Self-Love: Mind & Body are Allies
“You can’t love someone else if you don’t love yourself first.”
We have all heard this or similar sayings, which can sound like platitudes. But self-love is a crucial and often misunderstood part of leading a fulfilled life. Self-love doesn’t just mean that you take care of yourself physically or pamper and treat yourself. Self-love is about how you view and how you treat yourself. It’s a conscious choice to pay attention to your own physical and emotional health. It means you learn to have a high regard for your own well-being and happiness, you take care of your own needs, you treat and look at yourself kindly and with understanding, and don't judge yourself too harshly. Taking care of yourself can mean different things for each person.
Why is self-love so important?
Because it influences the most important things in your life, like for example how you deal and cope with problems, how you interact with people, who you pick as your friends, what you accomplish in your work-life and ultimately your general happiness and health. Research shows that self-love is also associated with an overall more optimistic outlook on life, less anxiety and depression and better recovery from stress.
A lack of self-love can be due to a variety of reasons like traumatic events in your life, a lack of a good example of self-love in your childhood and so on.
Four important components of self-love are:
Self-awareness: Awareness of your thought process can for example help you realize what situations make you angry or act impulsively but also help realize what makes you happy and feel good.
Self-worth & Self-esteem: Self-worth means that we realize we’re valuable regardless of what we have achieved or the qualities we may have. While self-esteem is more about being content with what you have achieved and who you are. To improve your self-esteem, it is vitally important to improve your self-worth. With a strong feeling of self-worth, you can overcome the feeling of having to accomplish something to justify your existence.
Self-care: Self-care isn’t only about taking care of your physical body (eg. eating right, getting enough sleep, exercise etc.), it’s also about choices you make for your mental wellbeing which can include watching what media you consume, who you spend your time with and so on.
How to practice self-love?
Practice being aware of yourself, especially when you are feeling strong emotions. Sadness, anger and fear can more easily be avoided or resolved if you understand their origins better.
Give yourself advice. When you’re feeling the emotions mentioned above, try to give yourself advice on how to deal with them, but do it from the perspective of an outsider! We often give others very good advice but don’t think about it the same way for ourselves.
Be kind to yourself & forgive yourself. Everyone has experienced situations where they believe they made a mistake, felt regret, shame or humiliation. Try to let go of them and forgive yourself. If it helps, you can try to take actions that would make things right in your own eyes. Being kind and not too hard on yourself is an important step to self-love.
Prioritize your needs over your wants. Focusing too much on what you want or desire can lead to unhealthy behaviors or keep you anchored in the past, so paying attention to what you actually need can increase self-love.
Practice self-care. Try to establish healthy habits like good nutrition, exercise, getting enough sleep, choosing who you spend time with and getting the intimacy you need.
Say no to others. Prioritizing yourself can also mean that you say “no” to others when you feel like you need to. This practice of setting boundaries can feel very empowering.
Practicing self-love is an ongoing process and not always easy. If you find yourself struggling, you can contact me for more information: admin@alfordjeremy.com