April 19, 2022
Self Love
admin
What is self-love?
Self-love is having a deep respect, trust, and unconditional love towards oneself. Self-love is more than having confidence and esteem for yourself. Self-love means loving yourself where you are, in your journey, always. Learning to love yourself is making an unwavering commitment to yourself to honor and choose situations, relationships or events that will best serve you. Loving yourself will mean making choices based on need versus want. Making choices based on your needs over your wants will help set a solid foundation of trust and respect within yourself. The point of self-love is to learn to love yourself through everything you do. The more you choose to cultivate self-love within, the more empowered you will become to choose supportive and optimal situations that will enhance your life. Learning to love yourself is a journey that will likely have many ups and downs, and it will be one of the most rewarding journeys of all.
What does self-love look like?
Self-love, when practiced consistently, will look different for everyone. In general, it is a commitment to show up for yourself every day even if you don’t feel deserving or motivated to do so. Acting from a place of self-love will lead you to choose your needs over placating to another’s needs or desires. It is a knowing of when you can help those you choose to give your energy to and knowing when you are unable to. Loving yourself is honoring this commitment to yourself in each moment, no matter how uncomfortable the situation. For example, your spouse asks you to help them, but you are not feeling like it is something you can do. Instead of saying yes and abandoning yourself, you honor yourself and have a discussion around why you are saying no. Self-love is about developing a relationship with yourself that you want with the outside world and committing to the practice of loving yourself through every single minute of every day. The key to self-love is not to abuse its power by using it as an excuse to say no to everything. Ideally our choices should be made from a place of love and compassion, not hate and discord. If you try to abuse the power of self-love, it can have an alienating impact on your social life.
Signs you are not loving yourself.
Self-love is a practice. Self-love will ebb and flow in life. Some days will be better than others, in terms of feeling confident you are properly practicing self-love. Here are some signs to look for to discern whether you are properly practicing self-love or have become complacent in this area:
- When you begin to settle for less than what you know your heart or soul desires. Procrastinating, playing small, or being fearful of progressing are indicators you are not loving yourself. These behaviors are destructive and keep you stuck in the same rut you are desperately trying to get out of.
- When you stay in situations that do not fully honor and support you. By allowing people to dishonor you and put you down, you are subconsciously letting those negative energies infiltrate your mind. This negative energy can drain you. Instead ask yourself who loves, supports, and encourages you to grow and reach for the stars? Those are the people you want by your side. Emotional, mental, and physical abusive relationships fall into this category. These toxic relationships are not beneficial to anyone and create much discord.
- When you criticize or begin being hard on yourself. Expecting too much of yourself can have detrimental effects on your well-being. Being self-critical does not foster a trusting relationship within yourself. This gives the idea that nothing you do will ever be good enough.
- When you sacrifice your desires for those of others. When you find yourself over-committing to other people, places, or things outside of yourself, this may indicate you are not loving yourself. You simply cannot fill anyone else’s cup but your own. It is not your job to fill anyone’s cup except your own. Disappointment and conflict will continue to be prevalent in life. By choosing to fill your cup of self-love first, you open the door to allow others to take back their power to fill their own cup.
- When you are treating yourself poorly. If you find yourself having negative self-talk, neglecting yourself, or hating yourself, you are not practicing self-love. Engaging in these behaviors will pull you further from self-love. Your subconscious mind will continue to create this script of negative self-talk and abuse, further rooting these thoughts into beliefs that will hold you back from achieving your hearts desires.
Why is it important to love yourself?
It is essential to love yourself. Loving yourself creates a more harmonious present and future for yourself. Knowing how to love yourself can open several different avenues for others in your life to love you. Think about it, if you know how to love yourself, you can easily communicate your needs and desires to those in your life. Thus, allowing others’ the opportunity to meet you with mutual love and support. Practicing self-love unbinds you from taking what other people say personally. Loving yourself provides you the confidence of knowing who you are, not buying into other opinions of you. Rejection will be less painful when you practice self-love. Clarity will surface and become a staple in your life because self-love instills trust and honor within the self.
What are the benefits of loving yourself?
The benefits of loving yourself are endless. You will attract individuals that are more in alignment with you. Here are some areas self-love arises:
- Physically- your neural pathways will change and form new patterns and habits. This allows you to see many different perspectives and ultimately choose a path that is most in alignment with you presently.
- Emotionally- loving yourself affords you to trust and honor where you are, and make choices from that stance rather than, from people pleasing or guilt. Furthermore, your heart will be more open, and you will begin to feel safe making these choices for yourself.
- Spiritually- you will feel more connected to your truth and soul. Feeling connected to your truth and soul provides a stronger reassurance of your true purpose in this life. When you know your purpose in this life, there is such a calmness that allows you the freedom to create loving connections around you.
- Mentally- having self-love affords you the ability to effectively articulate your needs and wants to people so that they can choose whether they are able to support you or not. Ideally, self-love helps “weed” out people from your circle that are not supportive and have tendencies for sabotaging relationships.
When you commit to loving yourself and make it a daily practice, you will be more connected to your soul and self, to be able to make choices with more ease and grace. Being able to embrace challenges with confidence instead of fear or panic. Making self-love a practice will increase your confidence in your abilities to try more challenging things, which can unlock limitless potential for you.
Here is a tool you can use, to strengthen your self-love. First, start slow, this is not a race, rather it is a journey. Choose one area you would like to see results in (from the 5 listed above or choose your own). Next, make a vow or commitment to yourself that you will honor yourself by keeping this commitment. Lastly, write this vow or commitment down and an action step you can take to achieve your goal.
Example: I vow to stop playing small and embrace my heart’s desire no matter what. I will keep my vow by being mindful of how I speak to myself and the ways I allow fear to keep me from reaching my heart’s desire. By being mindful of my self-talk and fears, I can create a different talk track with myself and understand my fears so that I am no longer allowing them to run my life but use them as motivation to propel me towards my heart’s desire.
Share
Tags
Uncategorized