Self-love

Today I’m going to talk about self-love. Self-love is often confused with other things. As a matter of fact, Thesaurus.com gives: egotism, conceit, narcissism, vainglory, and vanity as the first five offerings. It’s no wonder we don’t know what it is…and that we don’t practice it. We live in a society which promotes altruism over self-care because self-care is equated to selfishness. Now, I’m not knocking altruism, but you can’t give from an empty bucket.

When we were born, we were born with certain attributes. Those attributes were designed to get our needs met. If we were lucky, when we made a request, it was heard and attended to. Now, in most case, the need was met happily and with love and we learned that love came in the form of getting our needs and desires met. As we grew, we learned that there were some things we could do ourselves and as we attended to those needs and desires we learned to love ourselves. Unfortunately, we learned that we are also prone to mistakes. We failed, and we learned that others were capable of failure. Due to the original lesson of having our needs met equating to love, we began to decide that failure meant lack of love. A cycle was born. Those that learned to take responsibility for their own needs and learn from mistakes, learned self-love. The rest of us learned that people are just going to disappoint you and I’m no better. Or they learned that if people are going to love me, I must take care of them. They began looking for love in all the wrong places.

The Power of Positivity website has an article which lists the 10 Things to Figure Out When Preparing to Fall in Love. The first is focus on yourself. The second is figure out what you want? I would say, if you can’t do it for yourself, how can you recognize it coming from another?

Google defines self-love as a regard for one’s own well-being and happiness (chiefly considered as a desirable rather than narcissistic characteristic).

Can we do that?

Is that ok?

What if it were socially acceptable to take time for ourselves, to fill up our reservoir before we gave to others? Because we give to others ALL OF THE TIME.

Now how do we show self-love? Well, if we go back to the baby again, remember it made a request, it was listened to, and was responded to. The first thing I want to you do is imagine for a second. Imagine someone taking time to listen to you and responding to your needs. How does it feel? What feelings come up? Allow those feelings to come up. Listen to them. Acknowledge them. Now, ask, “What do you need?” Listen, really listen. Listen to understand. Now, sometimes all you need is validation.

“Yes, dammit, I really feel that way.”

Other times you’ll need something a bit more concrete or nurturing in the long run. Usually the answer, for me, is “me time” or somebody else to make dinner. While still other times you just want a hot fudge sundae. At this point, I ask, “Do you really need a hot fudge sundae?” At which point, I come back with “no, but I really want one.”

Needs vs. Wants

Part of self-love is learning what is a want and what is a need. A need fills up your bucket, while a desire fills out your hips. A really good tip is if you find yourself eating several hot fudge sundaes in a week and you never quite find your reservoir filled, it might be a want.  Needs that are responded to make you feel content and ready to take on the world. A want fulfilled does not answer the need. It’s still there no matter how many sundaes you eat. Self-love leads to a healthier lifestyle and more fulfilling life.

Self-love is also about commitments. Are you willing to commit to yourself as much as to others? When we know what we need, we must commit to making it happen. This could be as small as asking for time off, having someone else cook dinner or as big as committing to a change of behavior. If you don’t do it, who will? Plus, how will you know when someone else is truly attending to your needs unless you do it first?

One more thing happens when we commit to self-love. We learn to make requests. We learn to listen to understand. Finally, we learn to commit to ourselves.