Beauty is not defined by the shape of your eyes, lips, or your thin eyebrows but by being yourself. Being able to accept yourself for who you are is the key to loving yourself. It’s so easy to tell someone to love yourself first but it is difficult to explain how to do it. Everyone has their way of realizing and doing it. So how do I learn to love myself? You will learn today as you continue reading this article. Today you will get to know how to love myself again along with the steps of how do you learn to love yourself.
What is the Importance of Self-Love?
Everyone wants to be adored, cared and loved. Often you might think that this can be done only by someone else. This expectation gives power to those people. When the love you get is not enough or what you deserve, it leaves you empty and broken. So, why can’t you just love yourselves first? Also, check out do you have the Rescuer Syndrome?
Loving yourself will give you a more fulfilling life. You realize your happiness depends on yourself and not on anyone else. Self-love helps you realize your true potential which makes you feel that you can accomplish anything. Your self-esteem increases and you start working towards your growth. It may look like being selfish sometimes but it is not. You realize in order to take care of others, you have to first take care of yourself. (Also read How to Practice Self-Love?)
How to Love Myself Again?
Self-love helps you realize that life can be more satisfying and you can feel content in everything. However, this is a continuous process. You can feel demotivated but can not give up on yourself. You have to have a positive outlook on life and tend to share the positivity with others too.
Life can be a dark place with some bright beautiful days and some shitty ones. Loving yourselves gives you the room to heal from any psychological pain. It also helps you make better decisions and choose options that are healthy for you. So you have to practice this again and again without any excuse or feeling exhausted. (Also read How to Know if Someone Loves You Psychology?)
What are the Effects of not Loving Yourself first?
Not loving yourself is the root cause of all problems that happen in life.
- You would be tired, angry, shameful, and anxious all the time. This leads to making poor choices and forming unhealthy relationships. Relationships, bonds, and friendships will fall apart because everything is breaking you from the inside. Check out 20 Reasons People Break Up.
- You start to seek validation for everything making you feel insecure about yourself.
- Self-destructive behavior also takes root.
- If you are a parent, then this gets even worse because it might take a mental toll on your kids too.
If you are wondering how do I learn to love myself, it starts with small habits. Read more about it in the next segment. (See Anxious Attachment in Adults)
How do you Learn to Love Yourself?
Love is an emotion, a feeling, and an action that you choose to pursue, just like you choose to be angry, sad, or hateful. Loving yourself is the best self-care that one can follow. Loving yourself will improve everything in your life, your health, relationships, decisions, self-esteem, and dreams. One can’t deny that self-love is the key to creating a fulfilling, passionate and fun-filled life.
As said before, saying is much easier than actually doing it. There’s no one-way route to self-love as to how do I learn to love myself. However, here are some ways to push you closer to the path of self-love.
1. Stop Comparing and Start Accepting
The first step in the process of how do I learn to love myself. Everyone has their issues and their imperfections. Comparing yourself with celebrities and models is unrealistic and not even logical. They appear in a certain way because their job demands them to be. However, you should focus on being you and staying healthy. Not the other way around. Accept yourself for who you are. otherwise, you won’t be able to grow. (Also read What is Personalization Cognitive Distortion?)
2. Take Responsibility for Your Feelings
One of the important things in self-love is allowing yourself to feel and embrace your emotions. Feelings help you navigate through the problem. Running away from it only makes it worse as it leads to self-abandonment, hating oneself, self-judging, negative thoughts, etc. If you take responsibility for your feelings and are vulnerable enough to let your feelings out, your mind would not care about rejection and denial. You will start thinking about how to solve the hurdle. (See What is a Positive Mindset?)
3. Forgive Yourself
Forgiving yourself for the past is a vital process in the path toward self-love. Past doesn’t define oneself. If you hold a grudge against yourself, you don’t allow yourself to heal from it. Instead, if you dwell on the past, your mind, and heart would be filled with guilt, regret, and hatred. Accepting your past mistake, and forgiving yourself will allow you to heal and move forward in life. Must read benefits of getting an Emotional Support Animal.
4. Set Healthy Boundaries
Saying no to your friends or others necessarily doesn’t mean that you are a bad person. You might be mentally drained from work and want to cancel on your friend. Still, if you suck it up and go with it, you would not only ruin your mental health but also spoil your friend’s evening. Unless you take care of yourself, you cannot support and take care of the ones you love. Setting healthy boundaries and sticking to them no matter what is taking a step towards a healthy and fulfilling life. (See How to End a Toxic Friendship?)
5. Commit to Daily Acts of Love
As mentioned earlier, practice self-love every day through small acts that make you happy. This is one of the primary responses to how do I learn to love myself.
- Treat yourself when you do something good or achieve your goal no matter how small it is. Buy sweets and shop for yourself.
- If you love buying things for others, do that too. Whatever makes you happy, follow your heart and do that.
- Choose habits that energize and uplift you.
- Write good things about yourself. (Also read 18 Symbols that Represent Love)
So, hope this article helps you know how do I learn to love myself, what are the ill effects of not loving yourself, and also to discover ways as to how do you learn to love yourself. (Also read What Symbolizes Bravery?)
