Why is self-love so important anyway?
Self-love was probably one of the biggest buzzwords of 2019 with every one tweeting, captioning and talking about it. But what is self-love, really? Simply put, self-love is the forgiveness, acceptance and respect for you are.
We so often forget that love is an action word, not just an inexplicable feeling. Love requires action and without it, it cannot truly exist. We understand platonic and romantic relationships to require ‘work’ but a better word is action. All relationships require action as that is what love demands. Why do we think relationships with ourselves are different? Better yet, why do we not want to do the work & take the necessary actions to love ourselves more meaningfully and truly?
The answer is simple. Self-love isn’t a priority for many of us because we weren’t raised to think it was of any importance. In fact, many of us were raised to be self-sacrificing and more attuned to the needs of others than our own. By divorcing ourselves our own needs to cater to those of others, we begin a toxic cycle of self-sabotage and harm.
How do we break this cycle? How do we start loving ourselves? Well, we first have to change our opinions on self-love. We need to be clear on why self-love is so important.
To do this, I want to offer scientific evidence for the sceptics who think self-love is just fluff. Numerous studies have shown that learning how to love ourselves is beneficial. Here are some examples of findings that have been discovered:
Being kind to yourself results in less anxiety and depression (source)
Self-compassion reduces the stress that leads to procrastination (source)
Self-love can support you through adversity (source)
It is a well-known psychological fact that mistreatment of yourself results in the mistreatment of others. As professor of educational psychology Kristin Neff writes:
Self-compassion involves treating yourself with the same kindness, concern, and support you’d show to a good friend. When faced with difficult life struggles, or confronting personal mistakes, failures, and inadequacies, self-compassion responds with kindness rather than harsh self-judgment, recognizing that imperfection is part of the shared human experience.
Now that you know why we need to self-love, we can tackle how. As a wellness teacher, I’m often asked “well, where do I start? How do I learn to love myself again?”
I love this question because the mere thought of someone going on their journey back to love makes every single minute I spend teaching worth it. Here is my beginner’s guide to cultivating self-love:
Learn self-forgiveness
Self-sabotage creates so much room for self-loathing to fester. We need to forgive ourselves for not always being good to ourselves. We need to forgive ourselves from choosing other people over ourselves. We need to forgive so we can start anew.
Practise self-compassion & appreciation
Be kind to yourself and learn to celebrate yourself. These two things will feel foreign and strange but they are game changers. Instead of harshly judging yourself for a mistake, be kind and gentle with yourself. Instead of rushing a moment when you are being praised for something great you’ve done, celebrate yourself too.
Give yourself attention
Stop ignoring your needs! Also when you find yourself craving a great deal of attention from other people perhaps as a result of a deficit in your childhood, that’s a sign that you need turn inward and give yourself the attention you seek.
Allow yourself to feel
We haven’t been initiated well with our feelings, they are the campus to our deepest desires and areas of healing. The best way to get over a negative emotion is to feel it. When we supress feelings, we trap them within ourselves for longer than they had intended to stay. Feel everything.
Accept who are
Self-love starts with self-acceptance. Self-acceptance is not synonymous with complacency. Self-acceptance allows you to see yourself clearly and not through rose tinted lenses. It also allows you to improve yourself from a place of kindness not resentment.
You can follow me on Twitter & Instagram @PhemiSegoe for all things love and personal development.