Self-love is something that you can do and something that is often talked about. Some people wonder why you don’t love yourself more while others believe that you need to strive harder to love yourself more or equal to your friends or loved ones.
It can be tiring to listen to people that make suggestions on how to live a self-loved life and even though you are probably someone that wants confidence or to be successful, you might not just be feeling it right now.
When you talk about self-love, do you even understand what it is? Find out more about self-love.
Understanding Self-Love
Self-love doesn’t mean that you feel good. This is a choice that you make where you can understand yourself more including what you are good at, what you have lost and the mistakes that you have made. This means that you are having a conversation with yourself without being overly judgmental about what you have done wrong.
When you have self-love, it can benefit you by helping to:
- Make you have less depression.
- Giving you less stress.
- Helping you to overcome stress easier.
- To be more positive in your life.
- To make better lifestyle changes.
Self-love is simply just how you treat yourself and how you look at yourself deeply.
Is Self-Love Beneficial?
Having self-love is important to help you to live a happier and healthier life. You will be influenced by people that you know but the way that you understand yourself and view yourself is equally important. The way that you make connections and the way that you interact and cope with hard times in your life is part of your self-care and self-love.
Why Do You Not Love Yourself?
A person that has low self-esteem probably has a lack of love for themselves. This could be something that they have struggled with since childhood or it could be something that just came on life recently.
There are negative things that come with having a lack of self-love including:
- Being sexually active at an earlier age.
- Using addictive drugs or alcohol.
- Doing self-harm.
- Having eating disorders.
Having a lack of self-love can cause you to take actions, like the ones above, which can lead you to a traumatic event or it can happen because of traumatic events that you have experienced.
It is important to remember that having low self-esteem because you don’t love yourself is not really true and it is just a way that you see things.
Learning to Love Yourself
Self-love is not something that you always have but it is something that you can always learn. Here are some ways that you can love yourself more:
Know Your Feelings
Pay attention to what you are feeling. Make sure that you are aware of these feelings and that you do not try to hide your emotions. Everyone feels sad or angry sometimes and it is important for you to recognize what you are feeling and why you are feeling that way.
Self-love allows you to be mindful of what is going on in your life and why you feel negative.
Accepting Your Feelings
Having emotions and feelings is a normal part of anyone’s life but you have to learn to accept these things instead of just recognizing them.
No matter what you want to feel, know that the feeling is there and see how you can understand why it is there.
Think About Your Feelings
Take time to think about the feelings that you are having. If you saw a friend or a loved one having these same emotions, what would you say to them? Think about how you would talk to them or encourage them.
The way that we treat ourselves should be the same way that we treat others. Don’t be angry and mad at yourself for the feelings that you are having but accept them and be kind to yourself.
Forgiveness
When you have made mistakes, everyone has, there has to be a time for forgiveness. You need to decide that you are going to forgive yourself for whatever you have done and then you need to make the decision to forgive yourself.
You are someone that is going to be harder on yourself than anyone else is going to be but you need to learn to not be so hard on yourself. Encourage yourself and forgive.
Learn to Say No
Self-love means that you are talking kindly to yourself and that you are taking care of yourself. This can mean that you might need to tell people no. If you cannot do something or you don’t feel like it, learn to tell people no. This is part of the way that you show yourself love.
Get Help
Make sure that you are focusing on yourself and that you are getting the love and support you need from others. You can talk to a psychologist or a psychiatrist, a counselor, or a therapist if you need to. There is nothing negative about this.
Self-love means that you are taking care of yourself and that you are investing time into what you need in your life.