The Importance of Self-Love

Self-love is hard for some compared to their friends and family. Not everybody can love themselves. Why is that? First, let’s examine self-love.

There are a few ways to define self-love. Sometimes it is defined as appreciating one’s self-value or worth. It’s also about paying attention to your happiness and well-being.

How do you define self-love?

“A man who’s mastered the art of self-love is one who’s wrist is often busy.”

— J.M.

While the phrase isn’t something psychologists study often, self-love is tied to your well-being. How healthy can you be if you don’t love yourself? Even more important is the ability for others to love you.

Have you ever considered the old saying, it’s hard for others to love what you can’t love yourself? If you don’t love yourself enough to pay attention to your happiness and well-being, how likely is it to find someone who will love you?

The Truth About Self-Love

The daring truth about self-love is that it’s easier to suggest than to do. We should all be able to love ourselves. But not everyone has lived the same lives or seen the same things. Our history could be keeping us from achieving self-love.

There are ways to foster self-love.

“Someone intuned with self-love might need to use a little lubricant on those bad days.”

— JM

But seriously, here are the ideas to help you enjoy a better path to self-love:

Positive self-talk to challenge your negative story: Have you found it hard to feel compassion for yourself? That might mean you feel undeserving. Whatever your old story that left you feeling bad, give yourself a break. We all screw up and make mistakes.

Practice imagining what a loved one would say to you if they knew you were experiencing this feeling: Using your mind’s eye, see yourself being someone in your life who knows you’re going through something. What would they say? Or, practice seeing them going through what you are and ask yourself, what would you tell them?

What would it take to forgive yourself for your mistakes: Deciding this is important to learning to love yourself. Moving in a direction that allows you to care enough about yourself is a first step. Consider whether you want to apologize to people you’ve hurt or make amends. If it’s you that you hurt through negative behaviors, addictive tendencies, avoidance, or unwise choices, make a plan to cope for the next time you experience a similar situation.

Ideas to move toward a place of self-love:

Positive self-talk to challenge your negative story: Have you found it hard to feel compassion for yourself? That might mean you feel undeserving. Whatever your old story that left you feeling bad, give yourself a break. We all screw up and make mistakes.

Practice imagining what a loved one would say to you if they knew you were experiencing this feeling: Using your mind’s eye, see yourself being someone in your life who knows you’re going through something. What would they say? Or, practice seeing them going through what you are and ask yourself, what would you tell them?

What would it take to forgive yourself for your mistakes: Deciding this is important to learning to love yourself. Moving in a direction that allows you to care enough about yourself is a first step. Consider whether you want to apologize to people you’ve hurt or make amends. If it’s you that you hurt through negative behaviors, addictive tendencies, avoidance, or unwise choices, make a plan to cope for the next time you experience a similar situation.

Take small but meaningful steps: When a child takes their first step, it’s meaningful, and each step after is equally important. Allow yourself to take small but meaningful steps as you learn to change and adopt self-love.

Become your life coach: Nobody needs Tony Robbins. He’s just there to help those that want to use him. Tony Robbins has tools, but so do you. Rather than putting yourself down or punishing yourself with negativity, become your life coach. You likely know where you want to go and know enough to find your way there. You can become that little voice that pushes you to make other choices and learn it’s never too late for a new life.

The Daring Truth: The truth is we are all going to go out of this world someday. Life’s too short to take it too seriously. It’s alright that we’ve lived some, made poor choices, and royally screw something up once in a while. It’s what you do after that matters. The truth to self-love is being able to continue to move forward towards positives because you deserve them.

“One’s mastery of self-love is found because they slept alone too much.”

— J.M.

Takeaways

If you love yourself enough to find humor in anything, even if you’re the only one who understands it, you’re doing well. If not, you’ve got work to do.

Self-love is important. We can’t go through life hating the person we see in the mirror. If we’re not taking the time to prioritize our physical and mental well-being it’s often a sign we lack the ability to love ourselves.

Practicing mindfulness, forgiveness, and introspection are ways to achieve a more positive mindset. And as a side note, they’ll help you manage the scariest times in your life.