Loving yourself has been on the rise as of late and I really think it’s here to stay. Maybe perhaps it’s WHAT I’ve been choosing to see/experience more and more of and so now I see it everywhere; at least in my digital/real world. It’s a beautiful thing to witness people loving themselves, but what does it mean exactly?
Here is the definition of self-love from my perspective:
Self-love means being kind to yourself. Being kind to yourself means not putting yourself down, not telling yourself “I suck” at doing things; self-love has a lot to do with how we talk to ourselves – our inner dialogue, our thoughts, what we think of ourselves.
Self-love means being happy with the way you look and not looking at the perceived flaws that you “think” you have. It means loving ALL of you, especially the parts that aren’t perfect.
Self-love means we deserve to have what we desire. We deserve to be happy and not feel guilty about it. We deserve to cut toxic, mean, assholish people out of our lives. Self-love puts “you” first, Â all in the context of not harming others of course.
To those who don’t understand, self-love might be perceived as a form of selfishness. Why? Anyone that calls you selfish is probably projecting something towards you. When someone is projecting it means they’re putting an issue out there (maybe towards you or someone else), when in fact the issue has to do with them. I wish I could explain it better but just know that self-love DOES NOTÂ equate to selfishness…
Self-love also doesn’t equate to acting like you’re better than others either, it is way deeper than that.
I’ve been seeing this phrase a lot online: “when we love ourselves first, then we can love others”.
Or I’ve also seen it as: when we heal ourselves first, then we can heal others.
I believe both statements are absolutely true. When we practice self-love (or self-healing), the issues that we have had in the past tend to gradually disappear – some issues like being needy and self-centered or wanting attention from someone else, feeling the need to be right, etc. Things of that nature, things that tend to involve the ego or the “I”.
Practicing self-love is going to be an ongoing process, it’s not something that happens overnight. I still feel like I’m working on some things, as we all are. It’s part of the human experience and why we came to earth in the first place.
But we’re all making progress everyday and that’s better than not doing anything.
One of the books that helped me achieve self-love is by metaphysics author Louise Hay. Her book “You Can Heal Your Life” is an easy read. So easy that it’s hard to believe that it’s simple. It really is.
Let’s all learn to love ourselves more and more each day.â¤ď¸
I created the above image in Photoshop and saw that it was GIF worthy, maybe I will post a tutorial.
