Self-Love

“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do.” — Brené Brown

There are many quotes, phrases, passages, etc, that talk about the importance of self-love. Many of us see these phrases and quotes, repost them on social media, and go about our day without the very self-love that was reposted. I myself have been guilty of this. However, during a conversation with a close friend, we started talking about self-love and its importance. This sparked my interest to dig deeper into self-love, what it is, why it is important, and how to start loving oneself. If any of that interests you, keep reading below, just keep in mind that this is my own thought process on the subject.

What is Self-Love

As defined by the online Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:

Self-Love
noun
ˌself-ˈləv
Synonyms of self-love
: love of self: such as
a
: an appreciation of one’s own worth or virtue
Self-love begins when we observe our actions and words with compassion as if we were our own best friend.
—Sara M Bosworth
Just as you’d think, it’s love—particular, self-love—that makes the world go around.
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Often, we are reluctant to promote self-love, mostly because we confuse it with selfishness. Since we are humans, we ought to have a healthy love for ourselves; it is from this fount that love flows out to others.
—Mason Olds
b
: proper regard for and attention to one’s own happiness or well-being
Nurturing your body seems simple, but for me, it feels like an extreme act of self-love.
—Danielle d’Entremont
Lisa Concepcion, a certified professional love life coach and founder of LoveQuest Coaching, says that journaling is an excellent way to practice self-love.
—SheKnows

My definition of self-love is the care, patience, self-discipline, compassion, and acceptance one shows towards oneself. It is like the love that is projected outwards to others, but inwards. It helps with having a healthy relationship with yourself. Additionally, it helps with enforcing boundaries that keep our energies safe from those who can drain, inflict pain, confusion, etc, in one’s life.

Quotes

While I am not religious, I do enjoy many teachings of the Bible and other spiritually related texts. Reading about love can help with understanding oneself and others, while deepening connections. Here are some of my favorite quotes, verses, and sayings regarding love:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

1 Corinthians 13:4-5

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” — Buddha

“The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.” — Maya Angelou

“How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” — Rupi Kaur

Why Self-Love is important

Have you ever heard of the phrase “You can’t love someone else unless you love yourself first”? This phrase used to drive me crazy when I did not love myself as I should have. I loved many people, including those I did not know. I extended love to each and every person without a second thought. I’ve had a hard time with self-love since I was a teenager. It wasn’t until recently that I found out how to love myself and why that phrase is important. Though I do feel as if the phrase is either incomplete or worded incorrectly.

The more I pondered on this phrase, the more I realized it wasn’t about not being able to love others correctly; it was about projection. When you see yourself in a certain way, it’s easy to think others see you the same way. When we do not love ourselves correctly, we reject how others see us by default. Love is not able to make a full circle; it’s not reciprocated. Doubt can be planted, suspicion arises, and a lack of trust can develop.

Additionally, when we do not love ourselves fully, it can be easier to fall into manipulation, abuse, and other behaviors that are not loving at all. Self-love creates boundaries and shows other people how to love us with respect. It gives us the strength to walk away from actions and behaviors that are harmful to our sense of self.

Self-love is vital for creating healthy relationships and for accepting how others show up. It’s not about not being able to love others; it’s being able to love others, yourself, and create healthy, lasting bonds that are fully accepted. It also helps with compassion, forgiveness, and grace.

Ways to Show Yourself Love

As someone who was not always very loving to herself, I found self-love to be a challenge at first. All the blogs I read about self-love were focused on self-care and pampering oneself. While those were good ideas and helped along the way, I still felt like I did prior. I was just trying to appear as if I loved myself. I tried to fake it until I made it, words of affirmation, and meditation. I even started a crystal collection, reading about self-care, and applying what I learned.

So, why was I having so much trouble with self-love? A few reasons. Negative self-perception, not being disciplined, seeking external validation, and being overly critical of myself. It took a long time to understand that I needed a shift in my perception of myself, and that takes time. Everything else started to fall into place once I accepted where I was in life and changed how I viewed myself. I did this by:

Learning how to become an observer of my mind and accepting my thoughts with compassion, then redirecting them to the reality of a situation
Becoming disciplined with myself. Consistently learning how to catch negative thoughts about myself and turn them positive. Actively working on the parts of myself that I did not like and could change, and accepting parts that were unchangeable with compassion.
Learning how to be patient with myself as I worked through trauma-related wounds
Creating boundaries for myself that I, nor others, could cross
Removing toxic friends and family from my life. Loving them from afar but not letting them impact my self-perception or peace anymore.
Creating a purpose greater than myself that helps others, like this blog
Exercising and putting healthy food in my body
Listening to more uplifting songs than angry or depressed music
Being mindful of what I am watching
Working on unhealthy habits
Finding people who inspire me to be my best self
Learning new skills
Asking for clarity when someone says something that triggers me to overthink instead of pondering on it
Learning to accept others’ views of me
Working on becoming the best version of myself

Self-love is more than pampering oneself. It’s seeing yourself whole, accepting parts that cannot be changed, working towards things you can, creating boundaries, and staying disciplined within the mind. It’s not easy, and there are days when it is harder, but even if you loathe yourself, you can always make changes to love and accept yourself. You have to live with yourself for the rest of your earthly existence; loving yourself sounds a lot lighter than hating yourself.

I’m not saying these suggestions will work for you; they are what helped me on my self-love journey. I had to sit with myself and truly ask myself what I thought about self-love, see if I had any misconceptions, and find ways that worked for me. I am sharing those ways in hopes of helping someone else on their own self-love journey.

Blog Inspired Music

Below is a song inspired by this blog post. If you like it, you can download it on any streaming platform such as Spotify, Apple, Amazon, etc… <3 Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read and listen to this post. You are appreciated.