To fall in love with yourself is the first secret to happiness. – Robert Morley
Tony Robbins says, “The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships,” and that includes your relationship with yourself.
Of course, we want to have a good quality of life and a positive relationship with ourselves. But how can we have one if we don’t know how to love ourselves? And most importantly, why is it so hard to love ourselves?
We often criticize and speak to ourselves more harshly than we would to our worst enemy. When we look in the mirror, we tend to focus only on the imperfections.
The answer is: we can’t love what we are not! I know it sounds strange, so let me unpack this concept.
But first, let’s explore why it is important to love yourself.
5 important reasons to love yourself
1. Overall Well-being:
When you love yourself, you take care of yourself which it helps you to manage stress, anxiety and negative thoughts in a better way. And this also boost your emotional, mental and physical health giving you an overall well-being state.
2. Improved Relationships:
Loving yourself create better, healthy and positive relationships, because it sets the foundation for mutual respect and support. When you love yourself you become a better parent, a better partner, a better friend and a better individual in general.
3. Role Modeling:
I think this is one of the most important reasons because it sets a powerful example for our children, teaching them the importance of loving and valuing themselves.
This wasn’t model to most of us, because our parent and grand-parent didn’t know either how to do it so it is up to us to brake the cycle and show the new generations that you can achieve a lot more by loving yourself than being hard on yourself.
4. Increased Resilience:
Self-love enhances your ability to bounce back from setbacks. By being more compassionate with yourself, it’s easier to find the lessons and move on.
5. Authenticity and Confidence:
Loving yourself helps you embrace who you are, with both your qualities and imperfections. This allows you to live authentically, aligned with your true values and desires, which in turn increases your confidence.
Why is it so hard?
You see now why it is important to love yourself, so back to the question, if it is important why is it so hard. Well like I said above we can’t love what we are not. Let’s unpack this.
When we are young, up to about 5 years old, we don’t worry much. We do what we want without thinking about what others might think—we are just ourselves, our true selves.
We run naked, scream at the top of our lungs, and have fun immersed in our imagination, never stopping to think if that is good or bad. Those concepts are not yet ingrained in us.
But as we get older, we become more aware of our surroundings, start comparing ourselves to others, and our parents begin socializing us, teaching us all the rules and norms of how to behave in society.
Our need to belong
We, as human beings, are hardwired to belong, so we start acting in ways we never did before to ensure we fit in. Then we become people pleasers and begin adopting different masks or personas depending on the group we are in. We start acting differently at school than at home or with close friends. We start living in an unauthentic way.
This is our conditioned self, and as life goes on, we gradually distance ourselves more and more from our true self until it is almost forgotten. And then we ask, ‘Why can’t I love myself?’ Well, you can’t love what you are not! You are not your conditioned self, and that’s why it is hard—almost impossible—to love that version of yourself.
Thankfully, our essence never fully escapes us, and in the quiet moments, we hear that little voice calling us back, trying to awaken us. However, we usually ignore it because it’s frightening. It’s daunting to think that all we have built might be a lie, based on a persona we are not. It’s even more intimidating to consider that we might need to change our entire life. So, we keep ignoring it and continue numbing ourselves, which could be with drugs, alcohol, food, shopping, TV, social media, etc. Alternatively, we might just stay busy so we don’t have (or won’t make) the time to confront it.
Reconnecting with your true self
The good news is that self-love is a skill you can develop and you don’t have to change your entire life. What you need to do is get back to your authentic self, reconnect with it, and let it flourish! You need to slow down and reflect on what in your life feels inauthentic, because it’s not as if everything was a lie.
When I had this wake-up call, it wasn’t anything grandiose or an amazing breakthrough. One day, while talking with my son’s second-grade teacher, I realized how far I was from my true self. I had completely forgotten about myself while raising my son. That day, I asked myself the question: Who am I when I am not being a mom? I didn’t have an answer, and that was a scary moment. But instead of continuing to ignore it, I decided to face it head-on once and for all.
The process of reconnection began by reading and participating in personal development programs, where they encourage you to slow down and ask the hard questions. Through this process, I realized I had stopped dancing—something I absolutely loved since I was a child. I had become a big people pleaser, and my spiritual practice, which I used to engage in, had been forgotten.
So yes, there were some things I needed to change in my life, but not everything. Being a mom and a wife didn’t change, but I did it better because I started prioritizing myself, allowing me to support them from a better place.
How to love yourself
Let’s talk now about how to love yourself.
1. Reconnect with your true self:
This is the absolute first and most important step. Here are some ways you can do it.
Self-Reflection: Take the time to reflect on your life. Consider journaling your thoughts and feelings as a way to explore who you are now versus who you want to be.
Identify Inauthentic Aspects: Reflect on which parts of your life feel inauthentic or out of alignment with your true self.
Reconnect with Passions: Think about activities you loved as a child or young adult that you might have abandoned. Re-introducing these activities can bring joy and a sense of identity.
Seek Personal Development: Engage in personal development courses or workshops that encourage self-exploration and authenticity.
2. Practice Self-Compassion:
I know you have heard this before, but it is true: you need to start treating yourself with the same kindness and understanding you would offer a friend.
Stop being so hard on yourself and learn to forgive yourself for mistakes, understanding that all human beings make mistakes and that you don’t need to be perfect—no one is expecting you to be.
3. Reframe the negative self-talk:
Become aware of all the negative self-talk and the stories you tell yourself that are not true. These stories disempower you, and it is time to change your story and narrative to an empowering one.
You can start by writing down all the negative things you tell yourself and then find at least one reason why each is not true, writing it down as well. This makes you more aware of them, and next time you say it, you can correct yourself with love and compassion. For example, if I forget something or make a mistake, I used to say, “Oh, I’m such an idiot, how could I forget?” But then I would correct myself by saying, “You are not an idiot; you just made a mistake or forgot something, and that’s okay. I’ll try to do better next time.”
In this way, little by little, you train your mind to be kind and loving towards yourself. You might have to do it a lot in the beginning, but that’s okay. Be patient; these changes don’t happen overnight.
4. Reflect on Achievements:
Begin acknowledging your efforts and celebrating your achievements, no matter how small, because small progress is still progress, and you build self-esteem and confidence this way.
Think of a time when you felt proud of yourself and enjoy the feeling of achievement. This is not the time to be humble; it’s time to acknowledge and celebrate.
5. Have clear priorities:
It is important to know what is significant for you at this stage of your life. Determine what is worthy of your time and energy. I emphasize “at this stage” because our priorities change throughout our lifetime.
Something I learned during my process of reconnection is that I am my first priority. If I am well, then everyone around me benefits. Many of us hold the mistaken belief that prioritizing yourself is selfish (I wrote a blog post about it; check it out here). However, that is far from the truth. We can’t give from an empty cup; that’s a fact.
Write a list of the things that are important to you, those things that deserve your time and energy.
6. Set Boundaries:
Learning to say no is hard but imperative to protect your time and energy.
One of the biggest fears of human beings is not being loved. This is why, from a young age, we learn to please people: if I do what they want me to do, I’ll get their attention and love. No wonder it is so hard to establish healthy boundaries as adults!
The process of loving yourself invites you to prioritize yourself, this means to put yourself first. To do that, you need to tell others no when necessary. Remember, every yes to someone else is a no to yourself and to the things that are important to you.
This is the thing: if we don’t learn to set boundaries, we may end up resenting the people around us. Although it might feel like their fault because they asked something of us, the truth is that it’s our responsibility to say no. By not expressing our limits and always agreeing to others’ demands, we risk building up feelings of frustration and resentment.
It’s essential to understand that setting boundaries is an act of self-care and respect for both yourself and your relationships. When you communicate your needs clearly, you foster healthier interactions and mutual understanding, preventing misunderstandings and promoting a more balanced and fulfilling connection with those around you.
7. Engage in Self-Care:
This is the area that often gets neglected when we don’t love ourselves, because we believe we don’t deserve it, or use the excuse of being too busy to do it. Yes, I know we live super busy lives, and it is hard, especially for moms, but exhausting ourselves doesn’t help anyone.
We need to be intentional about this, schedule time for ourselves, and treat it like a doctor’s appointment, meaning that you show up because you know it’s important and you don’t want to pay the cancellation fee. Here, you are showing up for yourself because it is important, you are important, and you don’t want to pay later on when you are burned out.
Self-care is much more than just a bubble bath or a massage. Yes, those are great, but they’re not the only things, and they require quite a bit of time, so we don’t do them as often as we should.
Self-care doesn’t have to be complicated. A 15-minute walk outside, singing and dancing for 5 minutes, short breathing and mindfulness sessions, reading a book, or journaling are great ways to rewire your nervous system and recharge.
Dedicating time to activities that rejuvenate and recharge you is one of the best ways to take care of yourself. As I mentioned before, reconnecting with your passions guides you back to yourself, motivates you, and fills you with energy.
In my opinion, another essential practice for self-care is self-reflection. There’s no point in soaking in a hot tub to relax the body while the mind is racing and repeating the same stories over and over.
Self-reflection is a powerful way to take care of yourself. You become aware of patterns and thoughts that have been silently running your life and can consciously begin to change them.
Journaling is the most popular, and my favorite, method for reflection. There is something magical and liberating about dumping everything that’s in your head onto paper. It creates space to see things from a different perspective.
Meditation, mind mapping, and practicing gratitude are other effective ways to engage in self-reflection.
The point is, we need to stop rushing around and ignoring that nagging feeling inside us. We need to slow down, create space for reflection, and ask the hard questions. This is the only way we will grow and create the life we want.
8. Positive Affirmations:
Affirmations are positive statements that can help you reprogram your mind. I know many people find affirmations to be woo woo or just plain ridiculous, but they have been proven to work—not for any magical reason, but from a neuroscience perspective, here’s why affirmations can be effective:
- Neuroplasticity: The brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections. Affirmations can help create new neural pathways, which reinforce positive thinking patterns.
- Positive Thinking: Repeated positive affirmations can help reduce negative thoughts by shifting your focus from what’s wrong to what’s right. This can increase your feelings of optimism and well-being.
- Reduction of Stress and Anxiety: Affirmations can activate brain regions associated with rewards and decrease stress levels. By promoting positivity, they can help reduce anxiety and improve mood.
This works, trust me, but the key is that you need to believe it and use your whole body and energy when saying the affirmations. Don’t just say them in your head without energy; nothing is going to change that way!
Start your day with encouraging thoughts, regularly affirming your strengths and worth.
Look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I love you, I see you, we got this!” When you do this, make sure you look into your eyes with love—the same love you give to others, you need to give to yourself.
Usually, we look in the mirror and criticize ourselves. This exercise is about looking beyond that—looking into your soul and recognizing the amazing person you are, deserving of love, connection, and happiness.
9. Seek Support
We are not meant to do this alone, nor do we need to. We are hardwired for connection and community, so it’s essential to surround yourself with positive influences and seek out people who uplift and support your journey toward self-love.
Belonging to a community is crucial because it provides us with a sense of shared experience and understanding. Knowing that you are not alone in this process and that other women experience the same challenges can be incredibly reassuring. When we share what has worked for us, we help others navigate their own journeys with greater ease and confidence.
Whether in person or online, there are wonderful communities dedicated to supporting each other. Joining a community brings encouragement, diverse perspectives, and collective wisdom, enhancing your growth and self-discovery.
I have a Facebook Community called Radiant Mamas ✨ Thrive and Grow Together, which you can join HERE to connect with like-minded individuals.
Together, we can thrive and grow on this beautiful journey.
10. Have fun!
Last but certainly not least, remember to have fun in the process. Self-love and well-being are not destinations; they are ongoing journeys. Like any journey, they will have their ups and downs, and the most important aspect is to be present for each moment.
Although the work of reconnecting with our true selves and loving ourselves is both important and sometimes challenging, it’s crucial not to approach it too seriously.
In fact, the more relaxed and lighthearted we are, the easier this journey becomes. The goal is not to add more stress to our lives but to enhance joy and fulfillment. Embrace the fun, celebrate small victories, and allow yourself to enjoy each step along the way. This approach makes the journey not only more enjoyable but also more sustainable in the long run.
Conclusion
Loving ourselves it is not an option, it is a must. We owe it to our 5 years old self, to reconnect with who we truly are. Self-love is not an elusive dream; it is a tangible reality waiting to be embraced. It is the gentle whisper of your true self, urging you to return home. By peeling away the layers of societal expectations and conditioned personas, you can rediscover the essence of who you truly are.
There you have it! Now you know why it is (or was) so hard to love ourselves, why it is important, and how to love ourselves.
Of course, this process is not linear, and this list is not meant to be followed in order, except for #1—that’s the starting point. After that, trust yourself and focus on what is most important for your life at that moment.
I truly hope you decide to embark on this transformational journey and close the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
Wishing you lots of courage, insights, and much love!
Thanks for reading and keep shining!
Nathalia M.
