.
e-I STILL HAVE ISSUES. (Mandy's Note: Where's the lie?) I still can't see the things people see in me, so I have a hard time accepting or believing what they say. I still have my mother's negative reinforcement in my head, and a constant battle for me is fighting that back with positive reminders that I am worthy.
f-From others, I'm working on learning how to genuinely accept compliments rather than blowing them off. As for myself, I'm working on trying to teach myself that I deserve more out of life on several levels. I'm working on accepting that I can do no more than what I am able to do and I try to keep in mind that my best is good enough.
c-One day at a time. Find something good in everyday until it becomes a habit.
e-I would say to look in the mirror and say everything that you feel is wrong with you. For each thing that's wrong, counter that with two things that are good. If you cannot do that, you've reached the starting point. From there, make a point to do something nice for yourself. Most importantly, don't look for others to validate you. Whether they intend to or not, everyone's going to make you angry or hurt you at some point and this could invalidate their previous opinion of you. That validation shouldn't depend on someone else, you should give it to yourself.
Me: I don't have kids and don't know if I want any, but I do have two nieces. My issue isn't what I'd teach them, but how I would go about it. For me, this would be breaking a generational cycle as I was not taught about self-love growing up, and neither was my mom or grandma. This obviously means that my brother, the babies' father, wasn't taught either and neither were their mothers, so it's of the utmost importance to me that these two grow up knowing more than any of us ever did. I guess I would try to encourage them to see both their strengths and weaknesses and accept both so that they'll have a fair view of themselves, try to make sure they don't get caught in the comparison cycle of death with other people, and make sure that they're always aware of how wonderful they are & can be.
a-Open communication and letting them know they are great kids inside and out.
c-I teach my daughter that she's unstoppable in anything she wants to do or be. I offer her advice, talk to her realistically but still supportive.
d-I always tried to teach my daughter to accept herself the way she was and help her understand that she doesn't have to change in order for others to accept her.
e-Try to encourage them by staying positive about myself in front of them, and when they get negativity directed at them (about their race/skintone, for example), I give them a positive take on whatever was said. I remind them that they don't have to look like everyone around them and to always be proud of their unique features, of what makes them different rather than learning to be ashamed of it.
c-I work three jobs to avoid having to deal with anything and to try to catch up on debt. It doesn't leave me with a lot of time to work on building that relationship with myself.
d-Yes, it does get difficult to maintain it. I try to counteract it by carving out a block of time in the day just for myself and sticking to it, no matter what.
e-I lose myself because I just don't have the time, but I haven't figured out how to counteract that just yet.
a-Besides get distracted with my kids, no.
c-I had a shot of fireball.
d-I bought some makeup earlier.
e-No. I didn't scratch the mosquito bites on my legs, does that count? (Mandy's Note: No.)
f-No, I haven't. Sometimes I have to remind myself because I forget.
And an extra (like you haven’t already been here long enough, right?) 21. Did this questionnaire show you anything new about yourself that you hadn't considered until you answered these questions?
Me: Yes and no.
c-I need to be nice to myself. I'm not all that bad.
d-Yes. I hadn't considered the question about how to teach others to love themselves, and it made me want to learn how to answer this question better for the future.
e- No, I enjoyed the questions but I already knew all of these things about myself.
f-Yes. The thought I had to put in to answer these questions showed me how much I don't really think about or look at my feelings, so it showed me that I need to pay more attention to myself.
So that wraps up the Self-Love Questionnaire. This was an unbelievably fun...but incredibly hard...thing for me to do. In order to get the questions answered, I had to post the list to my personal Facebook page, and I've never shared anything about my blogs there before. Most bloggers have their Facebook and blogs intertwined so closely you're not sure which one started first. And I'm not knockin' em for that, it's one of the first rules in trying to promote yourself and build up your readers. But that's a rule I've never followed.
I keep my personal pages as far away from my blogs as possible, partially out of privacy for my family (you never know who'll stumble across your blog) but mainly to maintain my privacy from people in my personal life. A few people in my life know I'm a blogger, even fewer know what I blog about, and even fewer still have the URL. Hell, my mom doesn't even have it, and she knows more than anyone else about my blogs.
It may sound stupid to you, but there's a very deep vulnerability, a very deep fear of rejection, in me sharing this piece of my life with people I know, and I'm not willing to be that vulnerable with a lot of the people I leave privy to certain elements of my life.
This....is one of the very few places I feel comfortable enough to be myself, and the truth is that I just don't want people I know to intrude on that. I don't want them to know me on that level. There's a lonely sort of comfort in knowing that I have yet to share this part of my life with people already in my life; lonely because while I'd love to share it, because I'm proud of it, I also enjoy the freedom of posting without worrying about what someone is thinking about it.
No judgments, comparisons or snarky remarks about what I've chosen to do with this chapter of my life. No rejections, no thinking of me as some loser who does this for free. (I am a loser who does this for free, but it always stings less when I say it. lol) I can be myself, post what I'd like, and only worry about my readers' judgments of my content. I prefer it that way.
I said all of that to say that this entire experience, from deciding on the questions, to deciding whether or not to post them to my Facebook (no joke, I waffled about it for a week, which wasted a lot of time), to having to answer them myself, kinda made me feel like I'd exposed a large part of myself.
It's funny, the things that make us feel exposed, huh? I don't often feel exposed sharing who I am with strangers but I always feel exposed sharing who I am with people who are already familiar with me. Weird. Well, I never said I had my shit together. LOL
I've kept you here way too long as it is. If you're actually still reading this, you're the real flippin' MVP of my life. Thank you. I'll see you next week!
