Love, in general, is already challenging, so love for HSP's, well, hello damage.
I have always felt that I fall in love more intensely than others. When I look back at my teenage writings, I almost only talk about love. I have always had the desire, even the obsession, to understand where these feelings came from, why I felt things so intensely and why I always threw myself blindly into my relationships.
Self-love, on the other hand, was a very late discovery. I had never considered that one could have the need to love oneself. I loved myself when I saw myself through the eyes of my parents, those of my teachers and then those of my boyfriends. And I was happy with that. But then one day, when I was 26 years old, after a break up I got a broken heart. I was suddenly single and the only eyes that could still love me were my own. That's how I slowly immersed myself in personal development tools, in therapy and discovered my highly sensitivity along the way.
Since then, I've lived a few stories and the parallels between self-love and love in general have become more and more obvious to me. So what lessons can we learn from our relationships to improve our self-love? That's today's topic!
LOVE AND HATE FOR HSP's
As a pure HSP, I have no problem giving my time, love and attention to others. Better still, it is what makes me feel useful, alive. In my relationships, both in love and in friendship, I have often been told that with me there are no half measures. When I love someone, I give not 100 but 300% of myself. I fall in love extremely quick and can't stop myself from throwing all of myself into the adventure...
That's great, you'll tell me! I agree, but only for a while. The problem is, love for HSPs, once the honeymoon is over, can go through the same emotional waves as in our daily life. You know, I can go from laughter to tears in a second. My day may have been the best day of my life, if I get news that I think is bad, my whole world falls apart (even if the bad news is that I lost my favourite mitt and for me it's the end of the world, while for others I'm making a big deal out of it for nothing. ... but that's another subject) Back to the point, if we are able to swap one feeling for a completely opposite one, very quickly, it means that in love, a highly sensitive person can go from love to aversion in the blink of an eye... and that can do some damage.
THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST ON A ROLLERCOASTER
HSP's can go from love to hate in the blink of an eye. And vice versa.
The day I read this sentence, it was like a revelation for me. I have often felt stupid in my relationships because there are mornings when I wake up and I hate the person next to me. I ask myself why this relationship, why this person, if this is a good choice. I sometimes come to disgust, rejection, disappointment. I know I use intense and deep words, but it's just to convey the truth and intensity of the emotions and feelings of an HSP... And then there are days when I wake up, I'm the most in love girlfriend ever. I'm a real glue pot as we say in french, I become very needy, expecting all the attention. I give, I take, I jump around like a kid falling in love for the first time... So this is a real a rollercoaster.
When I become aware of these emotions and feelings going downhill at full speed, I often think of the other person in the couple. I think about the fact that my partner has to go through all this. That in the beginning, it always passes. But as time goes by, the roller coaster is not as fun... And I, meanwhile, always end up seeing myself like the Beauty and the Beast, on my own. It's as if, in spite of myself, I was born with both roles, but nobody ever wanted to approach the Beast. Not even me...
BEST FRIEND vs BEST ENNEMIE
If these extremes are hard on our companions, I have long forgotten or neglected the fact that they are just as hard on ourselves. It's true, and it took me a long time to understand it... If love and dislike are feelings that flow very quickly in our love for others, why shouldn't this apply to our love for ourselves?
When I think of the last 5 years, I have spent more time being my best enemy than being my best friend. Yet, there have been months, phases or moments, where, like a flash of genius, I suddenly started to appreciate myself, to see all the things I am capable of. It's as if I had suddenly taken a completely different look at myself.
When I'm my best friend, no problem. The world turns, life moves on, I'm the happiest. The worry is when I get stuck in the best enemy spiral. As in my relationships, I often forget at that moment that the dislike I have for myself, like everything in life, will only be temporary... I get stuck in these whirlwinds of questions, locking myself into this cycle of negative thoughts a little longer each time...
SELF-LOVE vs SELF-LIKE
This self-love work is what I undertook the day I left Paris to start travelling. By leaving the framework in which I had been formatted for 25 years, I was relearning to be who I wanted to be. Suddenly, it was as if I had fallen in love with myself all over again... Except that, according to many scientific studies, love is ephemeral... so what about self-love?
A few months ago, on my instagram, I wrote:
I was reading recently that when you can't love yourself you should try to like yourself instead. Because the word LOVE carry the idea that one day you're gonna wake up, look at yourself in the mirror and fall in love instantly. But loving yourself for who you really are means that you need to get to Know yourself the same way you get to Know your friends. It requires effort, time and dedication. Sometimes It feels right. Sometimes it feels wrong.
Love would have this magical side to it, which grabs you in the gut just as quickly as it can disappear. For love to last, it must be transformed into appreciation. From self-love to self-like...
In other words, and to conclude, I think that as HSPs, it is the energy we devote to our relationships that we should sometimes redirect into our relationship with ourselves. That we use this intensity to build and maintain this self-like thing more regularly. That we accept these phases of aversion and remind ourselves that they are only temporary. That we call upon our best friend in ourselves when our worst enemy is in charge. And that we trust ourselves, because the balance is there, somewhere, right in the middle of it all.
What does self-love look like for you?
Love. Co.
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