Self-love means that you have an appreciation, affinity, and positive regard for yourself. It’s closely related to self-esteem and self-compassion. When you have a strong sense of self-love, you understand your own value and treat yourself in a loving way.
Unlike narcissism, which is excessive self-absorption and self-interest, self-love is a positive trait. Loving yourself means having a good understanding of both your strengths and weaknesses. Narcissism is generally associated with poor mental health. But high self-love has a positive effect on your well-being, mental fitness, and your relationships.
Love Yourself to Lower stress, higher resilience
When we feel stressed, it’s generally because we don’t feel capable of living up to the challenges in front of us. When you have a strong sense of self-love, you’re better able to tackle challenges. Negative feelings and self-critical thoughts compound stress. When we feel good, though, it’s usually easier for us to problem-solve.
Self-love and self-compassion are directly linked. When we have a high sense of self-love, we’re able to look at challenges as temporary setbacks — or even as opportunities for growth. This attitude helps us become more resilient.
BetterUp’s research has found that coaching can help improve self-compassion by over 60%. And self-compassion has a marked impact on developing resilience.
Not only does self-compassion — and by extension, self-love — help us bounce back better, it keeps us mentally fit. More than 1,000 research studies have linked self-compassion to reduced psychopathy and improved well-being.
Self-love leads to healthier relationships
Self-Love, self-care, and good mental health are vital to attracting and having a healthy, loving relationship. When we love ourselves, it becomes easier to allow others to love us and enjoy the feeling of being loved in return. When we are insecure, dislike ourselves, and dwell on other negative feelings instead, it’s difficult for us to know how to accept and appreciate another person’s positive feelings for us.
Working on our personal development and self-love journey makes it easier to be kind, patient, and respectful with others. When we are happy with ourselves and confident in who we are (flaws and all), it becomes easier to see the world for what it is – a place full of beautiful people worthy of our love and kindness.
When we love ourselves first, we can take care of our own needs without relying on others for happiness or fulfillment. We can meet our own emotional needs without someone else having to do it for us. And that makes us a better family member, who can actively contribute to the family and is always open to life-loving experiences.
Self-love inspiration allows us to recognize that despite what some relationships might be like, no one person is responsible for making us feel a certain way or happy all the time. This allows us to be more honest with ourselves about unhealthy relationships. Self-love teaches us how to let go of someone and walk away from a person we loved when the relationship is unhealthy and no longer serving us.
To have confidence
Which brings us to the next reason why we need to love ourselves. This is because it helps us be more confident.
Confidence starts with being confident in oneself. Knowing who you are and that you are an autonomous capable person.
This doesn’t mean you’ll always be confident in every situation and obviously you can’t always be capable at everything you do, but it means you have an underlying confidence in yourself.
Life is easier
When you love yourself – you’ll be easier on yourself.
You wont beat yourself up so much and will be keep things in perspective.
You find it easier to let let things go, rather than mulling over them, because you don’t take things so personally.
Self-Love is your responsibility
By taking self-love out of your control and leaving it in the hands of others, you can only ever be disappointed. After all, it isn’t someone else’s job to do that.
Pressuring other people to do it for you is unfair. You need to love yourself, not your parents, spouse, or kids. It is time to take responsibility for that now.