The Importance of Self-Love
I feel as if self-love is constantly talked about in today’s culture. Everyday someone is telling someone to “love yourself,” “embrace who you are,” or “be comfortable in your own skin.” Although we may hear these things on a regular basis, I think we often forget the real importance behind it, which is for ourselves. And as much as we want to encourage others, we must remember that the key word is self. The question remains, how does one achieve self-love and when does one know self-love has been achieved?
The best place to start is knowing why self-love is important. In today’s culture, images of “perfection” are always being thrown in our faces and shoved down our throats. I know I’m guilty of beating myself up because I didn’t match the image displayed, and I’m sure you’ve done this at least once too. Or maybe it’s not a visual image… maybe it’s a trait someone exhibits or something someone has. Whatever the case may be, give yourself a break. There is no such thing as perfection, so why spend time degrading yourself, lowering your own confidence to reach something unattainable?
The answer is you don’t. Instead of trying to reach perfection, be patient with yourself, and enjoy your journey of growth. For you to truly enjoy your journey, you have to stop putting yourself down and start uplifting yourself. You have to stop dwelling on things you cannot change and start recognizing who you are as well as begin to see your full potential.
You might be asking “well how do I avoid the constant pressure that I’m faced with?” A technique that I use involves turning a flaw into a trait that I love.
For example, I was late on the transition train of being ‘natural.’ Prior to going natural, I would constantly look in the mirror and say to myself, “Gosh. Why can’t my hair be long and thick?” It seemed as if no matter what I did, I wasn’t getting the results I wanted. Then one day, I looked at my moms curls and decided that I was no longer getting perms or relaxers. Even though I made that switch, I still hid my insecurities by wearing weaves and doing protective styles to where my hair was never (and when I say never, I mean neverrr) out. Then the summer after my freshman year in college, I decided that I would no longer define myself by my hair. I decided to embrace my curls and let them flourish. Now, I’ll rock my curls one day, a wig the next, twists for the weekend, and come back with a sew-in. The key is that I no longer live for what other people want. I live for myself, do what I want to do, do things that will make me feel good.
Now this doesn’t mean you’ll be confident 24/7. There will be times when you aren’t feeling the most confident, the days where you’ll be insecure. You’ll even have days where you still compare yourself to others. And that’s okay. Sometimes you need those lower days to reminisce on your higher days; those lows help you appreciate the highs; the low moments are a good reminder of your journey, your growth; your lows make you strong.
On the contrary, this doesn’t mean you can’t have days where you are feeling yourself honey because those days are needed and much appreciated. Others may see you as conceited, but also think they too might just be comparing themselves to you. By no means are you conceited though. You should think of it as uplifting yourself and achieving the things that you want to achieve, loving you.
So take some time to answers these questions.
- What did you use to feel insecure about? How do you now embrace that flaw?
- What do you love about yourself?
You’ll find that by answering these questions, you will feel 10x better. Being able to look into who you are and find that spark will enable you to get through those hard times of life. If you do this often enough, you’ll begin to recognize the good in you, you’ll start to fall in love with yourself. And that is why self-love is so important.
At the end of it all, no matter how you break it down, your longest commitment, your longest relationship is with yourself. When you are down in the slumps, it is you who actually has to put in the work to pick yourself back up, not your support system who encourages you. You do it. Once you realize that your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you have and you invest in that, you’ll fall in love with yourself first, then be able to encourage others to love themselves too.
*Food for Thought: If we do not learn how to love ourselves, then how can we expect others to know how to do so?
As Told by Sid 