Ways to Develop SeLf-Love
Do you really know how to truly love yourself?
To answer this question, you will first need to know what self-love actually means.
You don’t have to become perfect or achieve something extraordinary to love yourself. Self-love is a dynamic action. It is a state of appreciation for yourself that helps you to grow physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Failure and imperfection don’t affect your growth. Selflove is a psychological skill that gets better through practice and continuously loving yourself without any exceptions.
A well-known psychotherapist and life coach, Diane Petrella, asserted that self-love is a gift that keeps on giving. Look at your past. Do you mostly break promises to yourself? Do you often find it rather difficult to put your needs ahead of others? Do you often find that you neglect yourself for the sake of others and their comfort?
If yes, then it’s time to give yourself a very precious gift:
Self-Love
Your inner world reflects your outer world. If you are happy inside, then your outer world becomes happy. Self-love is the secret weapon that makes this possible. Self-love empowers you to live a fulfilling life. Before getting love and respect from other people, you must love and respect yourself first and foremost. In this manner, you don’t welcome any kind of disrespect to yourself.
You should note that self-love is not the same as selfishness (they are two different things). If you limit your beliefs, then it will be hard to take care of yourself. Remind yourself daily that it’s okay to love yourself, and that loving yourself is a dire necessity. Sometimes, you must put your own needs first (like when a flight attendant asks that you secure your air mask before securing someone else’s in case of an emergency). The energy you give out to others needs to be restore if it’s going to be useful to anyone. Loving yourself gives mana to your soul. By taking care of your mind, body, and spirit, you become a better version of yourself. At any rate, you most certainly are not responsible for anyone else’s happiness but your own, and at the same time; no one is responsible for making you happy either. Most of us prefer other affirmations to define our self-worth, which is not the healthy way to go. Some people spend their lives trying to please other people, putting themselves last. But other people can’t make you be at peace. That’s why self-love is so vital. Emerald Sinclair, an author and love coach,says that many women don’t know their actual value and worth.
This is the reason most of those women have issues with finding their destined life partner (DLP), a job they adore, a bank account like Rockefeller, and just an overall fabulous life. Because (unfortunately) they don’t see how they even deserve it. If you want to be treated like a Queen by your man, then you have to treat yourself as a Queen for starters. If you can’t see your true worth (your je ne sais quoi), then it will be difficult for others to see it as well. People are ultimately attracted to those who possess a high amount of self-love. When you love yourself, it’s easy for others to see how loveable you are too. They can’t resist the urge to be a part of your loving energy. It’s like 99.9% contagious. This goes the same for your career and lifestyle. It is YOU who decides what you want in your life and what you deserve (and in case you didn’t know you deserve nothing but the best). You raise your value just by raising your opinion of yourself plain and simple.
Self-Love is the Key to Finding Your True Love
When you love yourself, you will know your feelings better, and start trusting your decisions and intuition more without any fear and/or doubt. By loving yourself first, you will allow those people whose love reflects your own to come towards you. It is inevitable. Through self-love, you will become less focused on the bad things and more on the good things in your life, which in turn makes you more grateful and thus, give you an instant energy boost. Gratitude makes a person happy, and happiness attracts people. You will naturally attract those people that are generous from their heart.
By loving yourself, you will become an inspiration to so many people in life. This does not mean you won’t face any challenges as it were, but you will face and handle them with more confidence and greater clarity. True love, or your twin flame/soulmate, will come into your life at the right time. It’s called Divine Timing. Self-Love will be the reason why you won’t feel so desperate to find your DLP, because by embracing self-love your perspective on time will change. And before long, your DLP has found you when you least expected it and wasn’t really looking for him at that particular moment. You should know that whenever he does find you, you can rest assured that it will happen at just the right perfect time and not a minute beforehand.
By loving yourself more, you will also know how to love others and have higher-quality relationships with all the people in your life. Unnecessary jealousy and insecurity in any relationship can cause complications, but with increased doses of self-love you will know how to manage those feelings within you more amicably. You won’t feel the need to force someone to side with you, because their opinion becomes irrelevant to what ultimately make you happy. At this point you don’t need anyone’s appreciation to feel validated, because your self-love is enough to sustain you in that regard. Just another reason why it’s so important to have your primary relationship be with yourself.
Now the question is, how can you learn to love yourself?
Here are Some Proven Ways to Develop Self-Love:
Know Yourself
Self-discovery is a key requirement for self-love. Knowing your true most inner-self is detrimental before you can begin to learn to love yourself just as you are. What are your quirks? What activities give you the most joy? What do you want in your life? This information becomes the foundation on understanding what makes you so unique. When you can show the world the best version of yourself, it makes you enormously attractive and exceedingly confident.
Set Boundaries
Boundaries are essential to telling others where to stop, and people will test those boundaries as it is human nature to do so. You must realize that boundaries are a form of self-care that lets others know that you deserve and demand respect as a human being. Learn to say “No” before the burnouts and breakdowns happen. To continue to ignore your own needs may cause health related complications in the future. You are the one that teaches other people how to treat you, so learn to let people know the expectations you hold when they choose to interact with you.
Stay Focused
To love yourself, you must stay focused on your dreams, goals, aspirations, and so forth. We all have a life purpose, but not many of us actually live out that purpose. Just know that there’s somebody somewhere out there depending on you (yes you) to do what you were called here to do, because only you can do it in the way they need it done. Focus on increasing your skill-levels, talents, and/or innate gifts to gain continued self-love, self-worth, confidence, and clarity on your life’s mission.
No Comparisons
If you want a happy life, you must believe in this statement: No one is less or more valuable than you. Everyone is different from each other. Accepting yourself means you value yourself with all your flaws because no one is perfect. Once you realize that there is no need to compare yourself with others, you’ll experience a certain level of freedom that most will never understand. Embrace the 4-leaf clover unicorn snowflake of your grand and wonderous self.
Accept Your Mistakes
Given that no one in this world is perfect, you should NEVER be hard on yourself because of the mistakes you’ve made in your life. Let’s face it, you’ve been making mistakes since you were a baby, and will most definitely continue to make mistakes (both big and small) for the rest of your life. The quicker you understand this inevitability, the faster you can make peace with it and move on from your past mistakes. Understand that sometimes those mistakes can be blessings in disguise. It is your imperfections that makes you beautiful. You are imperfectly perfect. Trust
your instincts wherever they may lead you, for it is through your intuition that your soul speaks to you and guides you to your destiny.
Be Honest with Yourself
Some of us deceive ourselves, acting as if we don’t know what we’re doing. We all know honesty is the best policy in relationships. So, why shouldn’t we also be honest in the relationship with ourselves? It may not be easy to love your messy parts, but you should as it is a part of who you are. Self-love is taking full responsibility for your thoughts, actions, and emotions and loving yourself regardless. This can be a very empowering experience when fully immersed to the
commitment of self-love.
Self-Forgiveness
It is a process of slowly believing that what you did was the best you could do for yourself and accepting the outcome. Sometimes, people have major regrets in their lives that they keep holding on to for some reason or another. Unfortunately, you cannot welcome the happier version of yourself unless you forgive your past errors. Once you learn from your mistakes, you stand a chance at making better decisions in the future. The decision that is right for you will be easier to determine.
Accept That Not Everyone Likes You
You can’t please everyone, but you can please yourself. It is an unavoidable reality that you will meet people in your life that just don’t like you, for whatever reason or for no reason at all. That’s cool. It’s impossible for a person to be appreciated by everyone. There’s not a person in this world who doesn’t have at least one person that dislikes them. Jesus had haters too, so you’re in good company. Just be yourself and surround yourself with people that know your worth and appreciate you for all you have to offer this world.
Be Grateful
To love yourself, you need to be grateful for everything you deem positive in your life. Gratitude is one of the things that helps you to grow and strengthen a healthier mindset. Most spiritual gurus and the like can agree, that living a life of gratitude will bring abundant happiness to you. To get started, try to find at least three (3) things that you are grateful for each day, and see how your life changes within a month.
Write Your Successes Down
It is the most fun-loving activity. Write down the positive things that you have achieved in your life. It’s hard not to feel good about yourself when you can see all of your accomplishments written down on paper, or typed-out on a virtual screen. Read each of them out loud to really boost and reaffirm how imperative your existence is to this Universe. Think of how far you’ve come to get to where you are today. Remember that self-love is the co-producer to your success.
Do More Things That Make You Happy
When certain outside factors make you happy for a long period of time, your heart tends to gravitate towards that energy via the feelings of love. It stands to reason that by increasing your own happiness from within, you’ll also increase the internal love you have for yourself. Having fun is incredibly important. Make a schedule and prioritize a time for you to enjoy life and be pampered from time-to-time.
Write Love Letters to Yourself
As odd as this may sound, it can be a very therapeutic exercise to complete and quite adorable if I may add. Tell yourself like people tell their loved ones how important they are to them and how much they love them so much. In doing so, you get to know the things you are fond of the most about yourself. You can buy things to make you happy, because spoiling yourself to a certain degree is considered healthy. However, a love letter written to yourself can be done countless times without putting any strain on your financial budget.
Take Care of Your Health
Good health is a blessing. If you have a healthy body, then more than likely you will have a positive and healthy mind. Take care of your diet, drink plenty of water, exercise regularly, avoid excessive alcohol or harmful drugs, and most importantly, get around 6-7 hours of sleep. Please consult with your primary healthcare physician before making any changes to your diet, exercise regime, and/or sleeping habits.
Value the People Who Value You
How you feel about yourself is a reflection of who you spend time with. Be careful with the people you choose to surround yourself with because they have the potential to affect you, either positively or negatively. Self-love means that you must end those relationships that are not good for your health and that are abusive. Positive people add peace to your life. Value yourself as you would value your loved ones.
Talk Sweetly to Yourself
Don’t harshly criticize yourself. Talk with yourself kindly, just like when you first fall in love with someone. Be patient with yourself and take the time to listen to your intuition. These kind words are the seeds, your soul the enriched soil, and with constant care your self-love can blossom into the most beautiful creation ever made. That is to say your inner beauty will shine brighter, and you can’t help but to love yourself more as a result.
Get Plenty of Rest
Rest is refreshing not only for your body, but also for your mind and spirit. You’re not at your best to aid anyone when you’re exhausted. Allow your body and mind time to relax. It increases the body’s energy levels naturally, so you can be your optimal self. To attain a proper “beauty rest”, you’ll need at least 8 hours of sleep. Ideally, the 8 hours of rest, 8 hours of work, and 8 hours for everything else is highly optimal whenever possible.
Wrap-Up
There will always be a person that you spend the rest of your life with on a 24|7|365 basis and that person is you. Your relationship with yourself is the most valuable and the longest relationship you’ll ever have in your entire life. You are the only person in your life who will always stay with you through thick and thin. So, love and value yourself at all cost no matter what.
The self-love you desire may not happen overnight. It is an attitude and a lifestyle that takes time and continuous effort. However, the ultimate outcome is well worth it.
