Ep 13 – Love begins with you

Hello and welcome back to Being Meraklis a podcast by Shwetha Sivaraman

This is already our 13th episode and we have been live for 4 months now. Seems pretty unbelievable to even think of it. If someone had told me I would be up at 2 AM in the night talking to myself in a pretty quiet house on life and living, I would have had a good laugh. Funny how things change or work out, but here we are.

February is the month of love, St. Valentine has ensured that there are cupids raining down on everyone’s parade irrespective of whether you are single, committed, happily married or not. For those of you who know me, I am far from falling for this fad, but I wanted to take the opportunity of this obsession for love and turn it inwards and talk about Self-Love this week.

My Self-Love Journey

Even as a child I remember thinking I am not beautiful. I used to proudly tell my friends and family “I know I am not beautiful, but I make up for that with a little extra intellect”. Not exactly humble, but could you blame the kid, though?

I was a brown-skinned girl with a tendency to go 5-6 more shades darker if I was out in the sun. I have actually had 5 year old kids coming up to me and telling me I should be out in the sun less often because I tan too easily. Several years as a teenager, I was bordering on obesity. I was no dancer, singer, athlete, or sportsperson and had no tribe of my own. I was at best average if not below average as a student.

I have, like most of you 90s kids, grown up to the fairy tales of Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and multiple renditions of Disney shows and musicals. I was mesmerized by the stories of the tall, handsome knights in shining armours. The knights who always came to the rescue of the damsel in distress.

But I was under the impression that for this to happen, the damsel had to be a beautiful princess – because that’s what was displayed in books and movies, right? Fair-skinned, slender, dainty, gorgeous. Well, I was sure I checked none of the boxes. I was under no delusions that my life was a fairy tale waiting to happen.

I was raised to be independent in the truest sense. I was grateful to have parents who did not care about whether my sister and I were girls. We did not grow up being paired to boys our age saying, “The two of them will be perfect for each other when they grow up and get married.” My parents strived hard to give us the best of education and taught us the discretion to decide our future for ourselves.

I wanted to grow up to be my own knight in shining armour. I shut myself off from all the teenage drama of love and worked on building the intellect, for I felt, that was something in my control. I figured that is something I could do gradually and gain acumen. I focused all my energies on creating a future for myself.

I grew up wanting to be self-sufficient, and I did. I never actively chased love and used to be one of those hardcore teenage girls who believed in independence and not need a guy to complete them. If you think this is where it is going to go into a regular love story, It does not.

I became independent and reasonably good at what I did. I was gradually beginning to be recognized for it, too – by colleagues, superiors, and friends. But I could never take a compliment. How could I? Surely, I could not be good enough. Years of convincing myself that I had flaws, that I was not the society’s conventional prototype of a girl, made that my whole truth. So much so that genuine compliments felt like misplaced flattery.

I have been my harshest critic for as long as I can remember. I could physically cringe for mistakes I made 10-12 years ago. That is how fresh the memories of my mistakes were still in my head.

I never could allow for any mistakes. I had spent years of my childhood, convincing myself that my intellect was all I had to rely on. Not the street-smart intelligence but the bookish one. I assumed I had to work my up and build what I wanted from scratch with painstaking efforts. I was the girl who only had her logic and rationale to rely upon to make it happen in this world.

I started to feel this pressure a couple of years ago. I felt its nagging presence, heavy, dreary, holding me back. For every two steps, I moved forward, I could feel myself being pulled back by my own shackles and mistaken notions.

Until one day, I realized that my own words were limiting my freedom and path.

I convinced myself that this who I was, this is who I am, and that I cannot exist or survive any other way. That was the story I told myself, Shwetha Sivaraman, an average personality with sub-average looks can survive only if she worked really hard and made no mistakes. The story empowered me as much as it restricted me. It gave me the confidence that I could still make it in life, being average but left me no other way to be successful apart from toiling and grinding myself to the bone.

If you look into your lives, you will find similar stories that weigh you down. It could be anything really from “I am not lovable” to “I am a failure” or “I could never be lucky.” I read this quote somewhere that said

“Words are never ‘only words’; they matter because they define the contours of what we can do,”

This Valentine’s day let us let go of these stories and misplaced notions and widen the contours of what we can do.

Reaffirm to yourself

“ I am enough. I am enough the way I am. I am enough, dark-skinned, or fair. I am enough, fat or thin. I am enough, and I do not need to make up for anything with something else. “

I was right about being my own knight in shining armour. But because I am enough and not because I do not deserve one.

You see, we have been learning it all wrong. Love is not about finding the perfect man. Love is not about being swept off your feet by prince charming. Love is not about beauty or anything skin-deep and superfluous. Love is not about being rescued.

Love is when you find it in yourself – in the boundless depths of self-acceptance, with no ifs and buts. Love is understanding without any judgment. Love is compassion for who you are. Love is acknowledging, being mindful of your limitations and to honour such boundaries. Love is to nurture yourself for all you could be. Love is the ability to forgive yourself for your mistakes.

This year on Valentine’s day, let us open up to accepting ourselves wholly and completely for love begins with us, all of us – not just the shiny highlights.

Here’s wishing everyone a Happy Valentine’s Day and remember to celebrate love every day.