We don't need to love ourselves

What is Self love

Self love is putting the focus back on ourselves. It's about considering how we treat ourselves. Are we kind and do we respect our own feelings. Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission. Permission to consider ourselves and our needs and wants. Permission to allow ourselves to ignore the "shoulds". We can easily place too much pressure on ourselves.

Consider what we would not do to our friends.

Additionally being a better friend to ourselves helps others around us. This modelsthe treatment we desire and makes us more comfortable. When we love ourselves we have accepted and are proud of ourselves .

What is the advantage of loving ourselves

From the vantage point of loving ourselves we can reach acceptance of who we are. We learn to recognise our needs - especially our emotional needs - and show empathy. This means we bring trust to our relationship with ourselves. With this trust comes appreciation and pride in ourselves. It helps to look back at our journey and see how far we have come. We can see the boundaries we have set and the progress we have made.

When knowing what we want from others but without becoming reliant on getting it from others, as we can get it from ourselves.

We CAN love ourselves

When we start from a point of not loving ourselves at all it is quite a process we need to go through. It does not happen overnight and it doesn't happen without work. Each week I publish a blog and video on a different topic. However all the topics are to essentially learn to know ourselves, adapt ourselves and improve our life. As we go through this process we make changes in our perspectives and become more comfortable with who we are. We also find out who we truly are. Most of us spend our day not being our true selves. We are adapting to be who we feel we need to be, often in order to fit in. This is totally acceptable in some situations but not all day every day.

This is not an article about how to learn to love ourselves. All my other articles are part of that process. This article is truly about giving us the right message:

We DO NOT need to love ourselves for others to love us

There is currently talk that we need to love ourselves in order to BE loved. This is simply not true and this puts a pressure on us. When we don't love ourselves life is hard. It is hard enough to not love ourselves without the view that no-one else will love us until we do.

We need to give ourselves the message that we ARE lovable. The fact is that we ARE. Every one of us is unique and has amazing qualities. We may not have discovered or realised ours qualities yet. We may be yet to value what we have and who we are when we have not yet totally connected with our feelings. This does NOT mean that others can't see it. In fact it is often the case that others can see it. Sometimes we can see it for ourselves but not yet feel it from within. We have yet to create the self awareness. My next blog (next weeks) covers self awareness.

I have come from a place of not loving myself. My childhood was such that I was not shown love for me. It was never modelled. Therefore I could not love myself or show myself love. Many people in my life has seen me and my qualities. Many people in my life have loved me. Now I have been through the journey of seeing the real me. This is the 'me' that others have seen and loved. I never believed I was unlovable. Just unlovable by me. So my message is - we are loved and we are lovable no matter whether we love ourselves or not.

We can go through the work and the journey to find our love for ourselves. In the meantime let others love you. Do NOT believe that we have to be single and cant find or have a partner if we do not love ourselves. Once again this is untrue.

Summary

We do not need to love ourselves to be loved. So lets go out and enjoy the love we get from others and being on the journey to find our love for ourselves. Please spread this message far and wide. Let us overpower the message from those who try to tell or persuade you otherwise. If you are short of some love then come to our zoom meetings where you will become part of the Life Mentoring family. Come and journey with everyone, some of whom have started where you are.