SELF-LOVE IS NOT SELFISH

By Natalie Smith

Everything starts with you. We must “love ourselves” first before we can share love with others. We hear it all the time: “LOVE YOURSELF”. We know how important it is, it’s the most beneficial thing we can do. But what we sometimes don’t hear, or fail to understand, is how. Or we may think to love ourselves first, is selfish because we were taught to do things ,and love others first. It’s actually the opposite, if you don’t know how to care or love yourself first, how can you love others?

What is self-love? Self-love is having a relationship with yourself that has compassionate, kind , patient , tolerant, and curious. It means you are nice to yourself, and are authentic with yourself in both the negative and the positive. You have the ability to take accountability or responsibility for mistakes you made, constantly improving your growth. Selflove is about giving yourself grace and forgiveness when you inevitably make mistakes. It is about believing in yourself, trusting yourself, asserting boundaries and overall deeper connection to yourself. The relationship you have with yourself is the only truly life-long relationship, self-love is the most important love of your life.

It can be more challenging to understand how important loving yourself is. However, even more challenging is what can happen when you don’t offer self-love. Your happiness is dependent on how you take care of yourself and self-love has been linked to increased resilience, and capacity to see things from new perspective. When you put yourself last or fail to love yourself, you will notice increased stress, anxiety and reactivity to the little things that you may have ignored beforehand. Things will feel more difficult for you to handle, this can lead to overwhelming, and your feelings depleted and overall you will be unhappy.

Here are some basic steps to practice self love everyday:

1. Recognize and accept your emotional state

2. Take time for yourself

3. Get enough sleep

4. Exercising

5. Eating right

6. Using self-talk

7. Forgiving yourself

8. Challenging a negative story about yourself

9. Forgiving yourself

10. Committing to self-love

11. Don’t compare yourself to other people

12. Set boundaries

13. Surround yourself with supportive and loving people

14. Change a negative mind wset

15. Keep a gratitude journal

16. Give yourself a compliment

17. Practice mindfulness

18. Celebrate all your wins (big or small)

Self-love leads to better:

1. Happiness

2. Self-acceptance

3. Self-esteem

4. Self-awareness

5. Self-forgiveness

6. Self-discipline

7. Self-worth

8. Self-control