Hello! & welcome to the self-love handbook. Your journey to loving yourself thoroughly and completely starts here. 

It is not unbeknownst to me that many people reading this will likely consider this blog very self-centered and narcissistic. Here is my message to you, naysayer: it's okay to love yourself. Can we please move away from this idea that it's ugly and self-absorbed and selfish and terrible to say you love who you are? What could possibly be wrong with that? It's amazing to feel that way about yourself! It's beautiful and inspiring and great! Shout it from the rooftops: I LOVE MYSELF. Above all else, it's liberating. 

This blog will illustrate the many benefits of developing a happy, healthy relationship with yourself and how a little dose of self-confidence can actively change your life. That's right. This blog is going to CHANGE YOUR LIFE. 

Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. Considering I'm only eighteen years old, I won't try to fool you into thinking I have it all figured out and years upon years of life-altering experiences under my belt to share with you. I don't. My apologies if you were under that impression.

Anyway. So, now you know my age. A little more about me: my name is Bayley Baker, and I didn't always love myself. In fact, I used to hate a lot of things about myself. I hated my body and the way my upper arms jiggled and my loud laugh and my big feet and my chubby cheeks. I hated my big bones and my curvy hips and my hooded eyelids. 

But now I love myself and who I am as a person and my chubby everything and I don't care who knows it!!!!

It took years of conscious decision-making and changing the way I think about myself and the world around me to reach this point. I won't lie to you and tell you that one day I just woke up and fell in love with myself and never had an insecure thought again. That would be wonderful, of course, but it's simply not that easy.

If you only take away one thing from this blog, let it be this: self-love is a journey. It is a living, breathing voyage that takes you on a long, winding path to your destination. (A destination that I haven't even reached yet! Complete and total unadulterated self-love?! Sounds like a fantasy.) It is an uphill battle that takes courage, determination, and the occasional bowl of ice cream. It's a rollercoaster with enough ups and downs to make you hurl. It is like nothing else.  

My hope is that this "handbook" will stick with you every step of the way and encourage you to take charge of your life and how you perceive yourself. It all starts with you.