The Importance of Self-Love

Photo by Leighann Blackwood on Unsplash

Self-love does not mean egotistical. It does not mean you think you are better than everyone else. It does not mean you think you are more important than your family or friends. The true self-love comes from within each of us.

When we are striving for personal growth and development, we need to work on improving our self-love and our level of self-esteem at the same time. One of the best ways to improve your self-esteem and your sense of self-worth is to begin your personal journey towards self-love. You can begin this journey by deciding to forgive those who hurt you. Gather yourself up and forgive those who have done you wrong, even if they did not mean to do it.

By learning to focus all your mental and emotional energy on your inner critic and by forgiving those who have made you feel bad, you can work on building a healthy sense of self-worth and inner peace. Practicing gratitude every single day is an excellent way to cultivate inner peace. Gratitude helps you connect with what you deserve, and you gain control over your feelings so that you do not experience them overwhelming or out of control. Gather your energy and then release negative feelings like anger, shame, guilt, jealousy, sorrow, and envy into the space between your consciousness and your emotions.

Your physical and emotional well-being depends on you making time for yourself every single day. Give yourself permission to take care of yourself. When you put off your self-care, you allow stress and anxiety to increase until they occupy all your time and attention. You have the power to make time for yourself; therefore, you must make time to practice self-care daily.

The true path to self-love is an exploration of who you really are as a young girl growing up in a patriarchal society. You may have internalized many harmful messages about who women are and how they should behave, especially when it comes to their place in society. A good way to combat this is to learn more about your historical role as a young girl so that you are empowered to practice a more liberating form of self-love. For example, you may have internalized the message that it is okay to be sexy, that it is okay to sleep with older men and that young girls should be kept in their place and sexual boundaries. Learning more about the historical roles that women played in society helps you practice a more liberating approach to the way you love yourself.