The Art of Loving Yourself

With Valentine’s Day now being and gone, it’s a good time to reflect on love, as often we are so busy giving away our love to our children, our partner and our friends that we forget to take time out for self-care and self-love.

In a world that seems to be suffering from an emotional epidemic of low self-esteem, low self-worth and low-confidence; more self-love would appear to be the remedy. In today’s fast-paced and hyper-stimulated world we all need to put our mental health first and one of the best ways to do that is to learn to love ourselves and take better care of ourselves.

Most of us live in a society, today, where there’s so much social pressure to keep up with the latest trends - whether that’s the latest iPhones, fashion accessories, or automobiles that we often look to external solutions to solve internal challenges and live our lives thinking if we just get YXZ then we’ll feel better… but life doesn’t always work like that. If it did then we could just put everything on zero interest credit cards and be instantly fulfilled.

The challenge is that we need to start loving ourselves from the inside out, rather than looking for the outside world to fill us up - as this will allow us to be even better partners, parents, and friends. Indeed, similar to the advice airlines give about putting your own gas mask on first… the more you take care of yourself, the more able you will be to increase the happiness of your family.

This article encourages you not to neglect this area of self-love and offers a few suggestions on how to take better care of yourself emotionally.

1. STOP TRYING TO FILL THE VOID

We’re all guilty of distracting ourselves from time to time, but this level of distraction can become psychologically unhealthy such as when it turns into addictive tendencies. It’s very easy to chase after things, or people, in order to fill the void within - but the best way to fill that void is to simply accept it exists, honour the feelings you have around this, and look for nourishing ways to flesh out your own life rather than being dependent on a relationship or particularly aspect of your life (e.g. work or business) in order to prop you up emotionally.

2. STOP DOING THAT WHICH HURTS YOU

Think of the metaphor of having back pain; there’s normally a trigger that causes this pain - there are things that aggravate this physical pain and there are also things that soothe this physical pain; which is similar to emotional pain. Just like how your daily activities cause your back pain, such as sitting at a desk all day without stretching or picking up heavy items without bending your knees - there are daily activities you engage in on an emotional level that cause you emotional pain. Avoid these activities and stop doing that which hurts you.

3. GET RID OF NEGATIVE PEOPLE

We all have toxic people in our lives, it’s just a natural part of life, but there is scientific research that now proves energy rubs off - if you’re around negative people that have low self-esteem and don’t believe in themselves, how can you possibly expect them to believe in you. You’ve got to get around positive, nourishing and encouraging people that have the capacity to support you.

In summary, it’s time to start treating yourself better and looking at nourishing yourself from self-love on the inside, rather than external items that are often distractions or compensatory in their nature… be this food, people, or things. When you start embracing the power of self-love your whole life will feel wonderful.