As a woman, you are raised to believe that self-love is selfish and that loving others is more important. This usually leads you to a vicious cycle of focusing less on yourself. But you do need to realize that to truly love others, it is imperative to first love yourself. It would help to balance the ‘give and take’ and remind you, “Girl, you need to take a little more for yourself.”
Defining Self Love
When you are fully in love with a partner, you experience feelings of unconditional love, adoration, compassion and total forgiveness. But how often do you have these feelings for yourself? Having feelings of love, compassion and forgiving for yourself should not come from your ego; but instead from an authentic and unconditional love. Understanding this is very crucial for the journey of self-love.
Self-acceptance is the predominant way to discover self-love. This means to love yourself entirely – even if you are too tall, too short, have stretch marks or a bulgy stomach. It is about loving yourself beyond how the world sees you and knowing that your strength comes from within and not from the eyes of the beholder. Self-love promotes overall well-being and brings everything within your power to live a happy life. It encompasses a daily gratitude for the body and mind that you have.
The Components Of Self Love
Self-love enables you to live with a purpose, constantly moving forward to a glorious destiny. It helps to fill your day with enthusiasm and positivity. Self-love can shine at its finest during the most difficult times of your life and it pays to identify and relate to its 3 main components.
- Common Humanity: We must recognize that mistakes, suffering and negative experiences are a part of everyone’s life. We are connected by our imperfections.
- Mindfulness: We must openly and curiously approach negative thoughts and feelings instead of suppressing and ignoring them.
- Self-kindness: We must nurture ourselves and be gentle with ourselves, avoiding too much self-blame and self-criticism.
Tips To Practice Self Love
Mrs. T, is a medical doctor who was known for her extensive social service. But her forced and aggressive philanthropy drained her emotionally and sent her into depression. After one such bout of depression and therapy, she reminded herself of how important it was to look within and understand her own needs. This helped her to find her inner strength and actualize her full potential. She eventually went on to write a best seller self-help book that encouraged readers to explore the emotions that plagued their lives.
Dr.S.Srividhya, Practitioner and Professor of Psychology at Safeguard Family, opines that it is most important to reframe a person’s negative self-image, with positive thoughts. Each of us should realise that everyone’s journey is unique and different.” She goes on to share a few important tips about how to appreciate and love yourself more.
- Love yourself the same way that you experience love with your soulmate.
- Practising self-love should be a natural and daily activity.
- Be super confident of yourself. Confident in what you want and what you do. If you do not believe in your own self, then it will be difficult to convince others.
- Train yourself to take the good with the bad, and embrace imperfections in your own life.
- Social media can feel suffocating at times. But we should be realistic and consciously separate our online and offline lives.
She concludes by adding, “Just as investing in a relationship with a partner needs a daily focus, the same goes for the relationship with yourself. Once you get to that state, you will never want to go back to a life without self-love, because feeling love for yourself, soulful happiness from within, and tranquillity – is such an amazing feeling. Life can be pulled by goals and pushed by drives, but celebrate yourself every day – by just being YOU.”
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