Day 31: What is self-love and why is it so important?

Day 5 of my 35 Day Challenge

Today, i feel like i completely understood what self-love is. I realized this while actually trying to help a friend, by telling her what self-love is and why it is so important. I love myself, but i had to learn it. I would say i’ve been loving myself for the past six years and my life has been great since then. Of course i had a few difficult times in between and of course i wasn’t happy all the time, but i feel like i was happy 90% of the time. And i feel like i’m the happiest person i know. I can’t know that for sure naturally.

In my opinion self-love is something every child should be taught by their parents. But how can parents teach their children something they don’t even know themselves most of the time ? And i guess you need to know  what love is to really love yourself and others. I think you are born full of self-love, but during the process of growing up a lot of people seem to unlearn it. I never met anyone who always loved them selves truly since they were little. But i’ve met people who learned to love themselves, just like i did.

I read about self-love, what it is and why everyone needs it when i was eleven or twelve. But it took me a very long time until i learned to love and trust myself.

So what is self-love ?
Self-love is when you know you’re good enough, when you know you deserve to be truly loved and when you give it to yourself.
Self-love is knowing you’re far from perfect but loving and accepting yourself nonetheless.
Self-love is never feeling unloved, because even if there is no one loving you on this planet you’ll know that the greatest love is within you.
Self-love is being your own best friend and treating yourself like one. If your best friend just had something bad happen to them and she’s really down, you wouldn’t tell her that it was her fault, that no one loves her, that she is a burden for everyone, that she’s a horrible person and so on, instead you would help her, support her, solace her and make your friend feel better and make her feel loved. But some people who don’t love themselves enough, tell that to themselves.
If you love yourself, you commend yourself if you did something good.
If you love yourself, you compliment yourself.
You begin to love and admire yourself, like you love and admire other people that are special to you. You compliment yourself all the time 🙂 .
When you are filled with self-love, you tell yourself how good you look, because you know how good that makes you feel.
When you love yourself, you are grateful for being who you are. Because you know how great and unique your personality is. You fully accept yourself, the way you look, the way you think, your strength and your weaknesses.
If you love yourself and something didn’t work out, you comfort yourself, you tell yourself that you’ll get it right next time, you reassure yourself that you still love yourself and that no failure can change that.
Because self-love is unconditionally. There is nothing i could do, that would stop me from loving myself.
Self-love is being understanding for yourself and your needs.
Self-love is being compassionate for yourself.
Self-love is forgiving yourself.
Sometimes, you know you did something wrong, but if you love yourself you understand that everybody makes mistakes and that it can happen. You know you made a mistake, but you don’t hate yourself for it. Instead you do something about it and make it right. You apologize and you forgive yourself.
If you love yourself, you respect you’re own needs. You love your body and you give it what it needs. And you love your mind and you give it what it needs.
Loving yourself also means knowing your own value, and reminding yourself that you are valuable when you’re feeling down or when someone has hurt you.
You support yourself mentally, when you’re not feeling good.
When someone has hurt you emotional, your inner self-love screams against the hurting voice. Your self-love screams so loud until you can’t hear the hurtful words anymore. And she fills you with a warm, comforting feeling, like a long warm hug, when someone has hurt you physically.
When you love yourself you know, that it is ok to be hurt. You know it’s ok to react however you react. You know it’s ok to be who you are.
True self-love is one love of a kind. Something no one but yourself can give you. Because no one knows you, like you know yourself.
Only when you really love yourself, you can love someone else truly. And only then you can be loved back and accept the love you are receiving.

But this is only my opinion and how i love myself. The most important thing is, that you love yourself in a way that makes you feel good, happy and that builds you back up when you’re down.

I see it like this : there are two emotions that control your thoughts and your decisions. Those full of self-hatred based on fear and those full of self-love based on love.

I’m telling you now, what i told my friend, who is full of self-doubt and self-hatred at the moment:

I know that you carry that spark of self-love somewhere within you. But right now, it is merely a small flame on a tiny boat in a sea full of doubt and self-hatred. You have to be quiet and listen closely to your little flame and to what it is telling you. She is the one that whispers nice things in your ear once in a while, that convinces you that you’re good at something when you feel like you’re good at something, that agrees with you, that calms you down. She also tells you when you’re about to do something stupid and who keeps you from doing it. She is your self-love, your inner guide, your intuition. And you have to start listening to her. You have to help her grow inside you. Grow into a massive fire that will bring the sea of self-hatred to a boiling-point until all of the hate and self-doubt evaporates. There will always be a few drops left over. Those might come up and get more in very dark times, but your self-love will be so immense by then, that the drops will never get a chance of becoming more than drops on a hot stone.

Every good word you tell yourself, every compliment you accept, every good deed you do to yourself nourishes that flame of self-love within you.
The more you treat yourself well, tell yourself good things( no matter if you do it by saying it out loud in front of the mirror, writing it down and reading it, or just in your head), embrace and express yourself, the faster that flame of self-love will grow.
And every time you act out of fear, treat yourself with hate or get angry with yourself, you are helping that sea of doubt and self-hatred to get bigger.
Don’t give in to fear, fight it with thoughts full of love.

I hope you enjoyed reading this 🙂

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