Self-love is perhaps one of the most fundamental yet misunderstood concepts in the world right now. A lot of people dismiss it as a new age ideology that cannot be applied in practical terms. But nothing could be further from the truth. This brief article will show you some practical simple ways to developing Self-Love.
Self-love is the ultimate way to boost your self-esteem, boost your confidence and become a fully healed and integrated human being. People often come at the idea backwards. They look at attributes such as the way that a confident person walks and/or observe their traits. But fundamentally, all radical change begins from within. You then start to really value yourself as a powerful creator of your own reality and deserving of love and respect from everybody.
Self-love is the opposite of selfish. You cannot love another person unconditionally unless you love yourself first. “It is the first step towards the feelings of worthiness and will lead you to a path of true happiness and forgiveness”, summarises Dr Robert G. Neff.
When you have Self-love, you’re not engaging yourself in destructive patterns of behaviour and turning a blind eye. It has nothing to do with arrogance or narcissism and it’s everything to do with becoming a fully whole and integrated individual, mentally, spiritually and physically.
When you are able to exercise Self-Love, your life will become so much easier and fulfilling in general areas of life. This is because you will not sabotage yourself as much, which is what everybody does with their beliefs about unworthiness. You will also have much more stability in your life as you will no longer depend on others for fulfilment. Your emotions and reactions will not be volatile and you will actually become detached (but not uncaring) from a lot of stuff that goes on in the world.
Love is the ultimate building block of the entire universe. Humans are born into the arms of loving parents and die with their loved ones around them (ideally). They live and die by love alone. In the words of Gautama Buddha:
“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you”
Your ability to love yourself and others is all that really matters. How to get there is another matter entirely. For this, you have to find out who you are and love yourself unconditionally. As you probably know, a lot has been said about Self-Love and it’s importance and today you will have another opportunity to learn few other things of importance in regards to loving yourself to live the life you deserve.
Below are 5 Simple Ways that you can use to be kind to yourself and be filled with Self-Love and become the person you are meant to be and achieve your life goals.
1. Journal Down The Good Stuff From Your Day
You have already accomplished so much in your life that you sometimes fail to take note of. Schools, a dream job, wedding, buying a house, maybe even childbirth. You have also gone through challenging times and disappointments. But you do not give yourself credit for any of it, and there is no reason not to be proud of these experiences, why? whatever experiences you have come across, you have surely learnt something of value from them and it’s okay to acknowledge this.
This is just the iceberg, and sometimes we feel like there is no way to document all you have accomplished in writing. You should definitely try it because it is only when you start to write down all that has happened to you and all that you have achieved and appreciate, that you come to understand how lucky you are. Gratitude and appreciation are just a mindset. Unless you develop these faculties, you are still going to search for more and more.
Despite getting more and more, you are never going to be satisfied. The world is full of people seeking more and more, and it never works out because they’ll never be satisfied if they’re not appreciative of what they already have! What works is being appreciative and grateful for what you have. This is the key!
So it is important to keep a gratitude journal if you don’t already do and close to your bedside. Every morning and evening before going to bed, write down just 3 things that you are happy about. It does not matter what is coming up or how the day went, you just have to write down 3 things in the gratitude journal. This will create a positive shift throughout the day. As you write down and look over all of the positive things that happened in your life, you will start to cultivate a mindset of appreciation.
As you do this, you start to appreciate life more, which will have a snowball effect in your life. Make a habit of writing down all that you enjoy. It is one of the easiest and most effective strategies to cultivate self- love.
You have far more to be joyful for than you believe, but you need to take the first step and remove yourself from a negative mindset. Nothing positive comes from a negative mindset! If writing does not suit, you could also just remember some happy memories or keep a scrapbook full of nice pictures. It just has to be a repository of positive items or traits that you appreciate about yourself. You can even do recording journal where you have a record of your audio of your day.
2. Eliminate The Negatives
The fact of the matter is that you deserve better than what you are achieving right now. And you should not be in any way reluctant to get rid of things that are not serving you. Things that you need to eliminate or reduce the time you spend on them will likely include the news, social media, technology, unhealthy foods, excessive alcohol, smoking, negative thoughts, procrastination and sloth in general. But it goes further than this. You have to get out of a relationship that you are not fully committed to.
While the idea of finding fulfilment from a partner alone is incredibly misguided, you should at least feel happy with your partner and be compatible. If not, be kind and honest to yourself and the other person and talk to them about it rather than pretending because you don’t want to be alone.
Work is one place where you need to really make sure you are the right fit. If you are really unhappy at work or in your role, then leaving might be the better option. Alternatively, you might want to save some cash and wait for an opportunity to make the switch. An unhealthy work environment can be very damaging to your self-esteem and confidence. The important thing is to first know what you want, what makes you happy and find ways to achieve that. There are many options available nowadays with the internet full of opportunities and if you really want the life of your dreams, you can have it. But you have to make a decision and take the first step.
The truth is that the best way to yourself self-love involves eliminating many of the things that make you feel put you down, don’t support you or your goals. It’s important to ensure that you are putting yourself first by removing the excess unbeneficial things in your life. This is a far more simple step than most people make it out to be. When you have finally quit your toxic relationship or that job you hated, the relief will just be unmeasurable.
There are many people who have said that quitting their job to go travel the world was the best decision of their lives because it allowed them refresh, reanalyse and have new ideas and plans come their way. That freedom is like nothing else! Maybe this is not for everyone but whatever it is you want to do, you just have to take a step of faith and do it.
You will also have to eliminate limiting beliefs. These beliefs often stop you from really caring about yourself. You might believe that you are not a confident person or that you are always depressed or introverted. But these beliefs often come from a single past experience that you thought about a lot and repeated to yourself. When you adopt positive beliefs, your enjoyment will truly start to unfold and you can unashamedly pamper yourself without any guilt or reluctance.
3. Take A Break And Refresh
Every individual needs rest and relaxation. What this entails is unique to everyone but it’s so important and many people don’t do this enough. It could be sitting beside a fire place and reading a book, going to the spa for a massage, or taking a walk in nature or along the beach. Regardless, identify what you like to do and fit them into your daily life as much as possible. Because you deserve to do them frequently. When you put off things for a long time period, it can create a sense of restlessness and exhaustion in the mind.
Most people put off living their life until they reach vacation time. But joy and happiness need to be present at work, home, and of-course at vacation time. These are not something to be put off for one single second as there are so many little things that can be done to give rest. You should smile going into work and smile coming out. While this might round ridiculous, there is no reason it cannot be this way except for your conditioning. There has been several studies done on the importance of smiling and its health benefits.
Despite the seriousness of any event, you can reframe it in your mind in a better way so it doesn’t make everything miserable for you. Consider that many people are happy just to have food or their health. Remember that you create your own happiness, so make a habit of finding or creating those moments to make you happy instead of waiting for it to arrive. Alternatively, If you do schedule regular relaxation time for whatever it is that you like to do on a daily basis, then you can be happy, smile and enjoy that recreation.
There is always something to appreciate around you, sometime you just have to look more closer to home to find it. However, if worse comes to worst, you can just open your gratitude journal to see how good life really has really been for you.
4. Prepare For A Better Future
Every person needs a goal or something to look forward to. While this most often takes the form of financial gain, sometimes is be best to focus you and how you can develop yourself emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically in order to be the best you can be. Set out a plan for self-development that is comprehensive and all-encompassing, be teachable and learn from others especially from those you admire and have the life you aspire to have. In this way, you will have a framework and a guide to work on to allow you to achieve your goals.
Obviously, you can’t become too dogmatic in terms of what you achieve with this. But you need to commit to improving each and every day to be ultimately fulfilled and. There are many brilliant online courses that are designed specifically to increase Self-Love and overall well-being. Some consist of a number of practical month long experiments that are designed to push you to the limits of your consciousness.
At least, you should have one or two philosophies or speakers you follow whom you look up to and you can also find these on YouTube or even reading books. There is so much information out there to help you learn and achieve more on how to be kind to yourself with Self-Love, you just need to be consistent and dedicated to the journey.
Your chosen speaker or philosophy should obviously be something that resonates with you deeply. It’s always helpful if you have a circle of people who you are friends with that following the same path. If you do put in the work you are going to get better and putting that work in is the best thing you can do for yourself. There is no reason to get overly dogmatic about whether the philosophy is correct or not.
Different speakers have different teachings which are all useful, in other words, what they teach work for certain people at certain times. The whole idea is for you to enjoy the journey and feel that you are growing as as an individual, this is a Self-Love at its best when you can recognise your growth. The choice is actually yours to either thrive or remain stagnant!
5. Watch Your Self-Talk
Everybody has a huge amount of negative chit-chat going on inside of their heads. They have had past negative experiences and then fear that this will happen again. They might not feel confident, might have social anxiety, financial worries, health issues and more. But the worries that one have around these issues far dwarf the events themselves. In the words of Carl Jung: “We have found the enemy, and he is us”. The truth is that we are our own worst enemy. That is why it’s very important pay attention to how you internally talk to yourself as this is critical for learning to cultivate an intimate feeling of self-love.
We often criticise ourselves endlessly and are highly aware of what other people think of us. The problem is that when we focus on what others think of us, we do not receive the fullness that life has to offer, because we miss the details while our focus on our identities and what other think of us. My advice to you is this: Be kind with your self-talk. You are doing way better than you think regardless of where you are at in life.
Everybody has their unique struggles they go through and you are doing your best either to pull yourself out of a hole or to attain higher states of awareness. Either way, you need to remain focused on the positives and make some affirmations to help you on the way. You can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Lots of people have made a lifelong habit of complaining about where they are at and being unhappy with their circumstances, yet they’re not willing to do anything to get them out of those circumstances. They constantly think about what they are doing wrong.
Sometimes it’s a good idea to analyse how you talk to yourself and see if this is really helpful! Here are some examples of what individuals may say to themselves, something that is really not necessary as it’s not helpful. Things like:
● “I am thirty and will never get a boyfriend”
● “I am overweight”
● “Some people are just not good with money”
The above statements can be completely different with a proper Mindset Shift and can sound like:
● “I am young and have my life ahead of me”
● “I am working on myself and will loose weight soon”
● “Money is just a product of mind that I will master as I am learning”
Your self-talk has the biggest impact on your overall well-being and self-care. Make sure to let yourself know that it is ok to cry, that you are worthy of love, that life is enjoyable, that you have nothing to fear, and that you can manifest anything that you want. Ultimately, this is empowering. You are the one who gets to decide how you feel by deciding what you allow in your thoughts. When you change your thoughts, you can transform your life.
Final Thought
Finding out who you really are and generating self-love for yourself is the most rewarding experience that you can have. Giving yourself Self-Love is actually uplifting, revitalising, compassionate, and completely natural. It is the way that things are meant to be and somehow we let it slip through our fingers. Making some changes to your lifestyle habits such as taking up meditation, practising the attitude of gratitude, having regular exercise habits and eating healthy might start out as chores to you but as you stay consistent they become part of you. They will start to enhanced your life and you’ll learn to truly take care of yourself, love yourself in a meaningful way and transform your entire life.
Life is inherently easy as long as you stop tricking yourself into believing you should be doing better. Be kind to yourself, do your best every day at what you can. Always remember to take a break, relax and recharge yourself. No one has the power to judge your life except you, and you are the only one who can make it better by appreciating yourself more.
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