The most important relationship in your life is the relationship you have with yourself. Because no matter what happens, you will always be with yourself
Diane Von Furstenberg
The 14th of February, in most societies, marks the day of love. The day we express our love to those that we care about and shower them with bouquets of roses and the finest gifts. Participating in Valentine’s Day is a great way to show appreciation of love towards others. But how much love did you give yourself today, this week, this year, throughout your life?
Self-love is termed as the regard for one’s own well-being and happiness. Self-love is necessary for all human beings. Without the love for ourselves, are we fully equipped to be able to love someone else? I believe that self-love is a lifelong journey and it never ends. Continue reading for a few self-love tips 🙂
Firstly, get to know yourself more. Do not feel guilty for spending time, resources, and energy on yourself! You need to invest in yourself before investing in others. I am sure most of you have heard the saying, ‘you can’t pour from an empty cup’ – unknown. Nourish yourself and fill your own cup first and then this will allow you to pour into another’s cup without feelings of lethargy or being drained as an aftereffect. In less metaphorical terms, this simply means that you cannot care for others before you have cared for yourself.
Thus self-care, self-awareness, and self-love are intertwined, you cannot practice one without immersing in the other. Journaling your thoughts and trying new activities can boost a greater understanding of one’s own interests and thought patterns. The best thing you can do to have a better understanding of who you are is to meditate. This practice will allow you to observe the thoughts you think and identify the ones that are serving you or not. It also helps to distinguish which thoughts and feelings are actually from your core and not influenced by the outer world and this helps you to know who you are on a deeper level.
Secondly, monitor your self-talk and if possible lower the noise of your inner critic. What’s an inner critic you may be wondering? Well we all have one, your inner critic is that voice in your head that speaks back to you when you, for example, want to try something new or ‘challenging’ and it also helps us to navigate what we may have done wrong and how to change this.
The inner critic in overdrive – judges your actions and aspirations, it shames and scolds you. Attempt to have a balance between the inner critic and the inner nurturer. Try your best not to criticize yourself harshly and realize you are doing better than you probably think you are. In most scenarios we let the voice in our head limit us from experiencing life fully and this goes in hand with how we view ourselves.
Thirdly, identify and eliminate self-limiting beliefs. A self-limiting belief is a perception you have of yourself and how the world works. To help you have a better understanding here are some examples of self-limiting beliefs we place on ourselves, ‘I am too old,’ ‘I am too young,’ ‘someone else has probably already done this,’ and ‘I don’t have enough time/money/resources,’ to name a few.
The benefit of identifying your own self-limiting beliefs is that it makes you realize (after analysis) that these are simply not true – they are constructs you created or were told by others. At the end of the day, these are just beliefs and a belief is defined as ‘an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially without proof’. Therefore, your limiting beliefs can be changed into beneficial beliefs and you can instead focus on self-affirmations.
Self-affirmations are positive statements you make about yourself and have faith that they are true. In a nutshell, they are the opposite of limiting beliefs – they grow you instead of limiting you. Some examples of self-affirmations are, ‘I am capable, I am energetic and I am love’. The more you feed your mind and soul with these affirmations, the more you will believe in them (just as you did with the self-limitations) and this will reflect in your outer reality.
Fourthly, ‘comparison is the [greatest] thief of joy’ – Theodore Roosevelt. In this journey of self-love, we need to eliminate or limit the triggers that make us feel less whole and fulfilled. When we compare ourselves to others we are indirectly telling ourselves that I am not loveable until I have what ‘that’ person has.
As a human being, I think it is only natural to look to others for motivation and inspiration. We are social creatures and love to interact with loved ones and our community. However, as I have mentioned in previous blog posts – social media is dangerous as it focuses on the highlights and not the entire picture. I mention social media here again because this generation has access to the snippets of the lives of millions. In the past, most people probably compared themselves to their neighbors or the people they actually interacted with in real life. I am not saying I find the latter right, but it just shows the larger scale and mass comparisons we have in this internet age which in turn leads to greater feelings of insecurity. To help lessen negative comparisons you can try to write down what you are grateful for in your life. You can also limit the time spent on social media platforms and invest more time into yourself or the relationships in your life.
Lastly, remember that self-love is a lifelong journey. Explore who you are and what you like. This article is a guide to shift your perspective and view this subject a bit differently.
This is not a one size fits all manual – we all require different forms of self-love. Pick and choose what works for you, but be cautious – don’t let your inner critic tell you that you can’t try at least one of these because you can! 🙂
Planting Soul Seeds 