What is Self-love, Why is it Important and 12 Ways to Practice it

What is self-love and why is it important

Self-love is not just about pampering yourself but it is the art of loving yourself without any remorse or guilt. Because loving yourself is not a crime and it is one such practice, that will help you to infuse yourself with confidence, vigor, and vitality.

The simple act of self-love involves loving yourself without being judgmental about your needs. And cherishing all the unique qualities and traits of your personality.

The importance of practicing self-love is that it deters you from over analyzing and criticizing yourself, which comes as a blessing. Since, being too critical of yourself only leads to self-hate. Wherein, a person starts developing self-acceptance issues and becomes skeptical of their individuality.

Also Read: 75 Best Self-Love Quotes that’ll Inspire You to Love Yourself

What is Self-Love

Self-love means having a high regard for your own well-being and happiness. It is a state of healthifying your mental, physical and spiritual well-being through considerable actions.

If you are starting your journey to self-love, it is advisable to take care of your needs. As many people avoid this and sacrifice their well-being to please others. Since they feel that keeping their needs above others is an act of selfishness.

Therefore, they overthink about what others might be thinking about them and how their actions would be perceived. The reason why they take so much pain to keep others happy.

The First Step to Self-Love

The first step to self-love is giving up all the bad habits, that you have incorporated into your lifestyle, that causes havoc in your life.

Such as not having a proper routine, having toxic people as friends, having a small sleeping window, and feeding yourself with innutritious food, that makes you lethargic all day.

Well, these things will only keep you healthy and fit from the outside. But what should we do to make ourselves mentally healthy and agile from the inside?

To mentally strengthen yourself, you need to rewire your brain and practice habits, that will give you its harvest in the following years.

The beginning of which is only possible only with self-love because if you don’t love yourself. Then you will feel insecure about yourself and will waste your time in seeking validation from those, who have made you insecure about yourself. While being skeptical of the intentions of good people, who genuinely like you and want you to get out of this bubble.

As the unloved and unappreciated parts of you, will haunt you and make you see things in a negative light. Therefore, without realizing you will turn into a self-hating, self-loathing, and a self-obsessed person.

Also Read: How to Stop being too Hard on Yourself

Why some people have a hard time loving themselves

Some people have a hard time loving and accepting themselves wholeheartedly. Because they constantly find faults in themselves even where they don’t have any pitfall.

They overanalyze themselves and become harsh critics of themselves. Which in turn makes them the worse bullies as they keep pulling themselves down with their negative self-talk.

It dismantles them by turning them into a plain bland personality. Whereas, others have a hard time loving and accepting themselves.

Because they have had a traumatic childhood or have been in a toxic relationship. Where they were belittled and battered by the one they dearly loved, which had decreased their self-worth in their own eyes. Hence, they feel they are undeserving of their love.

It’s High Time to Love Yourself and Practice Self-love

Research conducted by the American Association of Suicidology posits, that lack of self-love increases suicide rates. The 2008 research shows the impact of low self-esteem and lack of self-love and its relation to suicidal tendencies and attempts.

Self-love is one of the vital lifestyle habits, that you must inculcate to lead a happy and fulfilled life.

Don’t be your worse critic when you can be your best support system

As we all know, we can be our worse critics. So with the touch of self-love, we can heal the areas, that have been scarred by bad experiences and negative self-talk.

Because when you truly love yourself, you don’t become overcritical about yourself and have acceptance for yourself as you do for others. Which helps you to form a sacred and deeper bond with yourself.

Therefore, self-love is the secret sauce to a happy and contented life. It makes you set the standards for accepting the kind of love, you feel you deserve.

Because when you truly love yourself, you know the kind of people and experiences you want to attract in your life.

This motivates you to work hard on yourself and not to soil your mind by feeding malicious content in it.

Also Read: 13 True Signs of Love to know Whether your Love is Real or Not

Leave this habit if you are embarking on a journey to self-love

When you don’t acknowledge yourself and take yourself for granted it makes you a pessimistic, judgmental, negative, and an ungrateful person. Who only views things in dark light and doesn’t have the zeal to carry on or hit any milestones in his life.

This is because such people are always low on motivation and have no faith and confidence in themselves. As they have been disregarding their own entity and cursing themselves for being a certain way, that makes them feel they are incapable of doing anything.

Such negative emotions and strong view that they hold about themselves makes them a victim of their own mind.

Self-love Practices that will make you truly love yourself

So, if you are a victim of your own mind then you need to adopt these self-love practices that will heal you from the inside and will give you a boost of motivation to live the life, you have always imagined in your mind.

So here are some of the self-love practices that will help you to heal yourself and will transform you from a self-loathing and unconfident person to a person with a winner’s mind-set. Have a look at these amazing self-love practices that will transform your life. Here are some self-love practices that will make you love yourself:

Ways to Practice Self-Love

Self-love and self-improvement goes hand in hand. So let’s embark on the journey to self-love with these 12 simple self-love practices. Don’t forget to be diligent and practice them daily because only then, you’ll see some improvement in yourself.

1. Build a routine and stick to it

Having a routine is very important to live a disciplined life. Going to bed early and waking up early, exercising daily, and expressing gratitude towards all is a must to have in your routine.

It is often seen that people who live a couch-potato life feel demotivated about themselves. They are filled with the guilt of wasting their precious time doing unproductive activities.

Therefore, having a routine that incorporates mental and physical work, keeps you energized and happy. Because you are assured, that you are investing your time in self-improvement activities, and in this journey of self-progress you learn to love and respect yourself.

Also Read: 50+ Sad Love Quotes that will Help you to Move On Without any Baggage

2. Take your own decisions

When you take important decisions for yourself without having to seek the constant validation and approval of others.

You learn to believe in yourself and it is one of the baby steps towards your journey to self-love. This teaches you to trust yourself and to have faith in yourself that you are strong and capable of taking good care of yourself.

3. Set boundaries

It’s very important to set your own ground rules for yourself and never allow anybody to sabotage your inner peace. For this, you need to enforce boundaries to define the kind of treatment you expect from people and the kind of vibes you’d like to invite.

This will help you to filter out negative and toxic people from your life. So don’t take the energy of negative people in your life and love yourself, only then you’ll be able to realize how to value your time and energy, and where to channelize it.

4. Be mindful of the energy you expose yourself to

We live in an era, where we are exposed to the constant flow of energy, that comes from various sources. Be it the internet, your social circle, your family, or your peers.

This means there’s excess information, advice, and drama that you get to face daily basis. It oftentimes becomes overwhelming for you because you get to know what behavior, characteristics, and personality are deemed to be attractive in the eyes of society, and what is considered to be unattractive.

Therefore, you keep on running in circles to fit into that image. So you can be a part of that cool group even if the person you are trying to become is your polar opposite, that you feel is a bogus representation of a standard male or female.

To avoid getting trapped in this circle, you should be mindful of the energy you expose yourself to. Otherwise, it will make you turn into a disoriented being, who will never learn how to accept himself and to have love and admiration for oneself. Because you were busy wearing a false façade.

Also Read: The Power of Walking Away from Someone you Love

5. Communicate your feelings more often

It is often seen that people, who don’t communicate effectively with others have severe anxiety, fear of sharing their feelings, low self-esteem, and low confidence in themselves.

They overthink a lot, judge themselves and overanalyze situations and undermine their abilities. If you are hesitant to share your emotions and always bear everything silently. Then it is not healthy for your overall well-being. Because keeping up pent-up feelings for a long time results in anxiety, and the fear of opening up to others and sharing your concern with others.

You become a receptor of unwanted treatment. Because people assume, that you won’t say no to them or will bear the mistreatment. Therefore, raise your voice, communicate and make a strong circle, that supports you through thick and thin.

Self-love is all about feeling good about yourself and if you will have so many pent-up feelings in your heart, then you will have a negative self-image of yourself. So have a strong voice and attract people, who will love you for what you are and not because they want to benefit from your friendship.

6. Learn new things keep yourself updated

The primordial aim of self-love is self-growth. We can make this journey of self-love worthwhile by adding new experiences in life. Because learning new things not only builds self-efficacy but also makes us confident about ourselves.

We feel more abled, recharged, and positive because we know we are becoming better day by day. This positive attitude builds a positive image of yourself in your mind. You start respecting yourself and the love for yourself multiplies to ten folds.

7. Eat healthy

You are what you eat. If you don’t believe it, then eat burgers as your daily breakfast and no sooner, you’ll turn into a burger. If you are into unhealthy eating habits, then it’s a wake-up call.

Because if you are feeding innutritious food to your body, then you are risking your health. As bad eating habits and consuming junk food on a regular basis not only makes our body weak, sick and fragile but it also slows down the mental processes of our mind.

Also Read: Loving a Lone Wolf: How to keep a Relationship on with a Loner

8. Start etching your thoughts

Whenever you feel a little low and try to sabotage your peace by bringing yourself down, try to recollect positivity by writing something in your journal. When you practice daily writing, you feel liberated. Because you start to answer emotions, that you are too afraid to share with others.

This beautiful way of communicating your thoughts to yourself is not only beneficial for your mental health. But it also strengthens the connection, that you have built with yourself.

9. Have a bit of laughter therapy

Sometimes being a child and having a childish attitude is better than being a grumpy soul. Because when you don’t relish the small and beautiful moments of life, you miss on the biggest pleasures of life, that are valuable for us.

So treat yourself with everyday comedy sessions, experience the bliss of joy. Stay in the heightened state of euphoria by sticking around people, who are ready to crack a laughter and enjoy the small moments in life.

10. Pamper Yourself

After a tedious day of work it feels good, when you do some pampering for yourself. Because why you should expect everything from others, and it’s not always a good idea to make others feel special, while ignoring your own self.

So give yourself a special treatment, put on a mask, decorate your home, place your favorite flowers in your bedroom and savor the aroma lingering in your room. Because the art of self-love involves making yourself feel special, and relaxed so that you feel energized and happy throughout the day.

11. Breathe in and out

Synchronize your energy and make everything fall in harmony inside. Heal all the broken parts of you, that have been bleeding throughout these years. Bring clarity to your thoughts and burn those negative emotions, that you have inside for those, who have hurt you throughout your life. Learn to take your wellness on high priority because self-love begins where negativity ends.

Also Read: 8 Best Qualities of Introverts and How to Benefit from It

12. Have Positive Self Talk with yourself

Build your self-esteem by having a positive self-talk with yourself. It will not only boost your morale but will make you acknowledge yourself. So compliment yourself and give positive affirmations to yourself daily.

You can try this exercise by telling yourself, “You are smart, capable and loving, and you can achieve anything.” By doing so, you’ll definitely see an improvement in yourself and will have positive thoughts about yourself, which will make you feel good about yourself, all through the day.

Don’t lend an ear to your negative thoughts, that keep pestering you to think of yourself as a loser. Rather feed positive thoughts in your mind and feel the bliss of positive self-talk.

Key Takeaways

Let thy spirit be high in love, Namaste!