The value and importance of self love is in no way over-rated. The ratio is nice and simple- the more you are able to love yourself, the more love you are able to give love and care to others. But what we’d like to focus on here is: You.
Many people have an aversion to the term, ‘self love,’ because of the way it's been used across several media channels. However, self love does not contain a single definition and can be applied to your personal well being in whatever way you are comfortable with. What’s most important here is that you feel good, if not ALL the time, a whole lot of the time. And, believe it or not, self love is pretty much at the core of stability and joy.
Let’s explore the different ways self love can manifest into our everyday lives and why it’s essential for our own personal growth and all of our current and future relationships. Sounds like a sweeping statement doesn’t it? Let’s see if it can stand up to the hype.
What exactly are we referring to when we use the term: Self Love?
Self love is a deeply personal feeling and experience. It expresses itself differently for each one of us. The same way we all look, walk and think differently, we all experience and define self love in our own unique way. Because of this, in some ways it’s difficult to talk about. But we’re going to do our best, hoping that you can draw something meaningful out of this article, and apply some more uplifting and positive possibilities to your day-to-day life.
But before we go any further, in case you did have some doubts about the term self love, ask yourself why? And consider this, self love is not self indulgent. Though on the onset it may seem like it is, it’s not when we see it as a way of getting to know ourselves better and as a tool for understanding our deeply personal needs. Reflecting on who you are and taking time to nurture and take care of yourself isn’t self indulgent, it’s something we all deserve.
Many find it helpful to keep a journal, or to simply write out recent thoughts and feelings. Important questions that we can ask ourselves, and maybe write out the answers to, are questions like:
What do I enjoy?
What can I do for myself regularly that is easy and will make me feel a lot, or a little happier this month?
Now here comes a big one: What do I really need? What’s missing in my life that only I can give myself?
And how can I fulfill my own needs without depending on others?
The more challenging side to Self Love
While it’s important to feel good, and to do what feels good, there are also sides of ourself that it may be time to confront. To make big changes in our lives, it’s important to face our fears, and by fears we mean our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. We all have fears, weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Even the men and women around you who seem confident and unbreakable have aspects they would like to improve, or issues they don’t want to deal with. How about the sides of ourselves we feel most ashamed about? The sides we want to cover up and keep out and away from the public. The parts of ourselves that are sometimes so hard to deal with, we ourselves pretend like they don’t exist?
Self love is about coming to terms with our weaknesses and then understanding how to heal the pain of whatever traumas we’ve experienced in our lives. Because we’ve all had traumas, whether it was experiencing the death of a loved one at some point or another, a difficult childhood, unhealthy relationships and so on, we’ve all been there; suffered in at least one area of our lives. These are deep rooted wounds we each need to heal within ourselves. And the only way to heal these wounds is by acknowledging them, their depths, and learning to love ourselves beyond the harm that’s been done to us. While many people seek advice, help and guidance from others, whether it's through friends, lovers, parents or a therapist, it’s up to us to do the work and to live healthier more fulfilling lives. It’s up to us to nurture and love ourselves.
And then what? What’s next?
After acknowledging our weaknesses (which by the way, you don’t have to take on all at once, this is a process that deserves your time and attention, and can most definitely feel overwhelming along different stages within that process), only then can we start to take our own joy, life decisions, and life paths into our own hands. When we begin to heal and love ourselves, we can be guided by a positive feeling in our lives rather than a destructive, attention seeking feeling.
This takes a lot of courage, but you are strong! We need courage to face ourselves, and then to face whatever the world has in store for us. We can and should use feelings of courage and self love to steer us away from feelings of helplessness. When we feel supported, only then we can evolve, choose who we want to be, what we want for ourselves, and how we're going to do that for ourselves to live a better, healthier life, with healthy fulfilling relationships, with ourselves, and with the people we care about. Whoo! That was a long sentence! But, we’re getting there, we’re feeling it, and we’re going to pull through, in order to achieve something: a better life for ourselves and those around us.
Self Love Opens Up Our Abilities to support others in need
Remember that bit about self indulgence? This is where family, relationships and the community comes in. Only once we feel loved and cared for (from ourselves that is! Deeply loved and worthy of love) are we able to actually become aware of other’s needs and have the strength to help them through their own overwhelming problems. Or, we are simply able to give them love and care, for the sake of simply loving and caring about that person, for who they are, without needing anything from them. It’s about time to start spreading the LOVE both within and without!
Have you been trying to find the way back to yourself lately? How do you go about self love and, in your own personal experiences, what has it done for you?
Ready to indulge in self- love?
Ready to start accepting yourself today?
Affirmations done in the MIRROR are a powerful way to reinforce self-love and silence your inner critic! Click Here to get your FREE "Mirror Affirmations" to help you start feeling confident and love for yourself.
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Relatable Podcast Episodes you’ll Enjoy from: It Didn’t Break Me Podcast
Breaking Free from Approval Addiction with Kimberly Valerie
The Journey to Be your or Kind with Regina Betts
Uncovering your Internal Value with Tina Morales
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