Self-love can benefit many factors in your life, physically, emotionally and mentally. Although, many people view self love as egotistical, however caring for yourself is the most important thing in life. In addition, having self love doesn’t only benefit you, but it benefits your relationships, whether it be with friends, family or intimacy. The way we see ourselves impacts our relationships, our careers and how others perceive us. Lack of self-love can create poor mental health which can affect every factor of life.
What are the benefits of self-love?
There are many benefits of self love that benefits yourself and your life and an overall sense of confidence and an improvement on your health. Here are some of the many benefits:
Healthier eating
Confidence
Feeling comfortable in your own skin
Healthier relationships and boundaries
Managing depression and anxiety symptoms
Boost of confidence
Helps to achieve goals in life
Reduces stress
There is a saying that states ‘you can’t love anyone if you don’t love yourself first’. Although this is extreme, loving yourself does benefit you and your relationships. You won’t always question your self-worth and feel too dependent on your partners for your sense of self-worth. You’ll know what you deserve and what you are worth and set healthy boundaries within these relationships or if fitted, leave relationships that aren’t treating you the way you deserve to be treated and loved. Self-love also stops you from criticizing yourself and puts things into perspective. Accept your weaknesses and improve on them.
Practices
There are loads of different ways to practice self love. However, the most important one is to prioritize yourself. Put you first before anything, do the things you love, take that day off and stop criticizing yourself. Instead embrace your weaknesses and learn from them. Stop comparing yourself to others. Comparisons to others only makes you think negatively. Everyone is uniquely different and beautiful in their own way. Start each day telling yourself something positive, whether it be something nice about how you look or something good you have done. Anything that will make you smile and have a positive day.
Having a great sleep routine is good as well. Make sure you are getting the right amount and good quality of sleep so you wake up feeling refreshed.
Set yourself small, manageable goals that will bring you a sense of fulfillment. Surround yourself with good people and atmospheres. Don’t give people your energy if it’s off. Safeguarding your energy is a form of self care and self respect. Creatively express yourself in doing what you love. Run yourself a bath with candles and relax. Open your mind and soul to the idea of loving yourself. It is not cocky, it is not egotistical. It is self care and important for yourself physically, mentally and emotionally. You will thank yourself later.
Why is it important?
Self-love helps how we see and treat ourselves. No one understands your feelings and needs the way you do. Having self-love gives a great sense of self-worth. It eases stress and helps how you face misfortune in life. Self-love is the best relationship you can have with yourself. You’ll be more confident and secure within your soul and being. Self-love is the act of taking responsibility to our own happiness. You are your biggest priority. You know what you deserve in life and you’ll do whatever it takes to accomplish goals and live a fulfilling life without questioning what you can and can’t do.
On the other hand, without self-love you are more likely to tolerate abuse or mistreatment from others, neglecting your own feelings because you must deserve it. You’ll most likely be highly critical of yourself and try to please people instead of pleasing yourself.
In addition, self-love is so important to being more confident and understanding of not only yourself but others too.
What does self-love look like?
Self-love looks like loving yourself for who you are and accepting your weaknesses rather than criticizing them. You know your rights and what you deserve and aren’t afraid to say it. Self-care is taking care of yourself both physically and emotionally. The more you focus on what you like about yourself, the rest will follow and you will develop a much more positive attitude to life and what it entails. Self-love can be defined as having a high opinion of yourself, knowing your self-worth and what you deserve out of life and relationships. It is about seeing your flaws and loving yourself anyway and treating yourself with kindness and compassion.
Learning to love yourself is important. It’s learning to love yourself with all your imperfections and forgiving yourself and others to maintain a happy and positive mindset and content soul. Having self-love will benefit how you view situations and how you deal with them. It will help you communicate better and see things from the other person’s point of view and understand their feelings better and be more compassionate towards them.
To empathize, there is no such thing as perfect and that is very important to understand when starting the journey towards self-love.
Signs that you are lacking self-love
Poor mental health – Lack of self-love can cause a variety of affects to your mental health. It can cause you to have body dysmorphia and eating disorders which will affect your mental and physical health.
Low self-esteem – You’re constantly picking out flaws and mistakes in yourself and becoming more insecure.
Being needy – You depend your happiness on other people and you are constantly seeking acceptance from others rather than accepting who you are. This can affect your relationships as clinginess can become overbearing for some people and most likely push them away.
Vigilance – You struggle to be yourself and try to behave the way others do, never allowing yourself to be your true authentic, beautiful self.
Having toxic relationships – Being involved with people with poor energy and intentions is a sign of lack of self-love as you start to feel like it’s what you deserve.
Critical of yourself – Constantly calling yourself names, feeling unworthy and unlovable. Always comparing yourself to others and concealing flaws and the true you.
Self-love is a long journey. It doesn’t happen overnight. You need to put that care into yourself and accept you for who you are. Everyone makes mistakes and that’s ok. Having an off day is ok. You are the top priority and the main person that controls your happiness. Look for the root of the cause and start there. Eventually, you’ll get there.