Last Updated on: 12th January 2024, 07:46 pm
There is a misconception that self-love is selfish or that it’s even narcissistic. We have been raised to believe that we should put others before ourselves. I’ve learned, though, that this isn’t true, and that is what has made me an advocate of self-love.
I have come to believe that the many ills of the world come from the lack of self-love and that people can become better persons, as well as treat each other better, if they love themselves first. As what I have learned in the past few years, you can’t love others if you can’t love yourself.
Why Self-Love?
My journey towards self-love started in 2013. I underwent a spine surgery due to scoliosis. It went successfully, and it made me feel like a new person. It also encouraged me to rethink my life and how I was living it.
For some time, I had been feeling kind of empty. Despite having achieved my academic and career goals, I still felt that there was something lacking in my life. I felt that it didn’t have a purpose. That got me started on my journey towards finding what would fill the void in me.
Up until then, I was very shy and introverted. I was even kind of “anti-social.” But I was also a determined person. When I set my mind onto a goal, I can’t not accomplish it. If there’s something I don’t know, I can’t not know it. I would later learn, according to a StrengthsFinder test, that I am a Learner and Achiever and that these drive my passion to seek answers and to achieve my goals.
The Start of My Journey
My “journey” started in 2013 when I attended a Singles retreat conducted by my prayer community. I learned a lot from it, but my greatest takeaway was the realization that among the many things and the many people who were hurting me, I was the one hurting myself the most.
My entire focus was on reaching my goals (because I thought that was the right thing to do) that I ended up neglecting myself. I hardly got any sleep or rest. I reasoned that even athletes trained hard to win their competitions. Successful people didn’t get to where they were overnight. I figured I should follow their lead. I thought that if I worked hard enough, then I, too, would succeed in reaching my goals.
I realized, though, that I was starting to kill myself more than trying to reach my goals. I had to stop and think of other ways to become an achiever and still be kind to myself. I realized that more than my previous work superiors, I was the meanest boss to myself.
Learning to love myself is not an easy process, given that we have been conditioned to think otherwise for so long. I believe that it’s a lifelong process. I also realized that we should never stop reminding ourselves to be kind to ourselves because it is so easy to slip back into old habits.
Indeed, I’ve learned many things about self-love in these past years, and I want to use this blog to share this learning. This way, I hope to contribute somehow to healing the world.
How Loving Yourself Makes You a Better Person
Contrary to the notion that self-love is selfish. I learned that loving yourself can instead make you a better and more loving person.
Point #1. When you love yourself, you let go of anger, shame, and blame.
You become more understanding and forgiving of others. Because you have much love for yourself, you won’t feel deprived if you give some love away. No matter what they have done to you, you won’t feel self-pity or insecure because you have a lot of love in store for yourself.
As an analogy, when you have little food, you would get mad if someone steals it from you because losing it would leave you hungry; hence, piteous. But if you have a lot of food, then it wouldn’t matter if someone takes a piece from it.
In the same manner, if someone, say, insults you, you would greatly be offended or even angered if you already thought little of yourself in the first place. You might feel that whatever little dignity you had was stolen from you when that other person insulted you. You might feel like they affirmed what you thought of yourself. However, if you have much for love yourself, then being insulted by others won’t affect you as much because these insults would be nothing compared to what you think of and feel about yourself. You would also be able to forgive them because you understand that they need love, too.
Point #2. The more you love and accept yourself, the more you love and accept others.
It’s true that how you see others is how you see yourself. I’ve observed how insecure people see the negative aspects in others first. They resent it when others are better looking or smarter than them. They feel jealous or envious of others.
When you love yourself, you won’t feel the need to compare yourself to others. It doesn’t matter if they are good-looking because you are good looking, too. It doesn’t matter if they are smart because you are smart, too. You will learn to accept other people’s differences from you because you would recognize that in many ways, you are different, too, and that these differences are part of what make you unique and beautiful. Because of this, you can be more supportive of others and you can celebrate their successes with them.
Point #3. When you love yourself, you become more open to show up in the world and to live your purpose.
When you love yourself, you have a great appreciation of your gifts. You’re not ashamed to use them. In turn, you benefit the world. Your gifts are unique, and having the courage to share them with others allows you to make other people’s lives a little better.
Point #4. By appreciating yourself, you bring about openness, inspiration, and creativity.
Self-love allows you to give more of yourself to the world, allowing you to inspire others to love themselves, too.
Point #5. Loving yourself allows you to attract significance, spaciousness, peace, and harmony in your relationships.
Because you love yourself, you don’t always rely on others to give you love. It becomes more of a give-and-take relationship, and you can allow them to love themselves, too.
Conclusion
Loving yourself makes you a better person because it energizes you and fllls you with so much positivity that you easily get to share these positive feelings to others. you become a tank full of love that others can easily take some of that love from you without you feeling deprived. By loving yourself, you get to shine brighter and become a light to others!
How else do you think self-love makes you a better person?
