you can’t cover it with a face mask ft. QUEST
As you all know, this is my public diary. I started this blog to document my own personal growth and to create a safe space for my friends near and far to relate to and reflect on. But, as I’ve grown more comfortable with it and been learning from others, I felt it was time to take this online space a step further and bring in someone who has been such a muse for me for a while now. I met Quest at a meeting at our university and immediately was fascinated by his energy. He is sensational and naturally captivating, and I am so excited to share a bit of his knowledge on self love with you all. This is officially…a community diary and that’s iconic. I have seen first-hand how Quest’s honesty and vulnerability have helped others, and that is kind of the entire point of this blog. I love learning with you all, and you all have truly given me the space to be a work in progress without judgement. If you know me personally (so basically if you’ve read any post on here ever lol), you know I have been shifting dramatically over the last year and have documented that which is so cool to look back on. Self love has been sort of a natural point of interest on this blog lately. I was initially focusing on the concept of vulnerability, and through the exploration and practice of that, it required me to really trust myself to be honest which then required me to grow stronger in my practice of self love and acceptance. Quest is well versed in this practice so when I noticed my blog taking this new direction I knew I just had to reach out to him. If you follow Quest on Instagram (which you should, @questsidestory), you know how collaborative of an experience his online presence is. He is constantly sharing wisdom, asking questions, and truly just being a safe space for people and that brings me so much joy. He’s kind of doing the damn thing. I told Quest how cool it is that he’s reached this part of his self love journey where he can now help others cultivate their own self love. I told him about my blog and how I kind of use it to say all the things that are on my mind but want to challenge myself to take up space in real life, to really push that self love I feel inside out in to my present reality. I figured I am not the only one who may be wanting to do this, so I had to bring it to Love Letters. I have seen Quest touch the hearts of so many people just by being himself, and he has surely inspired me to live truly and boldly. Just talking to him over the phone did so much for my heart and mind, I want as many people as possible to experience the magnificence that is my beloved, Quest. So, let’s get in to it!
Defining “self love”
To kick off our conversation, we tried to develop a basic definition of “self love”, so I asked Quest how he would define it for himself. Through pondering this, we came to realize that there is not exactly one way to go about defining and cultivating your inner worth and love and that understanding your needs creates a unique and special path to your personal self love and acceptance. Quest put it well saying, “That’s a hard question to answer because it's so subjective. Everyone has a different definition of love in general. I can only love myself to the capacity of which I know that love is (period). It’s me being aware that I’m not in control of everyone and everything else and knowing that I can only control the things that I have the power to, while also navigating how to be more conscious of my self care, my limitations, my boundary setting, etc. It’s choosing to put that emotional energy in to myself that I would for others. It’s about being intentional about you. Self love looks different for everyone”. I think it’s an amazing point to consider that living intentionally on our journey to really showing up for ourselves starts within, and we can’t always consider what it will look like to others or how others have gone about their own journeys. “Self love comes about through doing the inner work, and that starts with meeting our basic needs in order to reach the point of self actualization”.
Mantras and affirmations
Through our conversation, we learned that we are both huge on mantras and affirmations. It is so important to cultivate a safe, positive, and loving inner voice. The things that you say to yourself or about yourself matter. My therapist once told me, “Be conscious of what you allow to enter through your eyes and your ears. That will effect what goes on in your mind”. Quest explained how he uses the love language of “words of affirmation” on himself. “I write notes to myself. And I have a note wall, so any time I hear something powerful I’m like, “I’m gonna write that down””. One of his favorite quotes is, “Growth isn’t linear”. This has always been such a helpful mantra to repeat for me as well, because truly when you are putting in the work to heal and love yourself it’s going to be a process. Sometimes you will resort back to old habits, sometimes you will take huge leaps forward. Quest explained, “Sometimes you go from A to B to C. Then you might go back to A then forward to B and even get to C and you might still have to go back to A. You have to be patient with yourself because growth isn’t linear. We have cycles that we go through. Even when it’s slow it’s important. As people we want immediate gratification for the steps that we’re taking but we have to know that sometimes it’s regression before progression”.
Obstacles
I asked Quest if there had been any obstacles in his self love journey. If you saw my last post, I went in to how overwhelming and exhausting the obstacles we must overcome are when we intentionally take the time to work on ourselves. Quest explained, “A lot of my relationships have been catalysts for my development. Coming to college, learning what it meant to build a self concept was also an important obstacle. I had to ask myself those questions:
Who is Quest?
What are Quest’s interests?
What does Quest do?
If someone described me would they have an accurate perception?
Am I living my life authentically?”
I’ve written before about the power of unconditional love and acceptance, and a part of that is becoming comfortable with how you take up space in the world and being intentional with the choices you make. Knowing yourself allows for you to step in to spaces with honesty and confidence. Quest said, “Through living my life authentically, and giving people an opportunity to see who I am by being vulnerable, I was able to trade stories. When people share their stories with me it’s so healing. You have to be open minded and ready to absorb that information. When you’re open to it, that’s you being on a whole different level on your self love journey. You are open to receiving that knowledge”. Through speaking with others and trading life lessons you can understand that the obstacles we face are important parts of our self care journey. We are all learning, and no one is exempt from hard times and difficult relationships. If we can recognize that we are all facing obstacles, we can start to really take from them what is beneficial to our growth and development.
Cultivating self love in college and becoming a young adult
“In college I learned that I can’t expect everyone to be a Quest. When I start to question people’s motivations, I have to realize that not everyone was raised the same way that I was and that not everyone thinks the same way I do. So what does that mean? I can’t control anyone else but I can choose how to make myself happy. I was able to create that support system that inspires me to become a better person through knowing myself and what I expect from those in my life”. We talked a bit about how being a first generation college student can really impact how you cultivate self love. I hadn’t even considered how that has shown up in my own journey to self love and self compassion, but it absolutely has. Quest explained, “I’m a first gen and didn’t have a lot people to relate to in my family so for me I craved that kind of community and I always used to struggle with codependency. I would put my energy in other people to run away from my own problems. For me, self love and self care started with learning how to meet those basic needs first. College taught me about personal development. Building my life the way I needed to in order to live authentically. I kept trying to become somebody I wasn’t in order to change myself to be what I thought other people would like or what I thought was socially acceptable. You should feel free to live as you want to live with the people you want to live with”. College is sort of the first time that I got to see how I would function on my own while witnessing others also doing this for the first time. Sometimes it can be hard to understand if you’re doing things right, but self love is so important to member as you figure it all out. Because truly, in college you have the opportunity to align with people alike and different from you. Love yourself enough to show up as you are, and you will align with others doing the same thing.
Who is your inspiration?
“My mom. She’s the reason I do a lot of the things I do. She was never afraid to be vulnerable in front of me and she continuously inspires me to be a better person. I grew up in a house full of women and they poured a lot of love in to me and gave me the support to become the person I am today. She’s been my biggest source of inspiration. Black women in general have been. I look at y’all with such admiration. Black women provide a huge source of comfort for me. We all know, black women are the most mistreated demographic in the world. Yet, when I look around the room and I see a black woman I know I’m gonna be good. For y’all to experience the things that you do, and still be able to continuously stand up for yourself and be loving to others is so powerful”. Black women, near and far: I love us.
Confidence
There’s a misconception that those who have a high sense of self worth and self love have always been inherently confident. I have been working on my confidence in an array of ways, and I notice it is easier to be confident when you know yourself and have checked in on your needs. It goes back to that concept of radical acceptance. When I think about it, I lack confidence most when I haven’t met my needs. If I haven’t had a lot of sleep, I haven’t eaten much, I just throw on whatever without taking the time to adorn my body, my level of confidence reflects that. We really do have to take care of ourselves to put our best, most authentic foot forward. Quest spoke about his journey with confidence saying, “It might not seem like it, but I always struggled with confidence. It was hard for me to receive affirmation and compliments because I didn’t see it within myself. Being intentional about realizing I’m here for a reason was an important step. I have done the work to put these amazing people in my life who contribute to my productivity. If I ever need something, I know I have a great support system. I lean back on the village I built for myself. It comes back to knowing that I have that support system and that I’ve done the work, so I know I can be confident. I know I’m competent, I’m capable. We have to remember that, especially when we start comparing ourselves to other people. The more you know yourself the more you can love yourself. The first step is considering my needs. What am I lacking? If you can’t acknowledge what you’re lacking you can’t identify what you need. What am I going to do? How am I going to connect with people more authentically?”. I believe that in the space of figuring that out, confidence is born. What do I need to do for myself in order to show up as my best self?
Being an emotional whore
Quest explained how we have to be more intentional about loving ourselves and how that will align us with people that we can have fulfilling and loving relationships with. “I struggled with codependence. I would always try to reach out and include people to fill a void in myself and it wasn’t sustainable because all of those people were not for me. I felt like an emotional whore, pimping myself out to anyone who would listen to me”. I need that on a poster, tattooed on my body, on my bulletin board. Yes, yes, yes. How often do we invest in relationships that are rooted in our own insecurities to avoid accepting the love we deserve? If you take a moment to look at those in your life, you might be able see which relationships share a foundation in negativity (think trauma bonding) and how many share a foundation in a shared desire for progress. Love yourself enough to rest in relationships that honor what you’ve been through but also give you the support to rise above it.
Radical acceptance
“Well, in terms of radical acceptance, for me that’s been a process. Intentional and exhausting. Radical acceptance comes with realizing you are the person that you are. Giving up that control is really frustrating. You are who you are. Even with radical acceptance comes those moments where you’re really nitpicky. You’re like, “I like the way I look but, I don’t like my eyebrows or this or that. It’s hard to holistically say I accept myself while also feeling inadequate in some places”. What’s amazing about this, is that even those moments of nitpicking are an opportunity to practice radical self acceptance. Self acceptance isn’t “I like every part of myself and see no flaws” it’s more like, “I love myself, including my flaws and those flaws don’t diminish my worth”. I am a huge believer that self acceptance allows for us to truly develop a relationship with ourselves that considers all we have been and all we have the potential to be.
What advice do you have for my readers who are working through their self love journey?
“To accept the love you deserve, you must first know what you deserve. Exposure is everything. Think of it like this: kids can only aspire to what they see. If you’re a child and haven’t experienced the world yet, you don’t know what to expect. Likewise, if you’ve never been exposed to this higher level of love and if you don’t know yourself as a person, you can’t begin to fully receive that because you can’t even find it within yourself, therefore you won’t see it in others and you will not think you deserve it. People self sabotage the love they don’t feel they deserve. You have to become the person that you want to love you. How would you want somebody to support you? Show up for yourself in that category. We often expect our relationships to last forever, even if those relationships aren’t all we deserve. We are so dependent on “forever”, trying to ignore the void that comes from a bad relationship with ourselves by filling that through our relationships with others. You have to prepare yourself for the love that is coming in to your life. In our self love journey, it’s not about forgetting the hard things, it’s about finding empowerment within it. Sitting with it, examining it. You’re still here, you’re still standing. I’ve had the will power, I’ve endure this for so long, I have the resilience. You’re more powerful than you think you are. Ask yourself what you need, and take the initiative to get it. Have the confidence in yourself to know you can be (and expect) better”.
Quest and I drew from our own experiences to develop a few steps to help you along your journey:
Make sure all of your basic needs are being met
Practice self awareness
Accept yourself, and take initiative to change the parts of yourself holding you back from your highest potential
Create a healthy support system
Understand that self love is a life time commitment, and this journey will not be linear. Be patient and compassionate with yourself.
As our conversation came to an end, Quest and I thought of our own mantra: “You can’t cover it with a face mask”. Self love sometimes gets the wrap of being all about the “Treat yourself” mentality. While this is one part of our self love journey, we have to commit ourselves to doing the work and seeking advice from those we can learn from. Thank you, Quest, for being that person to me and to so many people. Self love isn’t always pretty, and we can’t gloss over the hard parts of it. Be vulnerable, go and take those steps, and build your support system (you already have me, so you’ve got this).
Love you all (but you knew that).