What’s Self-Love Got to do With It?

Self-love was something of a mystery to me for much of my life. I had no idea what self-love was – what it was supposed to feel like, and how I would be if I loved myself. I wondered what conditions I was putting on what I thought of as self-love. I could not fathom loving myself first.

Feeling judged

I felt others were not loving me either. I felt judged and criticized, and that people were crossing my boundaries while having no respect or regard for me. I would spend so much of my time and energy trying to please others and could not even respect myself.

I wasn’t loving me. I opened myself wide up to be judged and criticized by doing these very things mentioned above, to myself. I have given away too much of my power in this way. This was not loving myself.

With this lack of self-love, I didn’t take care of myself with the worst thing being having no healthy boundaries.

Love and awareness

When I think about love, I ponder how we handle it in difference stages of our lives, or according to our current awareness.

We might feel the need to grab hold of any morsel of love we might find, lest we lose what love we have found. This could include platonic friends and lovers alike. I know I have felt this way.

Over the years I have heard many people, including psychologists, say that to be in a long-term relationship is a sign of maturity – having a deeper understanding of what love is. In my view, this is not necessarily the case, and in fact is often far from the truth. In my experience, feeling trapped in an unhealthy relationship left me feeling far lonelier than if I were alone, no matter what the length of the relationship. We can develop a deep understanding about love with friends, family, community, and other sentient beings.

Love yourself first

I think what we really desire is to connect with ourselves and feel the love within. It really depends on how we love ourselves and knowing that self-love needs to come first.

Love is everywhere and everything. Love is inclusive. When we lack love within ourselves, we cannot love ourselves. How then, can we really love another? We have been cultured to believe that everything is outside of ourselves and that to go within to connect with our own soul and love ourselves is selfish, self-indulgent, and even conceited. We are taught to not even like ourselves, let alone love ourselves and that the only real place to get love is from someone else. Truth is, once you love yourself first you have that love to give away, and as I’ve heard a prominent spiritual teacher say, “We cannot give away what we don’t have.”

If we have love for ourselves, within ourselves, we will feel it and perceive it everywhere, and never feel without love again. Self-love will never let us down. We will never fear abandonment, nor feel the need for acceptance or approval and loneliness will be a thing of the past.

Honor yourself

I cannot allow others to interfere with my life lessons and this too is where self-love comes in. Honoring the self – my needs and desires, is learning to love myself. It is to honor my path without shame, judgement, or guilt, and without apology. Self-love is about honoring where I am on my path and moving toward the purpose of my life.

To love myself is to decide when I give and when I take. While this might sound selfish and radical to some, what this means is to maintain my power. My idea of self-love is to take care of my power, energy, and boundaries. It is to use my power in constructive and positive ways for the benefit of myself and others.

The shadow self

It’s also about acceptance of my shadow self – all the foibles and imperfections and all those things I have deemed unacceptable about myself. To love myself is to honor who I am – all of me – where and who I am.

Are you loving yourself? What is your idea of self-love? Do you feel uncomfortable about the idea of self-love, or is this something you have a deep desire to work toward?

To me, it is the awareness that we are neither beneath nor above anyone. Self-love is loving ourselves as we are all one.

Love is not something to be clung to, cajoled, or chased after. Love is in infinite supply in Source energy. You are love. I am love. Thus, love IS!

Joyful journeying.