Loving Yourself to Love Others
Learning to love yourself requires Love. And loving yourself to love others is hard. It’s something we all desire. I haven’t met one person in my life who hasn’t wanted to love or be loved in return. It’s crazy really. This “love” thing. Because no one ever teaches you growing up what love is and what it looks like. Sure, we see examples of love from the people around us, but sometimes those examples aren’t always loving. We get taught the basic subjects in school: english, math, science. But never have I ever gone to a class on love.
The Struggle with Loving Yourself to Love Others
Unfortunately, I see more people struggle with knowing how to love versus those who have mastered it. Think about it for a second. How many people do you know who seem to be loving? Or in loving relationships? In my counseling office I have listened to countless individuals grieve broken relationships and shattered dreams of what love “could have been”. Through these honest conversations I have realized there is a gap between wanting love and knowing how to love.
The truth is if we want to give or receive love we must learn to love. To know how to love others, the first person you can start learning how to love is yourself. You can only give to others what you have yourself. Oftentimes, I find most of us do the opposite. We are looking for others to validate us so that it can show us some proof that we are worthy of love. When we love ourselves, we appreciate and accept ourselves, knowing our worth and value is not dependent on others’ affirmation.
Why Do You Need To Love Yourself
Learning to love yourself is a process of discovery and acceptance. Although the relationship with ourselves is the longest relationship we will ever be in, I’ve discovered most people do a not so great job of loving themselves. When we don’t love ourselves we are often way more critical of ourselves and feelings of inadequacy, shame, anger, loneliness, or guilt can take over. It can result in feeling the need to accomplish things to prove ourselves to others. But, learning to love yourself can increase your feelings of happiness and improve your self-esteem and self-worth, which allows you to love others not from a place of fear, but with authenticity and confidence.
You are Unique and Valued
One way to love yourself is to discover your uniqueness and acknowledge your strengths. There is nor will ever be an exact duplicate of you. Which means you have things about you that are unique to you. Being able to recognize the things about yourself that you value and appreciate is a great start. This will also help you be able to recognize the uniqueness of those you love.
Authentically loving yourself means being you. Accepting ourselves for who we are instead of what we do or who we think we should be can be very freeing. You will never be able to make everyone happy or like you. Learning to accept yourself, flaws and all, can allow you to be able to accept others when their “less than perfect” self shows up. You’re one step closing towards loving yourself to love others.
Uplift Yourself
Change your self-talk. Listen to how you talk to yourself. We often say things to ourselves that we would never say to a friend or loved one. When talking to yourself, choose kind words. Try looking in the mirror and saying kind things to yourself. It’s harder than it sounds, but I encourage you to try it. Everyone appreciates kind words. Learning to be kind to yourself can help you be more intentional about being kind to others.
At the end of the day, acknowledge what you have done right instead of focusing on everything you did wrong. Practice self-compassion. Part of loving yourself is giving yourself permission to be human. To make mistakes. To forgive yourself when you make a not so great decision. And realizing that one bad decision doesn’t define who you are or your worthiness.
Loving Yourself to Love Others with Self-Care
Choose to take care of yourself. Do you need a day off? Maybe you have a favorite hobby, have you done that lately? Have you spent time doing something to recharge or relax when overwhelmed? Learn to acknowledge what you need and take the time to do those things. When you love yourself, you are able to express your needs, feelings, and desires and not feel threatened when others express those things as well.
Finding Love
If you find loving yourself hard, know that you are not alone. We can all learn better ways to love and grow in love. My hope is that you start with learning to love yourself. Because you, my friend, are worthy and deserving of love. When you learn to love yourself, it can help you begin to love others better.
(If you want to dive in more, there are many books out there that provide great insight on how to love. My personal favorites are “Love As A Way of Life,” by Gary Chapman and “Love: What life is all about…” by Leo Buscaglia.)
