The hardest relationship I’ve ever had is the one I have with myself. It’s been a lifelong love/hate story.

As a kid, I was confident. Sometimes… maybe too confident.

I thought I was the best athlete, the best artist, the best writer, the best clarinet player. Not in a show-off way. Just confident. Sure of myself. Unapologetic. And somewhere along the way, that started to feel… wrong.

Isn’t it strange how we treat confidence like a character flaw? How people bond more over self-deprecating jokes than self-belief?

Maybe because it’s more relatable. Maybe because most of us talk about ourselves like we hate ourselves.

That’s sad, really.

The self-hate started to gag my self-love in my teenage years.

Puberty was already awkward, but being the only Iranian kid at school made it worse. I didn’t look like anyone else. I wanted to stand out for my art and my athletic skills… but when it came to how I looked, I wanted to disappear.

I hated my tan skin. My “boring” brown eyes. My dark brown hair.

Actually, I hated my brown hair so much that one day I rubbed lemon juice into it and sat in the sun for hours trying to bleach it.

If you’re wondering how that went… imagine a confused pumpkin with crunchy ends and a very bad attitude.

But underneath the bad DIY hair experiment was something deeper, painful. I wasn’t trying to lighten my hair. I was trying to lighten myself . So I could blend. So I could belong. So I could stop feeling like “too much” in one way and “not enough” in another.

Somewhere along the way, confidence started to feel unsafe.

In my 20s, my self-hate grew.

I struggled in my career. Lived paycheque to paycheque. I doubted everything about myself as an artist. I told myself over and over:

“I suck.” “I’ll never amount to anything” “I’m going to struggle forever.”

In my 30s, the voice shifted targets. I attacked myself for being a bad mother. I told myself I didn’t deserve to be one. That I was ruining my son’s life. I cried almost daily for three years.

And now in my 40s, the self-hate has circled back to the way I look.

It criticizes my appearance. Counts my wrinkles. Sometimes I don’t even turn on the light when I have to look in the mirror. I hate taking photos. And when I see one, I spiral.

It is exhausting being bullied all day by someone who lives inside your own head.

Lately, I’ve really been listening to the way I talk to myself.

I’m mean. I’m relentless. I’m the schoolyard bully and the kid trying to survive at the same time.

And I know I’m not the only one.

Most of us are bullying ourselves.

We learned to laugh at ourselves before anyone else could. We call it humility. We call it staying grounded. Self- criticism doesn’t motivate us — it actually activates the same threat system in the brain as being attacked by someone else.

Which explains why being cruel to ourselves doesn’t make us improve. It just makes us freeze, hide, or collapse.

If you’re hard on yourself, it’s because somewhere along the way, being harsh felt safer than being hopeful. If you expected nothing from yourself, you couldn’t be disappointed. If you punished yourself first, no one else could.

Something has been shifting, though.

This year, I’m trying to speak to myself with more understanding. I want to be my own best friend. Psychologist Kristin Neff calls this self-compassion — treating yourself the way you would treat a good friend. And when I read that, I had a very uncomfortable realization:

If I spoke to a friend the way I speak to myself, I would not have any friends left.

So here are some things I’m practicing this year—and maybe they will help you too.

Instead of arguing with the voice, try naming it. When thoughts like, “I’m such a failure,” pop up, I say instead, “I’m having the thought that I’m a failure.” “That’s my inner critic talking.” Neff teaches that naming the voice creates space. You don’t have to defeat it. You just don’t have to obey it.

Put a hand on your chest

Offer physical reassurance before mental reassurance. When the mind is cruel, it’s hard to listen to logic. It sounds weird, but physically comforting yourself signals safety to your nervous system.

Talk to yourself like someone you love

If your best friend made the same mistake, what would you say? Try offering that same kindness to yourself .

Remember: this is human

Neff calls it “common humanity.” Struggling doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re a person. You are not the only one who feels this way.

You don’t have to fix everything. Sometimes self-love is sitting beside yourself instead of walking away.

So, I’m going to practice self-love by:

Turning on the light when I look in the mirror. I’m going to look into my own eyes and I’m going say, “I love you, Holly.”

Most of us are afraid of loving ourselves. We’re afraid of what happens if we stop being cruel. Afraid we’ll become lazy. Afraid we’ll stop trying.

But self-hatred has never made us better. It has only made us tired.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m done being tired.

If no one has ever said this to you, let me say it now: You are beautiful. You are wonderful. You are beautifully, wonderfully you.

The above illustration is a spread from my ABC of Emotions Kids book. Coming out soon!

Self-Love Affirmations

I made a short self-love affirmation video for the days when being kind to yourself feels hard. If you have a few minutes today, press play. This self-love affirmation video is something you can listen to while lying down, making tea, or staring out a window.

Therapeutic Art Activity

When we’re used to being hard on ourselves, it can feel almost impossible to name what we love about who we are. This activity helps shift attention away from self-criticism and toward self-compassion.

How to do the activity: Write what you love about yourself inside and outside of the heart. Colour it in, add stickers, or anything else that shows your love for yourself.

I’m also including this little art print as a freebie this week. You can print it out and keep it somewhere you’ll see it — by your bed, on your mirror, near your desk, tucked into a journal. It’s a small reminder to be kinder to yourself on the days you forget. Welcome to the Self Love Club. You already belong.