HOW DO I LOVE MYSELF MORE?
HOW DO I LOVE MYSELF FIRST?
When I first started out on my own, I had been in counseling for 2 years already, but most of that was directed at trying to save my marriage. There was a point where we pivoted to me learning to live life on my own. One of the things we started talking about was Self-Love and that was confusing for me. It just didn’t make sense.
I mean, do I hug myself and tell myself that I love me? Actually, no!
So, how do we love ourselves?
Over the years, I have created my definition of loving myself because no one seemed to give me a clear answer on how to do it at first. One day I was listening to John Kim (The Angry Therapist on IG) and he explained it in a way that I understood.
He explained Self-Love as giving myself the love that I want and need from other people.
This simply means that we do have wants and needs and that our relationships are healthier when we are with the right people, but when we are single, we get to be creative. The following two ideas are the basis for how I figured out Self-Love for myself.
First, I started out by writing down the ways people love me that feel really good. One of my big needs is connection in a relationship. I also value having my feelings heard and validated. When those two things are present in a relationship, whether it is with a friend, family member, or intimate partner, I thrive. I feel safe, loved, and able to fully be myself.
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Second, someone else mentioned that it helps to also write down all of the things I wish past partners would have said to me. Here is a small part of my list:
- I am sorry for being inconsistent. Next time I will be more consistent in our relationship because I know that helps you to feel safe and loved.
- Help me to understand how my actions made you feel unimportant so that I can do better next time.
Now, you are probably wondering how all of this translates into loving myself more. All of these things help me to love myself more because all of those things say “I Love You and You Matter to Me” in a relationship. Feel free to start with either idea (or dive into both, as I did) and think about them for a while. Doing this all at one time, at one sitting will probably lead you to you leaving things out, so take your time here! There is no need to rush!
This is how I translated a couple of the things I wrote down into action for myself:
One of the things I love in a relationship is to have my feelings heard and validated. But can you guess who invalidated my feelings quite often? ME!
When I would feel sad or anxious, I would start telling myself that I shouldn’t feel this way or that I was being too insecure, rather than hearing what my heart was saying to me and validating it.
Feelings are just feelings. They are simply energy. And they exist to help us through life.
Another example is that I have always attracted inconsistent men. Always. My whole life! The type of man that is present and available at the beginning of a relationship, but seems to check out at around the 3-month mark. Yes, they stay in the relationship, but their input into it is minimal. Of course, I stay too and try really hard to fix things and make them better. This pattern started with my dad who was very distant emotionally, although he was present in the home.
It was only about a year ago that I realized just how inconsistent I was with myself. I was always making plans and schedules, but I spent most of my time procrastinating and putting things off because I didn’t “feel” like doing the things.
These days, I work hard to be consistent with myself and keep the promises I tell myself. Promises like: “I need more social time so I will call a friend to hang out this weekend” or “I am eating too much so I will add more vegetables to the menu and cut out some of the sugar”.
And guess what has happened? First, I am much more consistent with myself because I make myself important (this is loving myself). Second, I recognize inconsistency very quickly in people and I don’t give them much of my time or energy. That comes from my understanding that I deserve more in my relationships.
HOW DO I LOVE MYSELF MORE?
Let’s make this doable!
Start with taking a piece of paper (or downloading your free Self-Love PDF) and writing down the things in a relationship that make you feel loved, valued, and heard. Try to be as specific as you can and feel free to create a nice, long list.
Next, take another piece of paper and write down things you wish people would have told you in a relationship (refer to my bullet-pointed list above for examples). This list comes from relationships that have been difficult, relationships that have ended, and relationships where you have felt hurt.
Now I want you to carefully look over those items that you wrote down and think about how you can give yourself those same things. From your list of things that you wish people would have told you, think about whether or not you give those same things to yourself. Often you will find that those same things are actions you do not do for yourself (and that is why you tend to attract and to stay with that sort of person).
When you start to understand what you really want and need in this life AND you start giving those things to yourself, you begin to naturally raise the bar for the people you choose to be around. This is because you start to recognize what good love feels and looks like and you begin to value yourself enough to make that your new standard going forward.
A bit of advice: go slow with this! Pick one area that really makes you feel loved and make a list of actions you can take towards yourself. Pick one and do it every day. Once this becomes a habit, add something else. If you start small, you tend to stick with it and over time you will be giving yourself some BIG LOVE!
And, my friend, this is the goodness that changes your life for the better!
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