Love your family. Love your friends. Love your partner. Love your children. Love your co-workers. We hear the call to love everyone around us, but I am here to call you to love yourself first, and it’s not selfish.
We need to pay more attention to the logic behind self-love. All our life, we have been asked to love everyone around us, but the first and most important thing we must do is love ourselves. We must take care of our well-being to provide others with that support and kindness. Because as long as you don’t love yourself, it becomes impossible to be in love with people around you.
What Is Self-Love?
Love is a beautiful emotion universally. We all agree with it. It feels great to be in love with someone, but imagine how lovely it is when you can love yourself.
Self-Love is understanding yourself and what you need—understanding your body and mind—caring for it—giving it the space and things it needs. Practicing self-love helps you that you are complete in yourself. You are not damaged or broken. You are good enough. You understand that prioritizing yourself isn’t that bad. It is not terrible to seek your happiness first. It isn’t harmful to pursue your health first. You are the hero in your life story. You are the main protagonist. You are the sun; you are what you are; let the world dance to your tunes.
Six Foundational Pillars of Self Love
There are six foundation pillars on which you build the monument of self-love. These are the most essential to self-love. Knowing these pillars will help you explain your journey to self-love.
1. Self-Acceptance is important
It is accepting the fact that you do not have to be perfect to be able to love yourself. Believe that you are wonderful the way you are, even with those curves, or be without them; this is you. Whether you want to change your appearance or keep it the way it is. Accept that this is you.
2. Set your Boundaries to Maintain a Healthy Relationship
Cultivating healthy communication and limitations in your relationships can help you create boundaries for self-love. Give and take is part of life. But it would be best if you learned to create boundaries. Those who care about you will understand and respect them when you set your limits where you do not want others to be in that space. That is entirely okay. It is even healthy to keep these boundaries.
3. Self-Care for Growth
Make time to meet your needs in the best way possible while spending time on your hobbies and interests. Focus on your growth first—inner growth before exterior growth. But take care of both. Understand what you need on the inside first. Take time to know what your internal needs are.
4. Listen to your Inner Voice
Change the way you talk to yourself and about yourself. Work on the voice in your head. Do not make depreciating talks about yourself. Give yourself positive self-talk. Let it fill you with confidence instead of worry in your mind.
5. Do Something to Self-Discover Yourself
Start learning things you like. Developing goals, hobbies, and interests that make you happy. Spend time with yourself every day. You can only love yourself once you know how to spend time with yourself. Do something for yourself, and do things that involve you while trying to self-discover yourself.
6. Mental Health should be a Priority
Try to focus on stress management and mental health. Try to Learn healthy coping skills. Understand where you stand with your mental health. Measure the growth from the last time you took a check-up of yourself. Ask yourself questions and be honest about them. Your mental health should be a priority. If you cannot give yourself the best mental state, you will not be able to make it better for anyone. You will drive away your loved ones.
These essential pillars build the foundation on which your self-love. Indeed, these six pillars will help you learn what exactly self-love is about. Focus on these first and build on them firmly; hence, this will help boost your self-love Journey.
Self-Love Exercises
When you can love yourself, you cultivate the capacity to spread love to others. Below are eight exercises one must follow daily to have a healthy lifestyle.
- Compliment yourself in the morning
- Prepare your favorite Breakfast
- Spend An Hour On Exercise While Listening To Good Music
- Celebrate Your Victories
- Take 5-Minute Mental Breaks During Work
- Pat Yourself On The Back if you Completed The Major Task
- Buy Yourself One Flower As A Compliment
- Take A Relaxing Bath After Your Return From Work
- Keep Your Smartphone Away Before You Sleep
- Compliment Yourself Before you are deep asleep.
Final Thoughts
Self-Love is a regard for one’s well-being and happiness. It is a state of appreciation of one’s self-growing from actions that support physical, psychological, and spiritual growth. But there is one thing that people rarely talk about; it is equally important not to practice toxic self-love. Toxic self-love can further deteriorate your mental health conditions. So be gentle and kind.
I’d end with Taylor Swift’s magnetic words, “Best believe I’m still bejeweled/When I walk in the room/I can still make the whole place shimmer.”
