Do you feel unlovable? Have you ever said “I love myself?”
Loving ourselves, or self-love, is a practice alien to most of us because it’s often confused with being narcissistic and egocentric. Loving ourselves is actually one of the healthiest things we can do for ourselves. It can literally change our lives.
When we’re narcissistic or egocentric, we think the world revolves around us. We’re mostly concerned with ourselves instead of being concerned with others. On the other hand, when we practice self-love we learn to adore ourselves so we can adore others in the same manner. We learn to support ourselves so we can support others. Self-love heals ourselves allowing others around us to reap the benefits.
Check out this video where I explain three self-love techniques. You can also read below a recap of what I’m talking on the video.
Self-love reeducation
Throughout our lives, we slowly forget how beautiful are. We slowly love ourselves less and less. As the old saying goes “how can someone else love us when we don’t even love ourselves” (or some variation of this). Another way to put it: how can we give what we don’t have?
When we learn to love ourselves again, we start to reconnect with who we are. We begin to understand that the more love we give ourselves, the more love we have to share with others. We have an immense amount of love in ourselves. Actually, we’re pure love. Once we start tapping into this love, the sky is the limit.
Here are three wonderful techniques to get some TLC back into your life the easy and fast way. I use these techniques in my life to make sure my internal love tank is always full.
Love yourself daily
Do this simple exercise each morning: Hug yourself and sincerely say “I love myself.” It could be challenging at first if you’re not used to actually loving yourself or if you feel that you don’t deserve love. If this is the case, look yourself in the mirror while you say these words to help you buy into this concept.
Stick with this exercise until it feels that acknowledging your love towards yourself is a natural and joyous process. You may also repeat this exercise throughout the day whenever you remember it.
In addition, you can repeat this exercise when someone acts unkindly towards you. This exercise will allow you to bring the love back to yourself after an unpleasant experience.
It’s great to also repeat “I love myself” before going to sleep so you surround yourself with that love feeling before you doze off.
Be your biggest cheerleader
It’s great to have a support team to cheer us along our path, but it’s even better when our reinforcement is internal. We may tell others that they’re great and that they’re doing amazing work, but we hardly ever (maybe never) tell ourselves that we’re doing amazing work. We tend to doubt ourselves and think that others are doing better than us.
Start right now by reversing this process and cheering yourself along the way. For anything that you do throughout the day, congratulate yourself. Let yourself be amazed by all your deeds. The point is not that these deeds were amazing in the eyes of others. The point is that you did them and for this reason they’re amazing, because you’re amazing.
When our cheering team is ourselves, we can always count on it and reinforcement is immediate.
Be kind to yourself
We tend to be very judgmental and critical towards ourselves. We feel guilty for the things we did and the things we said. We regret what we didn’t say or do. All this guilt and regret can really weight us down. We’re our biggest critic, hands down. We’re often kinder to strangers than we are to ourselves.
Start to notice the words you use when you talk about yourself out loud and in your mind. The words you think and say about yourself reflect your self-image. If you use unkind words when talking about yourself (such as stupid, fat, looser, and so on), replace these unkind words with caring, loving words. Words are very powerful as they represent our mental world. As you reverse the unkind words in your thoughts, you allow yourself to be seen through new, kinder eyes.
Learning to love ourselves teaches us how to love others. The love, cheering, and kindness we impart on ourselves heals us from the inside out. As we embrace self-love, our love naturally flows into the world. And there is nothing narcissistic about that.
“Brite-size” dose of happiness
To expand our consciousness, grow, and transform it’s important that we practice daily the principles we learn. Here is the brite-size dose of happiness for us to practice this week:“Self-love is a natural process. Love is who we are.”
If you missed the last episode of britetalk radio, check out how Farnoosh rocked the house with her fear crushing techniques.
Your turn:
How do you feel about self-love? Are you kind to yourself? Are you your biggest cheerleader? Please share. I’d love to hear from you.
With you always in my heart,
Andrea
Enjoyed reading my story of self-love? Well, there’s more! You can also read the rest of the stories written by online personal development bloggers in a Self Love Stories Report. Evelyn Lim started the ball rolling by sharing her story in the post Self Love Story: Lessons from the Heart. She had written it in response to an intuitive call to create greater Self Love Awareness. The report, compiled with the help of Lance Ekum, will be available as a free download soon!
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Hi Andrea,
Self-love is not easy when there are so many conflicting ideas out there. Just the idea of confusing narcissism and self-love is enough to stop us from loving ourselves because we do not want to appear as egocentric. But as you say, self-love is actually healthy and it can change our lives. I enjoyed reading your 3 wonderful techniques on how to love ourselves. These are the thoughts I had as I was reading through them.
Be your biggest cheerleader
This is an important technique as no one understands us better than ourselves. As such, others, even our loved ones, might not always support us the way we want them to. During such times, it pays to know how to be our biggest cheerleader so that we have the strength to weather any situation. It is important that we keep practicing this at all times until it becomes second nature for us. That way, when we need it most, self-love comes naturally.
Be kind to yourself
Beating ourselves up is often counter-productive. It takes effort on our part to divide our energy and then to use it to beat ourselves up. While we are doing so, nothing gets done to resolve the problem at hand. I believe that one way of being kind to ourselves is to focus on the solutions to the problem. When we remove the source of the problem and learn from our mistakes, we free up the obstructions that hinder us from self-love.
Thank you for sharing this lovely article! :)
Irving the Vizier
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Hi Irving,
We do have many conflicting ideas around love. It’s true that others sometimes don’t really know how to support us as efficiently as we could support ourselves. Practicing these principles become our greatest ally in whatever we face in life. I like to say that there is time to waste criticizing ourselves when we could be loving ourselves. Which one seems more appealing and productive? Like you said, it’s about “freeing up the obstructions that hinder us from self-love.”
Thanks for your clarity. Loving blessings
This is a beautifully motivating article. Thank you.
It does take a while to learn these lessons. I’ve noticed that my feelings toward myself wax and wane dependant on my mood. Like all learnings, it take practice.
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Hi Marty,
It can take time to internalize these principles but we have to start at some point to practice what benefits us internally. It definitely takes practice and awareness of our thoughts to continually love ourselves. :)
Thanks for your cheerfulness. Loving blessings
Andrea,
First off – I love your video!! There is something extra special about hearing you say these words, in addition to the written text.
I know that the more I choose to love myself (all the parts that make up “me”), I just feel more compassion and care for the world around me, also.
I especially love this idea of a daily process of loving ourselves – this just helps to make it a habit for us! Maybe that starts as something small we love about who we are, and then we can just continue to move more fully into love from there.
Andrea, thanks again for sharing this!
Big love to you,
Lance
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Hi Lance,
I’m glad you liked the video. I’m playing with it and having lots of fun with this new medium. :) And yes, loving ourselves should be a daily habit. Totally. Not one day should go by that we don’t love ourselves. We’re all too beautiful and awesome not to be fully loved.
Thanks for your smiling presence. Loving blessings
Hi Andrea,
Thanks for this video, it was very uplifting. I know it’s not easy but I have been in love with myself since the beginning of this year. I’m going to add the hug part. ;-)
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Hi Andrea,
You’re welcome, sweetie. Many congrats for making the commitment to continuously love yourself for so many months. It’s a beautiful journey you’re on with many rewards. When you love yourself, the sky is the limit. :)
Thanks for your honesty. Loving blessings
Andrea,
I love your videos and your sense of humor! It’ like you’re in my kitchen. I’m hugging and loving myself today! I am love…
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Hi Tess,
I appreciate your kind words. Yes, you’re love, my friend. Keep on hugging because you’re worthy of all this love.
Thanks for your cuteness. Loving blessings
What a lovely way to start the day! I am feeling the love down to the tips of my toes now and because of that, I will be able to share it with others from the heart. Love is pretty powerful stuff but, you so know that!! :)
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Hi Emma,
Wos, just lovely. Love IS very powerful! May your day be filled with love and beauty.
Thanks for your beautiful heart. Loving blessings, my friend.
Hi Andrea,
Excellent post on self love. When it comes to loving ourselves, many people think that loving ourselves is a sign of arrogance. The truth is we need to love ourselves, to be able to give love to others and to nurture others. If we don’t love ourselves, how can we love others? I love the exercise you gave out. I’m sure it will help many people increase their love for themselves. Thanks for sharing my friend
Hi Dia,
Yes, a lot of people think loving one self is arrogant. As with everything in self-growth, the journey starts within. Therefore, so does love and loving one self.
Thanks for you kindness. Loving blessings
Hello Andrea,
First off, thank you for participating in my Self-Love JV Project with Lance. I’m thrilled to have you on board.
I love your video. You have made your post light and entertaining, even whilst you have important messages to share. Wonderful!!
I’m really glad that you’ve written an article explaining the difference between self-love and narcissism. You’ve said it beautifully! They are not the same thing! In fact, narcissism is often the symptom of a deeper cause of low self-esteem.
All in, I love your post very much and hope to share it with others :-)
With love,
Evelyn
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Hi Evelyn,
It’s my pleasure to participate in your project with Lance. I’m all for spreading love in any way we can. :) I agree, narcissism doesn’t get us far as since we’re stuck on our ego. For love to flow, we have to go beyond the ego part of us.
Thanks for you sweetness. Loving blessings
I can’t believe this, I was just thinking about this very topic not even an hour ago, thinking it would make a great blog article. And here it is. Thank you, Universe!
Well, I guess I’ll now go back up to the top and read what you have to say about it!
Hi Jeremy,
Great to see that we’re in sync. :) It’s a wonderful topic, worth having many bloggers talk about it.
Thanks for stopping by. Loving blessings
Loved it, and adding the video was a good idea … your sense of humor is terrific.
Thanks, Jeremy. Videos are a lot of fun. I’m glad you enjoyed it. :) hugs
i agree with most the comments here. You’re speaking of the material is important, to feel the underlying meaning behind the text. Also, your sense of humor is wonderful!
On being your own cheerleader…I’d have to maybe disagree a little with The Vizier. I believe That to know thy self is to be enlightened. I think that we should take note on Self perception. In that, Self perception differs from, the way others perceive us, and the way we believe others to perceive us. So really there are three ways to look at one’s self. In understanding ourselves we come across a certain “Common Sense” of ourselves others develop more quickly than others. Often times we find that others perceive us more as we are, than we perceive ourselves to be. Self awareness can enhance the way we cheer ourselves on. But, sometimes we do things without being 100% aware of our actions ( auto pilot).
Also, on a side note. I might add that those who are more narcissistic may have less of a clue on how to cheer themselves on, than cheering others. Because, they may take how they perceive others to behave as a reflection of what it’s like to perceive themselves. So, they’re “map” of their minds may be askew! :) Lovely conversation article. Thank you.
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Hi Jasmine,
I can totally understand your point that “That to know thy self is to be enlightened.” We’re complex being with a lot going on at the subconscious level. I like how you distinguish how others can sometimes perceive us better than we do. We often have such an toxic self-talk that we don’t notice who we are when others can already see it. Auto pilot is very common. Practicing awareness of our thoughts can help reduce that allows us to really monitor how we’re perceiving ourselves. Very important and relevant side note. :)
Thanks for your wisdom. Loving blessings
I’ve seen people turn their world’s around when they shift from critic to coach and become their own best friend.
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Hi J.D.,
Exactly. It shifts our world around. It’s all about becoming our own ally instead of worst enemy (mentally).
Thanks for our take on things. Loving blessings
Hello Andrea,
Loving ourselves is healthy.
Also,it is not narcissistic or egocentric as long as it is not selfish.
Finally,Jean Anouilh said,” Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.”
Great article!!
Loving blessings,
Rich
Hi Rich,
Well said, “as long as it is not selfish.” Beautiful saying “the gift of oneself.” That sums it all up. :)
Thanks for your insights. Loving blessings
you are right Andrea, its completely possible to love ones self without being arrogant or a narcissist , in fact self confidence cannot be built without self love
thank you :)
Hi Farouk,
You may be on to something in terms that we need self love to build self confidence. :)
Thanks for the reminder. Loving blessings
Andrea,
I agree wholeheartedly that self-love is the first step on the path to loving the whole world. You explained the difference between narcissism and self-love so perfectly. If everyone loved themselves, the world would be such a different places! Thanks for these wonderful exercises. May our love bloom without limit.
P. S. I haven’t been able to see any videos tonight, must be a slow internet connection. I’ll have to come back. It will be a joy to see you.
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Andrea,
I love your video!! You have amazing energy:)
I was brought up to serve others, so serving my self was foreign to me. However, I learned that in order to share my best with others, I want to be my best and that requires that I love and care for my self. I began a practice of telling my self thank you..thank you for all that you did today, thank you to my outer shell for all of the physical abilities I had in the day, thank you self for experiencing this..this practice has opened my heart to gratitude for my self as well as love..
A big hug to you, too:)
This subject is right up my street (and my soapbox) Andrea. The reason too many people lack confidence and worth these days is that they’ve been influenced or taught that to think of themself in some way is selfish. Forget you, there are others who matter more or as much. Absolute flannel!! Until we learn to start the loving and liking of ourselves first there will always be too much unhappiness and too little acceptance. WE are the ones we need to love because after that everyone else will be easier and more natural. (phew glad I got that off my chest!).
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Hey Great distinction here. I agree that in order to love oneself is actually the oppossite of being narcasitic. Because self love is a love that is for all to bask in and be touched by. This blog touched me.
Hi Andrea
Love the idea of a “Self love list.”
Video is looking very professional.
Particularly like the introduction – how did you put the graphics together?
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A bliss consultant! Are you having a laugh!
It is absolutely lovely to have found your blog from The Mom Writes. So many beautiful lessons in the articles I have read. Have a wonderful weekend :)
Hi Andrea,
It’s so important in our hectic modern life to slow down and love ourselves as much as we can. I really do believe that we train others how to treat us.
By showing others that we love ourselves by taking care of and being our biggest cheerleader as you said, we will be treated well by others too.
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I love that LINE! Be your biggest Cheerleader. It always good to uplift yourself. Standing in front of the mirror and praising who you are, where you are going, and were you will be. It’s keep positive thoughts in and negative thoughts out.
I have never said that I love myself…I don’t know why maybe because of what I am right now….Anyway,thank you for the post here…
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Thank you for clarifying things Andrea. Self-love is very far from narcissism. When you love yourself, you can see beauty within yourself and within others. While being a narcissistic would mean only seeing yourself and everything else abstract.
Before anything else, we have to really love yourself…That’s what matters most…
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Thanks for the very inspirational post…
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This post really gave me a lot of realization in life and i think a lot of people would read this…
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I agree with most of the people who have visited this site…Some realizations come into mind when I read this post…
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Hey Andrea, soooooo glad to see you back and what a site – love the design and the feel! And a subject right up my street…self-love. I’m into being self-ish..having self-belief, self-confidence, self-respect, and self-awareness to mention but a few after good self-enquiry. Spending more time in the self world will help us all live happily in the wider one. See you again soon. Blesses and blisses x
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Ps I know I commented before but I had to jump in again as this a mega energised site and you got me buzzin’
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Hi Andrea!
I’m thrilled I found this site!
Here’s how I look at it: If I love someone, I want much more for that person than simply liking me. That’s a selfish kind of love: I want FROM you more than I want what’s best FOR you. Same thing goes for self-love: If I truly love myself, I will want what’s best for me more than simply what I may narcissistically desire.
So you’re right-on to say that self-love will lead us to being better able to love others (what’s best for me!).
Thanks for the awesome post and I look forward to reading more here!
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You put this beautifully, Andrea! I think there’s a healthy difference between self-love in the same way we love our fellow human beings and a narcissistic love that only looks out for number one. I think when our self-love is healthy, it inspires others to be healthy and to love themselves. I think we become more inspirational that way!
I learn a lot of things after I read this post..Thank you for sharing this to us..Hope you will continue share..
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That a very good explanation of the differences between self love and narcissism . I is health to lovee one self. In the 10 commandments Go said to love your self and your neighbour as I love you. what could be healthier. How can you love another without first loving yourself.
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I really love the design you here..its really glad that you are coming back..Looking forward read more blogs from you..
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