How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you
Rupi Kaur
Self love is a term that is thrown around frequently in regards to our mental and physical health. It is also used simultaneously alongside relationship goals, with experts often implying if you don’t love yourself, how do you expect others to love you?
Self love, though as a concept, is far more complex and is irrevocably intertwined with each of our own individual feelings of self worth and confidence. The issue being how can you love yourself, when you harbour feelings of negative self worth and have zero self confidence?
Self love plays an important role in helping us achieve and maintain good health and well being in our lives. So with February being the month of ‘manufactured love’, our article will focus on igniting true, long-lasting measures to help you find and love yourself.
What is Self Love?
Self love is something we all have to work on daily. It is an ongoing mindset of appreciation for ourselves and as such it can naturally go up and down, depending on our day or what is going on in our lives at each significant moment.
Our sense of self love grows through our intentions and actions, which inspires us to grow, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. Only through both positive and negative experiences in our lives, how we adapt and overcome these challenges and how we choose to react to them can we learn to grow, fully appreciate and accept both our strengths and weaknesses and feel at peace within ourselves.
Self love is all about being kind and compassionate towards ourselves, by embracing the parts of ourselves we dislike and celebrating the parts of ourselves we love.
How can I cultivate self love for myself?
Self love is like a rose. It needs to be looked after daily to fully bloom. Some days you will feel positive, fulfilled and happy and other days you will feel unmotivated and question everything in your life. Both types of feelings are perfectly normal and are what essentially make us human.
Self Care
Cultivating self love goes hand in hand with self care. By intentionally prioritising and looking after yourself you will be recognising just how important your mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health are.
Self care has a profound impact on both our mental and physical health. Without protecting our mental health our physical health weakens and we can become susceptible to illness. Self love encourages us to become attuned to our body and mind and to learn to recognise what we need.
Check out our article on self care – https://www.simplesoul.blog/simple-health-seeker/the-importance-of-practicing-self-care-for-your-health/
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is something that we can all benefit from. Mindfulness encourages us to move beyond our ego and to really understand what you want, think and feel.
Mindful people tend to focus on what they need in their life, rather than being swayed simply by wants or desires. They also actively work towards their dreams because they understand the importance of embracing their authentic self and are much more content and at peace in their day-to-day lives. Research has also indicated that mindful people are less materialistic and enjoy experiencing life, rather than simply being motivated by power, status or money.
Allowing yourself to make mistakes and fail
Our need for perfectionism in our society often leads to lower feelings of self worth and confidence. Social media celebrates the notion of a perfect body, perfect family, perfect career and a perfect life, but life is not about being perfect. By learning to view our mistakes or failures as stepping stones, we can positively work on becoming the best version of ourselves. By overcoming obstacles and viewing obstacles or challenges as a learn experience, we promote greater healing and understanding in ourselves and allow ourselves to grow emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
So when you make a mistake or fail, be kind and gentle with yourself. Forgive yourself, pick yourself up and always try again. Everything happens for a reason and often the trials and tribulations that challenge us are what moulds us into the best version of ourselves we can be.
Living a purposeful and meaningful life
You will accept yourself and your life more fully when you live with a clear sense of purpose. Decide what it is that gives your life meaning. Even something as simple as living a happy, healthy life can ignite a sense of purpose. By taking actions every day to be happy or to eat healthily, you are actively following your purpose and creating a meaningful life.
Remember we only get one life, live it! Go for your dreams, no matter how far away they seem! By taking a small step towards your dream each day it will manifest into your life sooner than you think.
Practice a positive mindset
It may sound simple but adopting a positive attitude will do wonders for your self esteem. It will also positively reframe your perceptions of yourself. Positivity is also infectious. If you maintain a positive attitude, you will notice your communication and interactions with everyone around you will also become much more positive.
A positive mindset also reinforces your emotional resilience, boosting your mental health. By looking at the silver lining, whenever you are facing a challenge or crisis, you will be positively reframing the enormity of what you face, into much more manageable chunks.
By practicing one or all of the above steps you will be working towards cultivating a greater sense of peace and self love within yourself. The more self love you can feel for yourself, the healthier your relationships and communication with others will be. Try it today and see how worthy you are of love!