Self-love

Self-love is the act of having a high-regard for your own self and your happiness. It involves not settling for less than what you deserve and not putting others happiness over your own. Self-love is an appreciation for yourself that stems from the understanding that we, with all our flaws, are capable and worthy of happiness. It grows from actions that support our mental and physical growth.

The question that is often asked is “how can we obtain self-love?” It cannot be done by simple a new outfit or haircut. Reading something inspirational, achieving a goal, or accomplishing a milestone will not make us love ourselves more. Although these activities may give us a lot of joy and help us feel good about ourselves in the moment, they will not make our love for ourselves grow in any significant way. This is because of the fact that self-love is not just a state of feeling good about ourselves, it is appreciation and regard for ourselves that increases from actions that support our mental growth. Self-love is something that is tricky for many. It is not easy to love yourself, especially if you are someone who has struggled with who you are. However, there are small steps that one can take to help support their mental growth and, consequently, increase their love for themself. This involves the following:

Practice self-care- When learning to love yourself, it is important to take care of yourself. Self-care can be a useful way to achieve this. It does not only involve going out to a restaurant once in a while or putting on a face mask at night. It can include creating a budget for yourself or going for walks every day. Every small step can help make your life more organised and happy.

Don’t compare yourself with others- Comparison is something that everyone does, even subconsciously. It can include comparing yourself with a friend who’s doing “better” at life than you or a sibling who accomplished a major life goal before you. It is important to keep in mind that everyone lives their life at their own pace and comparing yourself with others will not do anything except make you feel bad about yourself.

Worry less about what others think- In many cases, we tend to view ourselves through the eyes of other people, even strangers. We worry about what others are thinking every step of the way. If we attempt to push these worries out of our mind, we can try to do what is best for our self, not what makes us look the best in front of others.

Set boundaries- A very important aspect of loving ourselves is setting boundaries for our self, in our work life as well as our personal life. We must have an idea of how much we are willing to do for others and we must stick to that, or it can end up with us feeling exploited or taken for granted.

In the end, it is important to remember that self-love looks different for different people- some may think of self-love as something that is easy to obtain but others may think of it as a deeper aspect of mental well-being that they struggle with. Understanding and working on what self-love looks like for you is an important part of your mental health. Self-love promotes making healthy choices and helps us build a life that we can be happy with. When we attempt to increase the love we have for ourselves. We learn and grow as individuals. We should find a way to accept our flaws and increase our strengths. When our compassion for ourselves grows, our compassion for other people does too.