Self love is often misunderstood as an egotistical and narcissistic way of behaving and being. It is seen as being selfish, self-centred, and self-absorbed. The reality though, is that loving yourself is the single most important thing you can do for you, and yes, even for those around you.
Self love is the ability to look at yourself, aware of your flaws, mistakes, your lows, your highs, your (inner) ugliness and areas where you fall short, and still have the ability to confidently say that you accept all those parts of you. Not just the good.
The concept of self love can also seemingly be synonymous with self care. When you look up self love you find a ton of articles about how to better care for yourself. While self care is an action of self love, it is not truly loving you.
When I say that it is the most important thing you can do for yourself, what I mean, is that when you truly love and fully embrace all parts of you, everything around you changes. When you are so into you, you demand better of yourself, you seek ways to grow, you become more aware, you stop and reflect on how you are treating you.
The truth is, what you allow for yourself is what others will allow for you. If you sit back and take on mistreatment, minimizing, belittling from yourself to yourself, what you are really doing is showing the world that this is the level of which you are to be respected from those around you.
However, when you turn on your self love, and it is deep, you only want the best for you. Just as if you only want the best for your partner, friends and family. You begin to move differently in the world, and the world will see that and respond to you. When you truly are in love with you, your inner peace becomes unshakable. When you highly value you, the opinions and words of others doesn’t change who you are or how you feel about yourself.
Confidence becomes your new normal, you are bold and self-trusting, knowing that your intuition isn’t going to lead you astray. You know how worthy you are and thus, expect that level of worthiness from not only yourself but the world around you.
The amount of love you have for yourself is going to determine the types of jobs you have, the relationships you nourish, how you speak and think. When you have a higher self worth, you are going to know when you need to walk away from toxic relationships, unhealthy work environments, self destructive behaviour.
You get to decide how you will show up in this world. Self love starts by showing up for you.