Self-love? Isn’t it selfish to think about me? (No, read until the end to find out why not) I’m sure you heard it is important to raise your self-esteem though, and maybe you’ve read some tips about it … Although self-esteem tips are useful, they tend to be approached from the conscious effort to give yourself value, but if you love and accept yourself, automatically you will value yourself, you’ll stop questioning your worth in any field, because when you love yourself, then you accept yourself the way you are, this does not mean that you become a conformist and think, -ah, I’m perfect, I don’t have to do anything anymore to grow- it is true that you don’t “have” to do anything, but you will feel motivated to make improvements for yourself and others. And if you don’t love yourself, hardly someone else will.
When you love yourself you are naturally motivated to ……
1.- Take care of your physique. For example if it was hard for you to exercise, cause you felt it was useless, now you’ll feel motivated, and If you were lazy with your appearance, now you will gladly groom yourself from your inner motivation, not simply for external pressure anymore.
2.- Eat healthier. You’ll listen to your body, and learn that to feel good it is not only enough to take care of your appearance but also to nourish yourself well, so when you love yourself, you eat healthier, that does not mean that you won’t have a craving sometimes, you can give yourself the whim once in a while, and you’ll enjoy it better without guilt, because you you’ll even feel motivated to research more about how to take care of yourself, although there are many types of diets, the point is that you research and also listen more to your body to know what is the best diet for you. When you start feeling good, it’s also easier for you to reject the foods that don’t suit you well.
3.- Stop worrying about what others think of you. When you love yourself, you accept yourself the way you are, you know yourself, you are honest with yourself and therefore, although others WILL judge you, you know why you act or acted the way you do/did, you will not worry about justifying yourself to others, you’ll also express your positions with respect depending on the circumstances, expressing yourself openly is equally a show of love yourself and for others.
4.- Do things that you are passionate about, that you like, that make you feel fulfilled. You’ll know what you want, you’re priorities will be clear, to do what gives meaning to your life, and therefore you’ll stop making excuses to force yourself into imposed activities that only take energy away from you, you’ll make better use of your time when you love yourself.
5.- Learn new things for the pleasure of nourishing your mind, or your spirit. Not only you will eat healthier food, when you love yourself, you are motivated to feed your mind and spirit by learning to do new things and acquiring new inspiring experiences.
6.- Inspire respect, and you will also treat yourself with dignity. You will show that you feel good about yourself and others will perceive it, since you love yourself and treat yourself well, it is no longer necessary that you wear a mask of importance to force others to respect you, you naturally show yourself confidently and people will respect you for that.
7.- Stop feeling guilty. You’ll accept yourself, so you’ll know that even though you made decisions with painful consequences in the past, you accept what happened, say thanks for the lesson learned, and stop blaming yourself for it.
What I mean with “it will be easier”, I mean that the effort you had to make in the past for doing things that made you feel lazy, fades. Instead you will do it with pleasure and you recharge yourself of energy, you’ll stop doing it because of obligation or boredom, but because you feel good doing it.
The Mirror rule. Another benefit is that when you love yourself, you love others, I heard that there is this rule called, The Mirror rule, it says that everything you admire in others, you also have it or reflect it in some way, It is an example that is given mainly when you admire someone so much, you think “wow, you are an incredible speaker, I could never speak like that in public”, maybe at that moment what you deeply most admire about that person is his/her courage to be able to speak in public, and you haven’t realize it but you also have the same courage, perhaps when confronting a specific person or situation when might feel intimidated. But this law also mentions that when you hate, or you dislike something about another person, or it bothers you too much, you also have that, the thing is that you have not learned to love that characteristic in yourself, so it shown to you reflected in others, so that you learn to love You, and accept you the way you are. I mean, maybe you have a nosy neighbor that you really dislike because he always seems to be meddling in your affairs, but under what circumstances are you nosy? For now you can deny it, but think about it…maybe with your children or with your partner? (Is just an example)
You will discover that loving yourself is a continuous learning process, nobody knows how to love themselves fully and completely, there will always be a new side of you to learn to love, either because you do not accept it, or you do not like it. after all, that is what we are here for, if we already knew how to love, we would have nothing to learn.
If you want to learn practical tips to love your self, let me know if you wan’t to receive a Practical Guide to Improve your Self, or your can also read material from Love Louise Hay y Robert Holden, I hope to be able to attach the book link soon, but I think my Amazon affiliate accoun hasn’t been approved, you can write me if you wan’t to know the titles or searh on the navigator. Love yourself and others!