Fall in love with yourself

Self-love — what is it?

Self-love can take many forms depending on our personal beliefs, values or disposition. Nevertheless, psychologists distinguish several components necessary for building this skill. These elements are:

• Self-acceptance, that is, full acceptance of oneself as one is - without exceptions even for qualities that are perceived negatively by us or mistakes made in the past;
• Taking care of your body and mind, that is, broadly understood self-care — prioritizing their needs at every level and guarding their borders;
• Self-awareness — knowing your weaknesses and strengths, understanding your feelings and emotions and their importance;
• Self-esteem, that is, faith in one's abilities and the awareness that our weaknesses do not make us an inferior, less valuable person.

Trait or skill?

Is self-love something we are born with? It turns out not at all — self-love It is a skill and a habit. Like all skills, you can train and develop, and habits can be changed and fixed. So where to start? In her book “The Habit of Loving Yourself”, Fionna Brennan describes four habits that we should learn in order to develop self-love. These are:

L — Lyssna, Listen — listen to your heart, your feelings and emotions, let's be understanding for each other;

OR — Öppna, open up — let's open up to sensitivity and sincerity towards ourselves;

V — Valor, Appreciate — let us appreciate ourselves and the people we are, be grateful to each other and trust in ourselves;

E — Energize, motivate — Let's motivate ourselves to become better people and transform our habits.

According to the author, it is necessary to start with these four simple habits and cultivate them until they become automatic for us. Through the formation of these four habits, we increase our mental resilience and develop our ability to cope with everyday difficulties related to the emotional sphere.

Inner dialogue, inner critic, self-acceptance

Starting the path to loving yourself, it is worth paying attention to how our inner dialogue sounds. Is he full of self-acceptance, understanding and compassion? Or does he criticize our every flaw and everything we do? Listening to our inner voice and transforming it so that instead of undercutting our wings, it motivates us is a key part of transforming our self-love habits. How we relate to ourselves and talk about ourselves has a huge impact on our self-esteem and psychological comfort. How to transform your internal dialogue? The easiest way is to pay attention to yourself on an ongoing basis. Our inner critic most often reveals himself in stressful situations, requiring mental effort from us. For many of us, thoughts like “I suck, I'll never get over it” are unfortunately the order of the day. When we hear such a voice in our head, let's pause for a moment, focus on the present moment, and turn critical attention into something encouraging and understanding. “This task is difficult, but I know that I am doing my best” sounds much better and motivates us to continue. The main principle of transforming your inner voice is very simple - if we do not use some phrase to the person closest to us, do not use it to ourselves.

How to develop the ability to love yourself?

The ability to love yourself It will look different for each person. However, there are universal methods for developing this ability. According to psychologists, a person full of self-love should be proficient in at least two issues:

Loving your body and taking care of it — Our body is only a part of us, and its main function is to enable us to move and perform all kinds of activities. Our body does not exist to be perfect, beautiful and flawless. It is a kind of resource and tool that must be taken care of so that it serves us efficiently and for a long time. In order to develop love for your body, it is worth doing a simple exercise by answering the following question: “What do I owe my body? What do the individual parts of it allow me to do?”

Nurturing your health and mental comfort — setting the necessary boundaries that are beneficial for us and guarding them, putting our psychological comfort above other people's expectations of us, setting aside time for rest and recovery. It is worth analyzing your obligations to others and thinking about whether they are all needed and whether the fulfillment of them does not cause discomfort in us.

Why is it worth loving yourself?

Developing self-love affects many aspects of our lives — our mental well-being, our self-esteem, our relationships with others. It helps to reduce the stress of everyday challenges, and less stress, of course, means better physical well-being, better sleep and more time to recover. Feeling better also means more motivation to act, discover, take on new challenges and become a better person.

Self-love builds mental resilience and helps to get back on track when something upsets our balance. It develops empathy, both for ourselves and for other people, so it also helps to strengthen our ties with loved ones. Our perception of others is also directly related to how we perceive ourselves — self-understanding and self-acceptance reduces our desire to compare ourselves to other people.

The most important thing is that love — whether for others or for ourselves — gives us happiness, and happiness never too much!