There’s an old saying, treat others as you would like to be treated. What does this mean for those who suffer from the lack of self-love?
To love yourself means to truly accept yourself for who you are, as you are, coming to terms with those aspects of yourself that you cannot change. You respect your beliefs and your body, understanding you and not trying to be someone else. Your esteem is high; you have self-respect, and a positive self-image. This love is definitely not to be confused with self-adoration or narcissism. It does not mean being arrogant, conceited or thinking that you are better than anyone else. It means having a healthy outlook of yourself, knowing that you are a worthy human being. You begin loving yourself when you stop rejecting yourself.
The bible confirms the existence of the basic principle of self-love by saying, “You must love your neighbor as yourself”. It’s only when you love yourself that you can expect others to reciprocate that love. So before we can have a truly successful relationship, we must first learn to feel love for ourselves. How can we do this?
For myself, especially as a woman who experienced abuse, I was trained to deny my own feelings and needs, and to take care of others. So my recovery began with me first going to my quiet space. In my quiet space I had to learn to accept and deal with me. I lived with myself for so many years, but was a total stranger to myself. I had to learn to recognize my different feelings and emotions. I had to pay attention to myself. Accepting myself helped me grow mentally, physically, and spiritually. To change and strengthen myself I had to accept myself and learn how to live with myself in a productive manner. Self-hate had become a pattern, a way for me to survive and live; it was now time to turn the hate to love.
The next thing that I did was compile a list of positive things about myself; things that I liked about me. The list started very small, but as time progressed, so did my love for myself, so my list grew. So with this list I wrote affirmation statements and practiced positive talk. In short, an affirmation statement is just a simple, positive statement that reinforces, motivates, or recognizes something good that you want to come into your life. Look at yourself in the mirror, daily, and repeat your affirmation statements to yourself, compliment yourself.
My next step was to combat all the negative things that I could ever remember being said against or about me. I did this by writing them down and counteracting the negative with positive. It was always so much easier for me to accept what others said to me that was negative about me, than it was for me to accept others compliments and praise to me. It’s hard to love yourself when the only messages you’re getting are hate. So understanding this, I had to reevaluate my current surroundings, my choice of friends and associates. You have to understand that two important aspects of self-love are receiving love from others, and making an open-hearted decision to love yourself. So I had to make the choice to love myself, or at least to stop hating myself.
In conclusion, after continuing with these methods over time, patience, and persistence, I realized that I was worthy, just as all of us are. Your worth comes from you, and others will only treat you as good as you treat yourself. Enjoy being you, because you will spend the rest of your life with yourself. Invest in yourself. Work on your personal growth and development, be the best that you can be. Take care of your body, your mind, and your spirit; with the self-love will come the happiness.
