Self-love: The Source Of All Other Loves

"Self-love is the source of all our other loves." - Pierre Corneille

Self-Love is a buzz word in today’s world. There are many YouTube videos, books, blog posts and whatnot, explaining to us the power of Self-love.

Even after reading these blog posts or watching such videos, many of us still fail to understand the deeper meaning of loving ourselves.

We think Self-Love is having a spa day or beautifying our bodies, or saying no to people. In reality, the concept is not that superficial and holds a lot of depth at its core.

I started experimenting with self-love in the year 2016. While I tried all the acts related to self-love, like pampering myself with bubble baths, aromatherapy, massage, decluttering and being assertive still wasn’t able to love myself unconditionally. Self-love was a struggle for me because my brain always used to judge my thoughts, feelings and actions. It’s easy to love someone who behaves according to us and is obedient and disciplined. But it’s tough to love ourselves if the brain carries negative self-talk, regrets, criticism and guilt.

After four years of practising self-love, here’s my take on Self-Love – it is, loving your inner child in every thick and thin. It’s the unconditional love that we often seek outside ourselves and expect from people in our lives.

We all want to be finished goods, but in reality, we all are work in progress. The day we will accept our flaws, we will start loving ourselves unconditionally.

Healing our sense of ‘Self’ is ‘Self-love’. It is –

taking care of our mental, emotional and physical needs;
believing ourselves when people think we are crazy;
adoring and accepting our weaknesses when people hate us for them;
trusting our dreams when nobody else has faith in us;
having confidence in ourselves when we are failing in every game of our life;
appreciating our efforts when we have hardly accomplished anything;
caring for ourselves when we are vulnerable from inside;
enjoying our downtime when others think we are wasting time;
establishing our boundaries, even so, they might distance us from our loved ones and,
listening to our heart when our brain says we are useless.

Acts of self-love –

Some of the acts of Self-love that bring peace and calmness to our ever chatty brain and turbulent emotions are –

Investing time in our hobbies.
Spending time with people who nourish and heal our soul.
Accepting our weaknesses wholly.
Enjoying our downtime without holding any guilt.
Speaking out our truth instead of judging our soul’s call or intuition.
Maintaining distance from toxic people who belittle our sense of worth.

Barriers of self-love –

I often focus on the ‘How to’ question of any given topic. But when it comes to self-worth, I think we need to find out the enemies that act as barriers in loving ourselves instead of focusing on ‘How to practice Self-love’ because I believe we all know how to love and pamper ourselves.

Some of the hindrances that we need to beware of while practising Self-love –

Over-critical brain – that analysis our every move, feeling, thought and action.
Lack-mentality – Believing that somehow we are not enough and not accepting our flaws whole-heartedly.
Faith in others opinion – agreeing with people’s judgement and notions about us.
Criticizing mistakes – When we can’t accept our mistakes, we leave room for the guilt that ultimately hampers our sense of self-worth.
The pressure of performing – When we expect a lot from ourselves, we are somehow never happy with our efforts and doubt our abilities.

Takeaway –

Self-love isn’t selfish; if we are not happy and at peace, we can not fill other people’s cup. For loving others, we need to radiate that love from within by prioritizing ourselves over others. Self-love may not happen overnight. But over time, with continuous practice, gradually, it will become our second nature.