Loving Yourself #1: When you like who you are, you accept yourself for who you are.
In fact, I am well aware of all my positive and negative sides and accept them. But this does not mean that I am happy with all my qualities.
Loving yourself doesn't mean you have to stop improving yourself. It only helps you understand that you are alone with your unique character, qualities and capabilities.
This gives you a feeling of confidence. When you accept who you are, you don't feel the need to imitate anyone or compare yourself to others. What is the most powerful inspiring feeling.
How to love yourself - advice from a psychologist
A psychologist can give advice on how to love yourself. However, without real action results cannot be achieved. If you want to find self-love, then you need to use the following exercises:
- Write down all your strengths on a piece of paper and remember them often.
- When passing by a mirror, compliment yourself and smile.
- Set achievable goals and praise yourself for achieving them.
- Play sports, make yourself beautiful, improve your body.
- Engage in self-development, develop in yourself the qualities that you want to possess.
- Allow yourself to be imperfect, forgive your mistakes and learn to correct them rather than punish them.
- Build relationships with yourself the same way you do with other people. Learn to negotiate, keep your word, please yourself, etc.
Loving yourself No. 3. The ability to get rid of guilt and self-flagellation
Sadness, guilt and shame are the worst things a person can experience. Self-love means less anxiety and depression, as well as stress and self-torture.
One of my friends has always been unhappy with her weight, although, to tell the truth, she is a very beautiful girl. She went on numerous diets and lost so many pounds that she was forced to see a doctor. This is a scary, fairly common situation that indicates a lack of self-love.
Appearance
It would seem that the more we strive for the ideal, the better we look. But this is only partly true. In fact, if we do not set ourselves impossible tasks and act wisely, because we love ourselves and do not want to subject ourselves to unnecessary stress and the “race” for beauty, then the results will be much better. In addition, looking up to others has a huge impact. As soon as we relax, realizing our own beauty, we no longer try on other people’s fashionable images that may not suit us, but look for our own unique style. And it is always much better than someone else's.
Reason #4: When you love yourself, you look better.
It's really simple. You can focus on your strengths instead of worrying about your weaknesses and imperfections.
Everyone has flaws, but most people don't pay attention to them. For example, my friend is short and she will never try to change that. Moreover, she hates high heels, can you imagine?
She used to be obsessed with this problem for many years, and could not understand that she had a great figure, beautiful eyes and a kind heart. But when she accepted this so-called “imperfection” of hers, she became even more beautiful and bright.
How to love your body
Making your body more beautiful will increase your self-esteem, but it won't necessarily make you love yourself more.
For many, the body is the cornerstone in the matter of self-love. Therefore, it is important to pay special attention to him in this conversation.
Most often, when you complain that you don't love yourself, it's your body that you don't love—the way it looks. But in order to love your appearance, you just need to see your body as it is. Don't try to decorate it with winning poses, photo filters or masks.
Everyone has a diagram of their body in their subconscious. She is objective. In it you are as you are - with your own characteristics and constitution: tall, thin, short, stocky, dense, etc. When you deceive yourself, pretend to be something you are not, you become ugly, clumsy, and constrained. A tense facial mask appears on the face, which disfigures even the most naturally beautiful people.
We perceive beauty only in context. People with different types are beautiful. Beauty is the harmony of image and context. And inconsistency looks like ugliness.
When you deny your real appearance, you close off the opportunity for yourself to notice what will make it harmonious, and therefore beautiful.
For many modern people, distortions in perception go beyond individual traits. They do not perceive themselves as men and as women. Because they ignore their original constitution and the restrictions that it sets, they become ugly men and women.
There is no way for a woman to love herself, no way to become beautiful and feminine, no way to please herself until she perceives herself as an ordinary woman. It's the same with men.
The manifestation of beauty is possible only within boundaries. Cutting is about creating edges to the shapeless to highlight beauty and make it obvious. Just like a diamond needs to be cut to become a diamond.
The most severe form of denial is when a person feels that he does not live in his body. That he is separate, and the body is separate.
The first step to self-love in this case is to make peace with your body. See yourself and admit that this is you, this body is yours, you are exactly like this now and no other. In the future, with some effort, you will be able to change yourself and your life, bring the real closer to the ideal, but for now that’s it. It is important to accept the given. See and accept without unnecessary emotional overtones.
It is impossible to create a full-fledged personality in isolation from the body. It is formed only in synthesis with the body, with its direct participation.
To accept and learn to love yourself, it is important to see your true body image and integrate it into your personality - to recognize that this is who you are. Then the body can become a powerful support for you that will not betray you.
Most people don't know anything about their body. They use it like a rented car, which is always somehow different. They don't feel it. They kick you if the car malfunctions, as if the body were service personnel. But the body is a partner. And it is important to know him in order to love him. Only then can you experience not problems from existing in the body, but joy from bodily sensations, from the fact that you have a body. Through loving your body you can love life.
Therefore, it is so important to establish contact with the real body, and not with an imaginary image that will be destroyed the first time you look at yourself in someone else’s mirror or in a random photograph.
Reason No. 5. If you love yourself, then everything will be wonderful in your family.
When you love yourself, you know what you deserve. In this sense, I would like to follow the example of my mother. My parents still have a very affectionate and warm relationship, although they have been married for over 25 years.
I never noticed the slightest sign of contempt or lack of respect between them. I know very well that my mother will not stand such an attitude. When you love yourself, you will never be abused. And this is very important for a healthy family life.
Attitude of others
When a person loves and appreciates himself, he experiences self-respect and becomes calm and confident. Be sure that other people notice this immediately: by indirect signs, manner of speech, gait and posture, ability to hold oneself and many other little things that only a professional actor can “fake as confidence.”
We read much more information from a person than we are used to thinking, because our subconscious works on a par with the mind.
It is this “subcortex” that tells other people about our internal state and partially shapes their attitude towards us.
Reason No. 6. ...and the children will be happier
Children always try to copy the behavior, manners, and views of their parents. The ability to love is one of the important things that children should accept.
But this will not be possible if parents cannot demonstrate this ability. When you love yourself, you create a healthy and life-giving example for your children.
Research has proven that a child's success and happiness are largely determined by the experiences they have during childhood. That's why, if you want to teach your children to love themselves, you must first learn how to do it yourself.
The result of self-love
Many people's lives changed immediately after they fell in love with themselves. People, first of all, became happy, calm and harmonious. Secondly, they were able to understand their own desires and motives. The results depend entirely on the person who makes the effort or looks for excuses to do nothing.
Life begins with self-love. And before that, a person is engaged in survival in the world of people, where everything is done so that he defends himself, closes himself, withdraws, or sacrifices himself.
Reason No. 7. When you love yourself, the world around you changes
When we fall in love, everything around us becomes more beautiful and attractive. Falling in love with yourself is no exception! This allows you to look at things, people and life from a different perspective, from a better perspective.
But the most important thing is that all these changes are only in your perception. Thus, you can choose: to love yourself and this world or not.
Self-love can make you a better person. It improves physical, psychological and emotional well-being. Try it and you will see that more good people and circumstances in life are attracted to you.
Do you agree with my list of reasons why it is so important to love yourself? Please share your thoughts, maybe I missed something.
Advice from psychologists
Trying to increase self-esteem and exalt your individuality is a difficult path. Just as you shouldn’t belittle yourself, you shouldn’t artificially praise yourself. A psychologist's advice on how to love yourself comes down to something else.
Focus on feelings
Falling in love with yourself means developing the skill of responding to any external situation and manifestations of your nature with love. Attentiveness to your feelings is the key to success in this matter, because any negative emotions (be it irritation, guilt or anger) are the result of a view of life without love.
Loving is a choice
Note! There is no need to suppress negative feelings. You just need to be very skeptical about the rationality of the thoughts that cause them.
Example. 1. “I yelled at the child, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. We need to talk to him and somehow fix what happened” and 2. “I yelled at the child. I'm a terrible mother." The first thoughts evoke slight sadness and inspire hope for an improvement in the situation. The second chain of reasoning can cause feelings of bitterness, shame, and anger at oneself. And no wonder - calling someone a terrible parent based on an isolated fact from life is a gross generalization and exaggeration.
Focus on the positive aspects of life
There are beliefs and evaluation systems that, when activated, do not allow one to enter a state of love and acceptance. Therefore, instead of being tormented by the question of how to begin to truly love yourself, you can begin to focus on any object that easily evokes a feeling of gratitude. For example, on a pet, the attractive features of friends, the beauty of nature. From this state it is easier to tune in to a positive attitude towards things that usually cause dissatisfaction and irritation. It also becomes easier to look at yourself with respect and love.
Develop the skill of noticing the best in the world
Putting intentions before results
You need to determine your level of importance by what goals are being pursued, and not by the results of your actions. So, a person who dedicated his life to finding a cure for cancer already deserves respect. It doesn't matter whether he ever achieves this goal or not.
Get rid of illusory self-identification
People often define themselves by the roles they play in society. This negatively affects their ability to accept their self. For example, where should a woman begin to develop self-love? Often, advice for the fair half of humanity on how to accept yourself begins with recommendations to love your body with all its shortcomings. However, such instructions do not solve the root of the problem - illusory self-identification with another ideal imposed by society - the stereotypical gender role of “beauty”.
It is enough to understand that you are more than a physical shell, and you can bring something good into this world, not only pleasing someone’s eyes, and the problem of not loving your body, and through it, not loving yourself, disappears by itself.
Additional Information. The psychological technique “Who am I?” will help you love yourself. You need to take a blank sheet of paper and start listing all the answers you receive to the question “Who am I?” Essentially, he has no answer. All options for defining oneself by profession, hobbies, gender, social and family status, biological species do not reveal the essence of the being that each individual is. By and large, all this is just the surface of the iceberg and cannot serve as a basis for determining the level of its value. Each individual is a unique and priceless unique manifestation of Life.
Everyone is much bigger and more important than they think
Self-love should be based on the value of this feeling itself. This is the wisest and most reliable way to build a happy relationship with yourself.
Self-care
This aspect is more related to the body, although not only with it. Self-care involves everything we do for our health: taking a bath, eating a balanced diet, drinking enough water, resting and pampering ourselves. It has other forms: the music we listen to, the films and programs we watch, the people we communicate with. Taking care of yourself is quite simple. Start with this and you will little by little learn to love yourself.
Ask yourself as often as possible: “What would someone who loves himself do?” Ask this question whenever you have to make a decision, simple or complex. This simple exercise comes with one hint and one warning.
Tip: trust your instincts, your “I” knows what it needs.
Warning: You may not like what your instincts say, and that's okay. But continue anyway. Good luck!
