You may have heard the saying that before a person can love someone else, they must first learn to love themselves. While this may sound like a simple concept, accepting all of your flaws and mistakes and appreciating yourself despite them is a great challenge.
What’s more, unconditional love requires a dedication much stronger than fleeting or temporary affection. Anyone can be proud of themselves in a specific moment, but holding onto feelings of pride, contentment, and joy forces a person to confront past failings and feelings of rejection and disappointment, as well.
Loving yourself unconditionally demands that you make an effort to better understand yourself, including negative experiences and emotions with which you may still struggle. But learning how to handle imperfections and regrets, and conversely how to celebrate your accomplishments and positive qualities, is the key to loving yourself.
What Are the Benefits of Loving Yourself Unconditionally?
Loving yourself provides many benefits to all facets of your health: mental, emotional, and physical. When you spend time focusing on the parts of yourself you like best, it can increase your self-confidence and boost your self-worth.
How Loving Yourself Benefits Your Mental and Emotional Health
Our mental and emotional well-being is tightly intertwined. What effects one is likely to affect the other, creating deep connections between our mental state and our emotions. When working towards loving yourself unconditionally, these connections are even more pronounced.
Finding the strength and compassion to love yourself is difficult, no matter what. Still, those challenges become even more significant when you are dealing with mental health issues like depression and anxiety or emotional issues like low self-esteem.
Self-esteem, how a person feels about him or herself, plays a vital role in self-love. Low self-esteem can lead to depression and anxiety, forming a cyclical pattern in that poor mental health renders self-love an arduous task while learning to love ourselves helps to alleviate anxiety, stress, and negative feelings.
According to Teenage Minds, a U.K. charity specializing in the mental health of adolescents, people with high self-esteem can recognize their good qualities and believe that they will be happy and successful in life. In contrast, those with low self-esteem do not think they are worthy of love, happiness, or success.
When we dwell on feelings of worthlessness and discontent, our self-esteem, and thereby our mental and emotional well-being, suffers. Mental health issues like depression and anxiety are more likely to arise, impeding our progress toward self-love.
However, when we emphasize our good qualities and work towards accepting ourselves for all that we are, our self-esteem increases, leading to improved mental and emotional health. We are then able to achieve unconditional self-love in a more complete and rewarding way.
How Loving Yourself Benefits Your Physical Health
Not only does self-love boost our mental and emotional well-being, but our physical health, as well. Just as mental and emotional health is closely linked, physical fitness also impacts many components of our overall well being. One way self-love improves our physical health rests in its confrontation with stress.
Stress has an extremely harmful effect on our physical health. The Mayo Clinic finds that stress can cause headaches, tightness in the chest, muscle strain, lethargy, and difficulty sleeping. All of these physical ailments also contribute to emotional and mental issues like irritability, social withdrawal, substance abuse, and depression.
In an article published in Psychology Today, Dr. Melanie Greenberg asserts that loving yourself allows for better recovery from stress. Dr. Greenberg also explains that dedication to self-love improves our commitment and adherence to healthy eating habits and exercise.
Why Is It So Difficult to Love Yourself Unconditionally?
For most people, loving ourselves is a more difficult challenge than loving another person. When we love somebody else, we are usually willing to forgive mistakes and transgressions because we care about that person and want them to be happy.
We do not want them to feel as though they have failed or disappointed us because we know how badly it hurts to feel that way. Furthermore, we would never personally want to be the reason that they feel miserable. Thus, we offer them support and encouragement to build them up instead of breaking them down.
Unfortunately, offering ourselves support and encouragement, even in the face of failure, is far more complicated. People who focus on themselves worry that they are selfish in doing so. Recently, self-love has become a popular topic of conversation, with many encouraging its practice and promoting its benefits to our well-being; however, with a surge in popularity, detractors will inevitably surface.
Disparagement of self-love depends on equating it with narcissism. Self-love critics believe that focusing on ourselves causes us to ignore the people around us, cultivating narcissism and making us poor empathizers. Yet self-love has been proven to do the opposite.
In a HuffPost article by Lindsey Smith, Robert Weiss, Senior Vice President of clinical development at Elements Behavioral Health, explains that people who practice self-love are generally healthier people than those who do not, including narcissists. Mr. Weiss says that healthy people are more likely to care about other people and about their relationships and connections to them.
Loving yourself is very different from narcissism because it fosters healthy behavior and allows you to reset, which gives you energy to also focus on your relationships with others. Narcissism involves none of the empathy of self-love. Instead, the focus on the self serves only to promote the individual. Mr. Weiss explains that narcissists work hard to receive external validation, not to feel good about themselves from the inside.
You should never worry that loving yourself is selfish since it encourages empathy and interpersonal connection. One of the most rewarding benefits of self-love is that it enables us to refuel and then direct that replenished energy towards other people. Ensuring that you are in a healthy place to work on your relationships with your family and friends is anything but selfish.
How to Love Yourself Unconditionally
We derive so many benefits from loving ourselves that it can be confusing to think about how hard it is to practice self-love in reality. Although self-love is incredibly healthy for all facets of our well-being, a lot of time and energy is needed to embrace it fully. Luckily, there are steps we can take to bolster our self-esteem and achieve unconditional love for ourselves.
Care About Yourself the Same Way You Care About Others
According to an article in Psychology Today, caring for yourself as you care about others is not selfish but stimulates compassion instead. The article emphasizes that your needs are essential and deserve attention.
To put this challenging concept into practice, think about how you treat those closest to you. You care about your friends, siblings, parents, and children deeply and would never want them to feel wounded or hurt. Most likely, you treat them with kindness and tenderness.
When learning to love yourself unconditionally, you must treat yourself with that same compassion. Do not be too hard on yourself for making mistakes and forgive yourself for past transgressions.
Likewise, when you are behaving negatively towards yourself, think about what you would do for a loved one in the same situation. You would probably feel sad that friends or family members were being so hard on themselves, beating themselves up, and would show them compassion and try to comfort them.
Licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Melanie Greenberg writes in Psychology Today that we should have the same mindset when it comes to ourselves. Show yourself compassion, even when you do not want to. Remind yourself that you deserve kindness, too, just as much those around you.
If you are finding it very difficult to have empathy for yourself, Dr. Greenberg recommends asking yourself why you feel that way in order to determine why you believe others deserve compassion, but you do not.
Most people find it easier to have compassion for others than for themselves. When we encounter people in difficult situations, we are kind and empathetic with them, whereas we are cruel to ourselves when we face similar challenging circumstances. Being gentle and understanding with ourselves as we are with others enables us to move closer to the ultimate goal of self-love.
Practice Listening to Yourself
An article from Medical News Today reveals that there are two main reasons why listening to yourself is important in learning to love yourself.
First, how you talk to yourself internally influences how you feel about yourself. Asking yourself questions, such as “What do I need” in times of anguish, and listening to the answer, provides you with invaluable information on the path to self-love.
Speaking to ourselves with a kind voice, rather than a harsh, judgmental one, encourages compassion and forgiveness, both vital components of the self-love process. Try to speak to yourself the way you would to a friend who was in trouble. You would not be cruel to them, so try not to be cruel to yourself, either.
Second, asking yourself questions about your well-being has itself proven to be an act of self-love. Researchers Christopher K. Germer and Kristin D. Neff, a pioneer in the study of self-compassion, discovered that asking ourselves “What do I need” in times of distress will help promote benevolence toward ourselves.
Do Not Be Afraid of Recognizing When You Are in Trouble
Similar to the act of questioning yourself about your wellbeing, recognizing when you are experiencing distress will help foster self-love. When you are aware that you have a negative feeling toward yourself, you are better equipped to soften your reaction to it.
If you notice that you are slipping into negativity or feeling anxiety, do not punish yourself for feeling that way. Acknowledge that you are having trouble and try to interpret your feelings with that in mind.
Practice Mindfulness
Being mindful of your emotional and mental state is related to recognizing when you are in trouble. Loving yourself necessitates that you become attuned to your mind and body. You may have heard the mantra “be present” before, and that is certainly the case here.
According to Resources to Recover: Gateway to Mental Health Services, being mindful provides you with invaluable information about who you are and allows you to use that knowledge in discovering when something is not right. The more you know about yourself, the better prepared you are to identify potential problems and negative feelings and healthily deal with them.
A few suggestions to help improve your mindfulness are to practice meditation or set aside your phone, tablet, and computer and sit in silence. Technology not only acts as a distraction but can also have a detrimental effect on our mental state, depending on the content we are consuming on the many social media platforms that grab our attention.
Resources to Recover names a few other benefits of mindfulness, too, including giving you new ideas, improving your ability to focus, and freeing your mind.
Simply attempting mindfulness is already an effort in self-love. Even better, when we are successful in practicing mindfulness, we are committing to ourselves and our health. Knowing how to identify negative situations and navigate the feelings of shame, embarrassment, or self-loathing that may follow is an early imperative step in learning to love yourself.
Confront the Negative Feelings You Have for Yourself
You should always try to view a situation from a few different perspectives. One interpretation of an event is not always the most right or the fairest of the many distinct explanations that are possible. When considering these various perspectives, think about why you acted the way you did in that situation.
Perhaps you had a similar experience in the past that scarred you, or maybe it was a stressful incident that elicited such an unusual response from you, one that you would not typically have had except in an extenuating circumstance.
In her Psychology Today article, Dr. Greenberg suggests a few questions you can use to challenge yourself when reflecting on past incidents. You should ask yourself if you are too judgmental or if there is a way to view the situation from a kinder perspective. You should also wonder if you are expecting yourself to be perfect instead of being human.
Even if the worst explanation is the one you believe is correct, try to find a way to learn from it. Punishing yourself harshly for a past mistake is not healthy. You cannot change what has already occurred; you can only learn from it and forgive yourself.
Forgive Yourself for Mistakes and Work Toward Self-Acceptance
Unfortunately, punishing ourselves is much easier than forgiving ourselves. Often we feel we deserve punishment, whereas it is more difficult to convince ourselves that we deserve forgiveness.
Forgiving yourself means recognizing that you have made a mistake and accepting yourself for being human. Remind yourself that no one is perfect, and everyone has done something regrettable at some point. Dr. Melanie Greenberg suggests that you remind yourself of all of your achievements after you have made a mistake. One transgression does not undo your good qualities and past accomplishments.
Dr. Greenberg also recommends determining the steps you must take to forgive yourself. Perhaps you find that you need to apologize to yourself for self-punishing, or maybe you need to apologize to someone else that you have hurt. Either way, making a plan for forgiveness gives you a head start to self-acceptance.
Once you are able to forgive yourself for your mistakes, you will be prepared to accept yourself for all that you are, including your flaws. Self-acceptance leads to a greater understanding of the self and an appreciation for successes and positive behaviors. Loving yourself requires self-acceptance and actively involves you in the self-love process.
Get Into the Habit of Making Yourself Happy
A 2014 study from the University of Hertfordshire revealed that happiness is more than just a feeling. Rather it is an activity that needs to be practiced, especially in developing self-acceptance, a principle component of self-love.
The research included a survey that questioned participants about the happy habits they engage in most. The top happy habits were giving, or being kind to others, and relating, or putting effort into important relationships. Overall, subjects answered questions about ten happy habits proven to be the keys to happiness. These habits, known as the Ten Keys, are as follows:
- Giving, or being kind to others
- Relating, or working on relationships
- Exercising, or caring for your physical health
- Appreciating, or observing the world around you
- Trying out, or learning new things
- Direction, or setting goals to work toward
- Resilience, or rebounding from setbacks
- Emotion, or approaching life positively
- Acceptance, or loving yourself for who you are
- Meaning, or joining a greater movement
The results of this study demonstrate that our day-to-day routine impacts our happiness and, therefore, our approach to self-love. Loving yourself successfully means that you put in the time and effort to practice happy habits. Committing to happiness also signifies a dedication to finding self-love.
Surround Yourself with Supportive People
People who make you feel good about yourself have a positive impact on your self-esteem. When you spend time with friends and family members that want the best for you and accept you for who you are, flaws and all, their benevolence is sure to influence you.
In an article for PsychCentral, Jennifer Rollin, a therapist specializing in treating eating disorders, anxiety, and depression, believes that having conversations with those who are critical of you is also essential. You should be able to have a civil discussion with the person about why their comments hurt you. Talking about your emotions can help you pinpoint situations that make you feel uncomfortable and enable you to monitor your reaction to them. It can also teach you how to handle negative emotions productively.
Instead of focusing on critical people and negativity, surround yourself with people who have your best interests in mind. Not only will these people help foster self-acceptance on a daily basis, but they can assist you in times of distress, too. Do not be afraid to reach out to supportive people when you are having trouble.
Knowing that caring, dependable people are on your side, ready to support and encourage you will help you remember that you deserve respect and love. Loving yourself unconditionally is a little bit easier when the people around you remind you of how worthy you are of happiness.
Work on Developing Boundaries for Yourself
Maintaining boundaries, just like self-love, is not a selfish action. Knowing what you can tolerate and what you cannot is essential to your mental health.
Deborah Ward for Psychology Today recommends that you write a list of everything you need emotionally, including things that are important to you and things that hurt you. Doing this will increase your self-awareness, making you more sensitive to the emotions that make you feel good about yourself versus the ones that bring you down.
On your list, include whatever moments are important to you, no matter how trivial they may sound at first. Maybe you want to be cared for when you are sick, celebrated when you have success, or simply being listened to by a sympathetic ear.
Your emotional needs list alerts you to any violations of your emotional well-being. When someone does not uphold the tenets of your list, they are ignoring your feelings and crossing your boundaries. Usually, you will feel hurt when this happens, and having the list will make it easier to locate where the adverse reaction originated.
Your feelings are important signifiers of an experience being a positive or negative one, and that includes your experiences with other people. If someone trespasses on your emotional boundaries, do not hesitate to confront them about it. Let them know they crossed a line and make them aware of the boundaries you set for yourself and the need for your own health.
If a person in your life is unwilling to compromise with your emotional needs, you may want to reconsider the relationship. Ask yourself what they give to you and what they take and weigh the outcome. If someone is taking more than you can give, let them know, and, if the relationship is crucial to you, work to find a solution.
Prioritizing your own emotional needs and taking action so that they can be met boosts your self-esteem, which strengthens the belief that you deserve love from others and from yourself.
Do What Makes You Feel Most Like Yourself
Comparable to your list of emotional needs, start thinking about what activities make you feel good and carve out time to do them as often as possible. Maybe you like playing tennis or reading or taking long walks with your dog. Or perhaps gardening or painting is more your style. Focus on whatever generates feelings of pleasure and accomplishment for you.
Deriving goodwill from the activities you take part in will promote self-love. If you decide to join a team or club dedicated to your favorite activity, you can meet people with similar interests and hopefully build connections with them that will benefit you in the future, as they become part of your support network.
Setting aside time each week for hobbies that you enjoy is not selfish. To reiterate, prioritizing self-love results in a more empathetic, caring person, not in a selfish one.
Consider a Yoga Class
Medical News Today suggests relearning pleasure by participating in activities that boost feelings of well-being and self-love. Specifically, they recommend yoga as a method of reacquainting yourself with your body and mind. Practicing yoga has also proven to encourage self-kindness and soften our inner critical voice.
Better yet, yoga is linked with other self-love practices, such as mindfulness and listening to yourself. Yoga is excellent for beginners because, in the first stages, it does not require the same endurance as cardiovascular exercise. That way, you get all of the benefits of physical activity, feelings of health and self-care, without worrying about something being too strenuous.
You can find many free yoga videos online or even take a class in person. Participating as part of a group may help foster connections between you and people like you, searching for self-acceptance and love through physical well-being.
Learning to love yourself unconditionally is a process demanding forgiveness, mindfulness, and self-acceptance. Remembering to be kind to yourself, to care for yourself as you do for others, may not come naturally to you, but it is vital in your journey to self-love.
Never be afraid of maintaining your emotional boundaries or of letting people know when they have crossed them. Surrounding yourself with supportive people who have your best interests at heart, will help you realize that you are deserving of compassion and will boost your self-esteem.
Although achieving self-love is a challenging endeavor, the benefits of accepting and enjoying yourself for the unique individual you truly are will transform you into a more compassionate, empathetic person who celebrates life and their worthwhile place in it.