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Loving yourself is the first step to actually being happy. It is pretty easy to go on and tell others, “love yourself.” But the process of self-love is not a piece of cake. It takes a lot of struggle and perseverance to discover and fall in love with your inner self!
There are a hundred things that you can do to love yourself. You can indulge in positive thoughts, find your own escape, make a journal, do something you love, go on a solo trip to rediscover yourself, read books, etc.
So, to fall in love with the person in the mirror, you must first know why it is essential. Besides, you can adapt some techniques and try out some ideas to achieve the same. In this article, I will try to explain all the relevant facts about how to love yourself. So, without any further ado, please continue reading the entire article!
Why Should You Love Yourself?
Loving yourself brings eternal happiness that lasts forever after. To be fair, inner happiness depends on how much you love yourself. A self-loathing person can never be content, even if all his wishes come true!
The most important question in this context is, what do you understand by self-love? Self-love means falling in love with the person in the mirror. This person is your own reflection. He is holding evidence of everything you are today. Whatever you have achieved in your life, how far you have come, the kind of person you are – all these things have made you who you are today.
The most significant impedance on your road to self-love might be your past. Something about your past might be bothering you about crossing that bridge and finding your own identity. That past can hold you back! But you have to cross the bridge and love yourself, for your own sake.
I know it’s not easy to settle things with your past. Yes, almost all of us don’t have a smooth life going around. No matter how picture-perfect our Instagram profiles appear, we all have a backstory that has been dumped in the backyard. For some people, it is pretty easy to get past this. But for some, it remains like a scar that constantly reminds you of what is bothering you.
But a strong individual knows how to get over all these negativities. Negative thoughts will only pull you back. They are just the thorns that can prick you when you expect the least!
When you are successful, people will cheer for your success. But nobody cheers for your failure. So, why waste your precious energy on something that doesn’t even count! Therefore, rather than having negative thoughts and low esteem, embrace the reflection in the mirror. It is never too late!
At the end of the day, you are left with nothing but your own company. If you don’t love this company, how can you be happy? The only person that is going to be your strength when nobody else is beside you is no one but “you.” So, why do you loathe this person who is your constant companion?
To be happy and fully satisfied, you need to fall in love with yourself first. Loving yourself is crucial. Negative thoughts can only bring about destructive behavior. It won’t do any good to anybody. So, try to be the best version of yourself. Because, in the end, only this person can be your best friend. And only the happiness of this person matters.
How To Achieve Self Love?
The road to self-love is the longest and busiest highway you will ever ride on. It would help if you healed from whatever is pulling you back. Cut those strings off. Spread your wings and explore the world of good vibes and positivity!
You must love yourself first before loving someone else. Think about the facts that attract you to other people. In fact, the attributes that make you attracted to someone else are the same qualities you need to build in yourself. Eventually, in this way, you will learn to love yourself.
Loving someone doesn’t only have to mean in a romantic or platonic way. That is to say, someone you adore is also someone you love. When you learn to love your attributes and your personality, everything else starts to settle down. As a result, you become more enthusiastic about your life and your daily activities.
To achieve self-love, you must delete all the negative thoughts and remove all the hindrances pulling you back. It would be best if you did not let the negativity become your weakness. Even though it may sound easy, the process takes a lifetime! Most importantly, healing is a lifelong process. So, you can’t expect to heal and fall in love with yourself overnight.
Now, there are a thousand things you can practice to achieve self-love. You need to understand the significance of each of these elements. In the next part, I shall discuss some of these elements. However, your mental health is your responsibility. Never underestimate your worth; because you are important.
To be honest, it is pretty common nowadays for people to mistreat themselves. They feel low constantly. Teenagers suffer from depression and anxiety from a very young age. It creates low self-esteem. As a result, this gives rise to self-harming attitudes, destructive behavior, etc. It can be very harmful eventually. So, self-love is a very significant part of who you are!
Achieving self-love is not a child’s play that you can develop just after a good night’s sleep, waking up from bed tomorrow. It takes time to build this love for yourself so that it can penetrate deeper into your heart and last longer. When you learn to wave off the negativity, you will start to embrace what you have and fall in love with yourself over again.
Some Ideas To Learn How To Love Yourself
As I mentioned earlier, there are a thousand tips and ideas that can help you on your way to self-love. Basically, these are some spiritual tasks that you need to do to connect with your own self. The better you connect, the more you admire your body and your soul.
I know how hard it is for someone with mental health issues to embrace their own selves. But if you have proper guidance, self-love is not a hard thing to achieve. Here, I would like to point out some basic principles of self-admiration. So, continue reading the next part to know in detail.
- Do Not Compare Yourself To Others
A lot of the time, we do this unknowingly. We see others content with their lives. We see them posting a thousand cool photos of their picture-perfect life on social media. It creates an illusion in our minds that the grass is always greener on the other side. But no matter how greener it is, it has to return to its own self at the end of the day.
Everybody likes to portray a picture-perfect life. People love to evoke jealousy. But only the other person knows how much truth lies beneath the cherry on the top!
You should not feel bad about seeing others prospering in their lives, hanging out with cool people, chilling, or enjoying a luxurious life. You will enjoy the fruits of your hard work when the right time comes. All you need is a little bit of patience. Furthermore, you shouldn’t feel low thinking about others. At the end of the day, we all have to return to our real-life stories!
Besides, I have seen a lot of teenagers feeling depressed because they don’t consider themselves pretty or maybe because they have dark skin. I have seen young girls and boys crying over not being the hottest craze in their year!
But this is totally absurd. Everyone is beautiful in their own way. There is nothing wrong to feel about being dark-skinned, or obese, or chubby. You are perfectly normal even if you don’t have curves or even if the rock and pop songs don’t attract you! You are normal if you still listen to slow music or old favorites.
Most importantly, you need to accept yourself first for who you are. You might be a sunflower in a room full of roses. But the sunflower knows how to bloom in its own beautiful way. So, stop comparing your lives with others’. It is really okay to be different!
- Find Your Escape
Sometimes, your life, your work environment, peer pressure, studies, exams, family, friends, career decisions, etc., can feel overburdening. Even a slight rift with your near and dear ones can sometimes take a toll on your mental wellbeing.
In these cases, we all require an escape route. An escape that can take your mind off the stress and anxiety of your daily activities. In fact, it can be something that makes you feel happy, even if for only a few split seconds. Your escape can be a place, something that you love to do, or someone you love to spend time with.
Mostly, people try painting, music, or something from their own talents. These work really well as they can boost your confidence and raise your self-esteem. Because once you succeed in doing things that make you happy, you start to believe in yourself. You begin to think that better days can come along. So, finding your escape is very important.
- Don’t Be Hard On Yourself
Oftentimes, people don’t want to forgive their own mistakes. It mainly happens to those who try to be perfectionists. You can’t have everything done perfectly in life. You need to accept this truth.
Yes, you may get lucky most of the time, half of the time or none at all. You are bound to make silly mistakes and even bigger ones. In fact, the mistakes you make today will remain an excellent lesson for you in the future. So, try to take lessons rather than feeling low or being hard on yourself.
Of course, there are unforgivable mistakes. But it is never too late to reform anything. You can compensate in one way or the other. So, there’s no point in being harsh on oneself. Also, don’t force decisions on yourself if you are not willing to do something. Just go with the flow. Being hard on yourself will never make you happy at work.
- You Can’t Please Everyone
As a general rule of life, you have to accept that you can never satisfy everyone on this planet. Actually, it is not even your job to please everyone. Yes, the people important to you matter, of course. But this doesn’t mean implying that you need to take care of everyone’s happiness while ruining yours.
There will be someone who will never be happy no matter what, even if you leave no stone unturned. They will mock you and be rude to you. But this shouldn’t stop you from doing your job or succeeding in life. Try to accept the fact that you won’t always have a convenient environment. You can’t please everyone.
So, try to focus more on your own job rather than what others think. Do what makes you happy and what needs to be done. Don’t end up harming yourself for the sake of someone else.
- Note Down What You Are Grateful For
It is very good practice that you can try. Take a pen and a piece of paper. Next, note down one thing every day that makes you feel grateful. For example, you can write down what you are grateful about whether it be a stable income or a happy family!
In this way, try to practice writing down all the things that you are grateful for. We all have different things, different views of life. We all have different kinds of stuff to feel thankful for. So, practice writing yours, and in the end, you will feel a thousand reasons to identify with yourself. This can help you understand yourself better and gain self-love.
- Live A Healthy Life
You will love your body and soul only when you are feeling good about your health. If you constantly feel drained of energy, lethargic, sick, and sleep-deprived, you can’t work well. You will always tend to sleep more. So, you must eat and sleep well.
Eat fresh food and sleep for at least 7 to 8 hours per day. Reduce the consumption of alcohol. Excess alcohol has many harmful effects on your health. Ultimately, it can damage your liver. So, limit the drinking and any other bad habits that you have. Living a healthy lifestyle is essential when you do not love your body!
- Learn To Be Vocal
Usually, almost all of us have some kind of anxiety that prevents us from speaking up for our rights when it is necessary. Because of this, most people take advantage of this situation and try to impose their decisions and judgments on us. If a colleague in your workplace is trying to harass you, you need to be vocal about this.
Be heard. It changes everything. Be vocal about your opinions. Don’t let others get the best of you. So, you must be vocal about your decisions and choices; when you become confident about what you want, your personality changes. In fact, you will start to feel very good about yourself. Hence, being vocal is very important.
- Spend Time With Good People
A good company will bring out the best in you. When you mix up with a bad company, you only see the bad in people. Ultimately, you will only feel low, and your self-esteem will keep on decreasing.
It would be best if you were kind to yourself and to the people around you. Also, it should work the other way round. Only then will you be able to bring out the best in yourself. So, surround yourself with kind people!
- Role Of Family
It is not uncommon for teens these days to feel they are being less loved or hated by everyone around them. Naturally, they tend to become mean and ruthless towards the people around them. Ultimately, they lose their kind nature and forget who they are. They start to hate themselves. It creates a negative impact on their minds.
In this regard, parents, family members, etc., can come forward to support the children. Also, children need to socialize more with their parents and peers. In this way, you can teach the teens moral values and reform their personalities.
So, teach the kids that it isn’t right to hit someone or be aggressive towards people without any reason or at any cost! Teach them to be kind to everyone around them. Because you never know what the other person standing next to you is going through. Kindness is the key to self-love.
- Clear Your Negative Aura And Think Positive
Bad thoughts, bad feelings, low self-esteem, etc. can all create negative auras. You need to delete all kinds of negative thoughts from your mind. You want to love the best version of yourself. So, you should remove the hindrances that could stop you from doing that. Jealousy, selfishness, lying, cheating, hurting others, etc., are the worst things a person can do.
Hence, clear the negative aura and start thinking positively. Always try to see the good in things. Your mantra should be “Think Positive.” Even if you start to get negative thoughts, just remember the mantra instantly, and you will feel a lot better. Gradually, you will fall in love with the cheerful soul inside you.
- Meditating
Meditation is a very good way to rediscover your own self. Through meditation, you can find your true purpose in life. Spend a reasonable amount of time meditating each day. Talk to your inner self. In this case, you can start a conversation in your mind by asking yourself why you did this and why you did that.
It will help you analyze all the facts and correct your mistakes. You will learn to become a better person. Slowly, you will learn to be empathetic, less judgemental, and control your anger.
This kind of meditation can change a person totally. So, you learn to rediscover self-love. Meditate whenever you can, even if for five minutes every day. Breathe in, breathe out, love yourself!
- Make A Journal
Basically, a journal is where you write down all the things that happen throughout the day. As I mentioned earlier, to make a conversation with your inner self in your mind, you can try writing it down instead. So, you will be able to become more expressive and rectify your thoughts.
Personally, I love the idea of keeping a journal. At least this way, you can never feel lonely even if you have very few friends. You can enjoy your own company. So, make a journal today and start jotting down what happened today in detail. Indeed, you will become your own best friend!
- Make Positive Comments
In this context, try to make positive affirmations about yourself. Make positive comments and think progressively. Don’t you ever say anything mean about yourself! You are one of a kind, and you are special. It doesn’t matter if there are few people who recognize this. But you matter; you are important. Being mean to yourself will do you no good.
So, try to be nice to your inner self. Tell yourself that you love this person despite everything, and you will always stick to him. Also, repeat this in your mind: I love myself, respect who I have become, and I will try to become a better person every day. It is another mantra for achieving self-love.
- See A Therapist
In most places in the world, seeking mental health care or even visiting a therapist is considered taboo. In fact, even if you are suffering from anxiety disorders and want to see a therapist, you will be discouraged from doing so constantly. It is a very mean thing to do to someone.
To be fair, your mental health is your responsibility. What others think and what others say matters very little. In fact, no other person matters at all. You are at full liberty to receive care for your mental health. Seeing a therapist can be the best way to relieve your stress and anxiety. After a few therapy sessions, you may start to feel lighter and a lot better.
You can book appointments online. Or you can simply talk to therapists online. Besides, there are some apps now available on online stores that help you in the same way. They have automated replies that can relate to your thoughts and feelings. However, if you feel you need to talk to an experienced therapist, they can offer you that as well. Wysa is a good app in this regard.
- Rewarding Yourself
The last but most important tip I would like to give you is the gift of rewarding yourself. Reward yourself with treats and gifts when you are pleasant to yourself and others. Make a chart and keep track of the things you need to do to achieve self-love.
Then, after you accomplish each task, tick off the boxes. Make sure that you have taken a lesson from each task. Don’t just let this go in vain. When you have indeed succeeded, give yourself a gift. You can go for a meal at fancy restaurants or take a trip to somewhere you love. In short, reward yourself by doing things that make you happy.
This technique is very motivating and can hardly fail. So, make a diary today and think about the things that you love to do or want to have someday. Then make a task list of the things that you need to do for your self-love expedition. So, what are you waiting for? Get started now!
Some Books On Self Love To Inspire You
Actually, there are so many books that you can read to learn how to love yourself. These books teach you why self-love is important and what the consequences can be if you loathe your inner self.
Reading books is another brilliant way to achieve self-love and gratification. You might think that who has this much time to read an entire book for something like this? Clearly, it would be very wrong to think this way.
There are innumerable books on self-love. You can go on a self-love book binge to achieve the best results. Below, I have listed the best-rated books on self-love. Continue reading to find out about the books!
- Choosing Me Before We
- The Gifts Of Imperfection
- Big Magic
- You Can Heal Your Life
- Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It
- Self-Love Workbook For Women
- How To Love Yourself
- Milk And Honey
- Good Vibes, Good Life
- Will I Ever Be Good Enough?
- Body Positive Power
- After The Rain
If not all, at least try to read one or two books from this list. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed or leave with empty hands and empty minds. You will definitely learn something about loving yourself!
Conclusion
Now, take a pen and a piece of paper. Write down all the good attributes that you have as a person. For instance, maybe you judge people less. Perhaps you are very kind and helpful to everyone around you. Whatever it is, just note it down. This way, you can at least start loving yourself. It is better, to begin with, something!
In this article, I tried to explain all the relevant facts about how to love yourself. I hope this article helped you to know more about self-love. Thank you for reading the entire article with patience. Have a nice day, and don’t forget to fall in love with the person in the mirror today!