Real Talk: Self Love

Real Talk: Self Love

by Tamira Amin

Self-love.

Is it a goal? A state of being? Something you can eat? Everyone wants it, but describing what it is can get real murky real fast. Confused? Don’t worry, these girls have you covered: Muna Abdirahman, a 23 year old Somali visual artist based in Minneapolis who specializes in character design; Sara DuVall, a 23 year old pansexual Latina comic artist based in Seattle; Victoria Tsai, a 22 year old Taiwanese- American visual artist and musician; and Haaniyah Angus, the 18 year old content creator behind @nerdypoc and everything else you love. I got to sit down with these four amazing female artists and content creators to talk the good, the bad, and the messy of self-love.

When you’re looking at badass or powerful women, you can lose sight that everyone started somewhere — same goes for loving the girl in the mirror. And typically, that journey starts pretty young.

“I was in the 4th grade, and I overheard some girls talking about my classmates’ thigh gap, and how lucky she was that her legs were so skinny,” DuVall recalled. “When I got home I went straight to the mirror in my room and looked at my thighs, and for the first time I became aware of the fact that they touched each other. Looking back now, it’s kind of surreal and sad — I was so young, and suddenly so self-conscious about something that didn’t even matter.”

But it’s not just peer pressure that can bring on feelings of inadequacy. Tsai spoke on how media affected her when she was younger. “Cartoons played a definitive role in developing my image of beauty. Sailor Moon — long legs, sparkling eyes, and a confident air of poise — and others like Josie and the Pussycat Dolls, heck even Scooby Doo. All these images began to form a list inside my mind of what was considered beautiful and, coincidentally, valuable.”

One way or another, hating yourself is something you’re taught. And more often than not, white supremacy makes for a very instructive teacher. Most all of the women recalled having entanglements with it in their formative years. Abdirahman described facing colorism when she didn’t have a name for it yet. “My family is on the ‘light-skin side,’ and because I was darker than most my cousins it was hard to come to terms with beauty. All I heard from my family was, ‘Don’t wear that, you’re too dark for it.’”

For Angus, it was a matter of racial identity — or rather, multiracial identity and its proximity to whiteness. “I’m Somali, Jamaican and English and I don’t look exactly like my mix,” Angus mused. “I don’t have slim features, I don’t have 4c hair, I don’t have light eyes. So for me, it’s always been pointed out that I can’t be any of those three, which, when I was younger, disconnected me from wanting to be close to my cultures.”

The process of assimilation can be akin to running away, as Angus did from her roots. Tsai, however was running towards something. “I constantly wished I was white,” Tsai said bluntly. “White was what I saw in the magazines, on TV and in movies. White was success, love, and happiness. I wanted those things, and since whiteness made itself apparent in every aspect of cultural consumption and depictions of beauty, being Asian seemed wrong,” she confessed. “ I remember moments wishing I was born white so I wouldn’t have to suffer the assumptions and insults aimed at me based on features of my body that were very clearly, not white.”

So how do you get out? How do you leave the cycle of insecurity and learned self-hatred? DuVall described it as such: “It was definitely a progression. I really struggled with myself and my body image through middle school and high school, and it wasn’t until I left for college that I finally started to actively try to accept and love myself. It hasn’t been easy,” DuVall said. “And for a while I felt like a complete fake, but I feel like I can confidently say that I’m in a much better place now. And I’m hoping I can only get better from here on out.”

4243Conversely, Angus describes her journey to self-love as an epiphany. “I used to base my self-worth on if people liked me and if boys were into me,” Angus explained. “But when I turned 17, it suddenly hit me that I’m the only one who should measure my self-worth and my self-love should only be based on me.”

These women give assurances that the other side of the rainbow does exist. “I have no desire to be white any longer,” Tsai laughs. “A lot of that came from educating myself about history’s longstanding relationship with promoting whiteness as the ultimate. Learning that societal beauty operates on an agenda, often serving those in power, made me realize that white isn’t inherently beautiful, it’s just marketed that way. That and seeing more and more women with faces like mine in fashion, stories, and media compounded with a desire to find inner peace helps me view myself and my body as things that are worthwhile, successful, valuable, multi-faceted, and yes, beautiful.”

As you can see, representation — good representation — is always important. But DuVall says her sense of self-love is more internal. “ I feel beautiful because I’ve accepted myself for who and what I am, and I think that that kind of freedom from stress and self-hatred really makes a difference. I’ve found that the most beautiful people are those who rock what they’ve got and stay true to themselves.” For Abdirahman, her work helped shape and change her perspective. “I loved art because you can make anything beautiful and that really changed how I view things.”

As nice as this all sounds, like DuVall hinted at, getting to the point where you can say you love yourself isn’t the Tumblr aesthetic it’s cracked up to be. “It often feels like I’m taking three steps backward for every one step forward,” Tsai confessed. “I’m working hard every day to find inner peace and be more honest with myself.” She went on to say, self-love can be downright uncomfortable sometimes. “The concept of [self-love] was entirely alien to me. But from that point on up until now self-love is still something I work on every day to improve and strengthen. Loving myself often feels strange and unwelcome, as if in doing so I’m indulging in arrogance or vanity. But as I’ve gotten older, the less I care about what others think of me, and I think that has helped my journey.”

Abdirahman has a mantra: Tomorrow will be different. It helps her get through the ups and downs that come with self-love. Tsai’s mantra is a little different, but no less inspiring: “Everything is ultimately meaningless. I know it sounds grim, but I don’t see it that way. It’s a way for me to free myself from useless thoughts that occupy time better spent doing what I love,” Tsai explains. “When I catch myself worrying about whether or not people will care if I wear these shorts with that top, it helps put things right into perspective.”

46I personally admire each and every single woman I spoke to. They’re all extremely talented in their fields and not a damn one was perfect. And I think that’s amazing because for so long, it felt like being brown and woman in this world meant I had to be. So I want to leave you, reader, with this: there is room for you in this world. There is room for the medals and there is room for the mess. You don’t have to love yourself every day. I don’t think anybody really does. But you can carve space for yourself to get there. And slowly, slowly, slowly, you will.

TAMIRA AMIN IS ASCEND’S SUBMISSIONS EDITOR.