Friday, January 16, 2015

What Is Self-Love Anyway?

To expand my dating coaching abilities, I often research other coaches. This week, I've been listening to male and female coaches give advice to women about how to find the right guy. And a common theme has emerged: In order to attract true love, you need to love yourself first.

Makes sense, right? But, what exactly does that mean? Well, different coaches describe it differently. I've heard self-love defined as:
- Valuing yourself and your needs and desires
- Putting yourself first to create your own happiness
- Cherishing yourself by treating yourself the way you want others to treat you
- Being kind and gentle and nonjudgmental with yourself
- Speaking up and telling others what you like and want without guilt
- Respecting and honoring your own boundaries (not settling for less than you deserve)
- Seeing the Divine within yourself

If someone asked you right now, "Do you love yourself?"...what would you say? If you feel you DO love yourself, how do you know? How do you show it?

We might answer these questions by starting with how we know we're NOT being self-loving--like when we let others disrespect us, when we try to "earn" love by giving too much to others just so they'll like us, when we stay with someone who mistreats us, or when we're afraid to ask for what we want because deep down we don't feel we deserve to get it.

Haven't we all done one or more of these things at some time when dating or in the various relationships in our lives? Not very loving behaviors by anyone's definition. 

So now, let's turn them around. Being self-loving would mean you:
- respect yourself enough to say "no" to people or situations that compromise your integrity
- give only as much as feels reasonable and comfortable for you, not because you fear the other person won't like you unless you give more
- end relationships or spend less time with people who treat you badly
- ask for what you want, coming from a place of abundance and a strong sense of self

I feel most self-loving when I'm making a point of:
- doing things I love just for the joy of it
- listening to my intuition and following my heart (rather than that voice of "should")
- pampering myself with good food, the hot tub at the Y, movies I enjoy, being out in nature, buying and/or arranging flowers for myself, reading books/magazines/websites I'm learning from, spending time with my kids and/or my dearest friends, or just doing nothing guilt free
- acknowledging myself for things I'm proud of
- cutting myself some slack (i.e., not judging myself too harshly) for my mistakes

Self-love is not about boasting because it doesn't matter that others give you accolades. The only thing that matters is that YOU acknowledge yourself and feel good about you. We're all works in progress. Nobody is perfect. And we learn the most when we mess up.

How about you? What's your self-opinion? Do you treat yourself as well as you treat your best friend? Is your self-talk kind and gentle or harsh and critical? Do you love you just the way you are--or do you constantly focus on your faults/shortcomings? 

Start being self-loving today: make a list of all the things that are unique and wonderful and lovable about you. The things your friends notice and remark upon. The qualities you take for granted rather than taking credit for. 

The most-precious gift I got this Christmas was a little ceramic pig (a favorite animal that I collect) from a dear friend, filled with tiny pieces of paper listing the things she loved, admired, and respected about me. I know I could've written the very same things about myself if I took the time to give myself an inner hug--something I think we could all benefit from doing!

No comments:

Post a Comment