Learning To Love Yourself Deeply

During this season of self-love, I want to talk about how you fall deeply in love with yourself.

Isn’t it crazy that in this day and age that we have to tell ourselves to love ourselves?

Think about the things that we say and do to ourselves. We can call ourselves names like fat, ugly, or horrible. Things that we would never say out loud to anyone else. We push ourselves to physical points of exhaustion for obligation for family, for friends, the job or just appearances. We stay in relationships that do not serve us because of some belief that we’ve held one to. Is that how to love yourself?

That’s why we need to be reminded to care for ourselves; to love ourselves deeply.

How To Love Yourself

When I’m talking about loving yourself deeply, how would you know if you actually do love yourself? A reference point could be how you love somebody else: a beloved person in your life who you truly love. When you love someone, what do you do?

You start off by buying nice things for other people. To become move loving to ourselves, we can buy nice things for ourselves. We can have a manicure or pedicure. Buy a nice coat or a pair of shoes. Go to the movies, go for meals. Whatever it is that we love, we can buy or do these things for ourselves because that’s what we do for other people. Love yourself by engaging in these self-love activities.

The Importance of Self-Love

We all know that true love starts from within. It’s the feelings that we have for ourselves and for others. Imagine the feeling that you have for somebody that you truly love. Do you actually experience those same feelings yourself?

Yes?

No?

Could it be that the thoughts that you have for your beloved are beautiful, positive, wonderful thoughts and the thoughts that you have for yourself are judgmental, negative and berating? Do you even see yourself as beloved?

Our thinking creates our feeling. If we’ve got negative thoughts about ourselves, it’s hardly surprising that we feel bad about ourselves.

The other thing that we do with our beloved is acceptance. You accept your beloved for who and what they truly are. Are you accepting yourself without judgment? Because that’s where that beautiful feeling of loving yourself first can come from. Instead of looking at all the stuff you should have done, Look at the true nature of your heart, your true self. That part of you which gives love so freely to others is just waiting for you to experience that love for yourself.

How To Love Yourself Unconditionally

How do you overcome this and love yourself first? Once you know and understand that your thinking and your thoughts about yourself are not true—that they’re based upon memories, other people’s opinions and perceptions about you that you’ve made true about yourself—then the love you have for yourself starts to change. You stop placing conditions on yourself and start to love yourself unconditionally. You accept yourself and start to realise the mistakes you made in the past were the best that you could do at the time with the thinking you believed to be true. Accept the mistakes and also accept the beautiful loving nature within you that wants you to experience that love that you freely give to others for yourself.

In understanding and knowing what true love for yourself is, how you then treat yourself will change.