I Didn’t Always Love Myself

A personal story on childhood, dating experiences, heartbreak, and my personal journey toward deep-rooted and long-lasting self-love.

When I was in my teens and early twenties, I had very low self-love and -worth.

I made my self-worth dependent on every man (or shall I say boy) that came into my life. Which often ended badly.

To give you a little of a back story. I went to an all-girls school with the exception of going to America for a year when I was 15. And for the people who don’t know how life is to be a teenage girl going to an all-girl school — YOU DON’T MEET ANY BOYS. Basically none.

My friend from school and I still joke how that was our biggest childhood trauma. Just kidding it’s not. But it’s still up there.

You have to understand, that when you come into your teens, the media, books, and even parents tell you, now is the time to go out with boys, fall in love, and more importantly it is the time when others should start falling in love with you.

And if that is not happening (due to the mere absence of the other sex), your self-worth will suffer from it. There were definitely a few more factors feeding into my low self-love but to keep this below book lengths, I’ll leave it here for now.

Thankfully in the U.S., I made a friend who was also doing an exchange year and literally lived one street across from me in my home town, Munich.

Thankfully he was a boy and had lots of other “boy”-friends.

After that, my life changed and all of a sudden I was a proper teenager, going to parties and dating boys.

But let me tell you, even though it was a fun time, my low self-love was still there. And I was choosing people that reflected exactly that back to me. Guys who weren’t over their exes yet, guys who wouldn’t commit, and who would basically treat me like crap.

There were also guys who fell crazy for me, but I didn’t want them. They felt strange and uninteresting to me. You are too easy- my subconscious would say — I can’t prove to myself that I’m lovable if it’s THAT easy!

This pattern dragged itself along until I got really heartbroken in my early 20s. To this day, I have never felt so heartbroken and shattered over anyone in my life.

Maybe in another story, I’ll give more detail to this guy but to make it short: For a year I was in love with him and things were very complicated — there were numerous reasons why we (and reflecting now I mean he) weren’t able to commit — but then finally we were officially together.

My whole life felt like butterflies and rainbows. I was being showered with love and I felt this deep longing for love was finally cured.

I finally felt worthy and lovable because this man had decided I was.

The story doesn’t fully end there, but what did end here, was me believing this person can make make me feel any better about myself than I actually did.

It was an insanely painful experience. Being broken up with mid honeymoon phase is the worst, in case you haven’t ever experienced it.

But it was the medicine I needed to start loving and celebrating myself deeply.

I still remember lying in bed thinking to myself “I can either break over this or I can learn to love myself fully.” And as you might know, I chose the latter.

The relationships in our lives are always a mirror for the relationship we have with ourselves. You CAN NOT change the MIRROR. You can ONLY change what is in front of it. Which is YOU. (in case that’s not clear).

For 8 months I built my self-love up from the ground, read all the spiritual books, listened to empowering podcasts, went to see a therapist (because my mom was worried I was going into depression), and learned to love myself deeply.

And I can say it was one of the happiest times of my life. I used to say it was THE happiest time of my life, but to be honest, now is also a pretty good time because I feel like I’m going through a similar process within my business.

Over the years, I gathered so many tools, methods, and ways of living that helped me make this self-love grow deep and long-lasting. And this is exactly what I’m now sharing with you, my clients, and my community.

The reason I’m sharing all of this is A. because I’ve been trying to be more vulnerable here (😊) and B. because I know it can seem like there is people who are born happy within themselves and then there is people who aren’t.

But I can say from my own experience, that’s is not the case. It is in your own power to become the person and to create the life you want to live.

And I’m happy to support anyone in this process who is ready for it!

I’ve seen the change in myself and the women I’ve worked with. And I swear little things make me as happy as seeing my clients blossom into true self-love and empowerment.

If you’ve made it through to here, I want to thank you for reading. You know me and my story a little better now and I hope it motivates you to create deep-rooted self-love in your own life.