“You can’t love someone until you love yourself.” Take a second to check in with yourself and assess how that quote made you feel. For a lot of people, it offends them, and with the way everyone tends to interpret it, for a good reason.
I spoke recently to a friend who told me that she doesn’t agree with the quote because it makes her feel like she has to love herself in order to be loved by someone else. Because if this quote is true, then that would mean the adverse is true: that someone cannot love you until you love yourself, right? People tend to think that quote means that you are unworthy of love if you do not love yourself. These are the people who will argue that their spouse/partner/friends love them at times when they cannot even love themselves.
What is Self-Love?
Put simply, self-love is a concern for one’s own happiness and wellness. Taking care of yourself is part of loving yourself, and taking care of yourself can be many different masks. Self-love is not to be confused with narcissism, although there are some people who treat it as one in the same, but we will get to more about that later.
Self-love is extremely difficult for some of us because, for whatever reason, we seem to lose that ability somewhere between childhood and adulthood. Children are carefree, and their main concern is their self. There are many adults who I know in my personal life who have trouble with day-to-day tasks of self-care because depression proves to be a massive obstacle in the way.
Why it is Important
The reason why self-love is so deeply important is because, without it, you cannot create and maintain meaningful relationships. There needs to be a certain balance of self-esteem and acceptance in order to have a healthy relationship with someone. Part of this love is knowing your worth.. If you don’t think you’re worthy of attention and dedication, then you aren’t going to have very good relationships in your life, platonic or otherwise.
For example, if you have low self-esteem, you might constantly be criticizing yourself. Having that self-love would mean that you could throw out all of that negative talk and refocus, knowing that it’s just your mind’s way of trying to play tricks on you.
Having self-doubt is completely normal, and it’s something that everyone of all ages struggles with from time to time. The key is being able to know when it’s just fluff or when it’s actually concrete, like being constructively critical of yourself.
Another reason that knowing your worth is so important is because you can end up in relationships that take advantage of your low self-esteem. These are characteristics the common narcissist preys on, and I have seen it happen a few times to my friends, and it has happened to me a few times, as well. That’s more because I’m a highly sensitive person (HSP), and high sensitive people tend to fall victim to all kinds of toxicity if we do not keep our boundaries firm and our energy guarded.
If you are aware of your self-worth, then you know exactly what you will tolerate. Your boundaries are clear, and you know what you deserve and what you should not have to put up with, and that goes for platonic relationships, as well.
How To Practice Self-Love
Practicing self-love is all about consistency. And I’m not saying you will love yourself every minute of every day for the rest of your life. No, in our society, criticism of ourselves in body, mind, and spirit is something that is sadly all-too-common. If we’re not criticizing ourselves, we’re too busy criticizing each other: the way someone dresses, looks, spends their money, parents their child. If we find ourselves being negative constantly about other people, we tend to internalize and really stick it to ourselves the most. Whatever you feed your mind is what it will produce for you. Feed it negative commentary, it is going to provide you with that all of the time. Like I always tell my kids: your mind is going to believe whatever you tell it. Constantly tell yourself that you can’t do something, and you will believe you really can’t do it, even at a time when you’re really fighting to be able to do something.
Practicing self-love takes practice and patience, especially if you’re someone who struggles with a mental illness, or a personality disorder like yours truly. It can be squished into two categories: mental health and physical health.
For physical health: hygiene, exercise, maintaining medication if you are on any, and eating healthy.
Bathing, wearing clean clothes, and brushing your teeth are all really good examples of good hygiene and taking care of yourself. It helps, too, to maintain good self-esteem. If I dress shlumpy and I don’t put any effort into getting ready to go somewhere, that’s perfectly fine, but I already know how I’ll feel the entire time I’m there. I’ll feel gross if I haven’t showered, or I’ll feel self-conscious if I haven’t washed my face.
I’m queen of not caring what people think about me, so it’s not about that. You care about how you look when you go somewhere because it heightens your personal performance. You’re more likely to do your best at work if you feel your best. You’re far more likely to hang out with friends if you feel your best, and having good self-esteem about what you look like can be a huge part of that.
Exercise helps a lot for health benefits including lowering blood pressure and boosting metabolism, but it also helps boost your mood, too.
Making sure you take your medication, if that’s something that applies to you. Eating healthy is a huge part of self care, as well, because you can make sure your body is at peak performance. You want strong bones, teeth, and muscles, as well as clear, supple skin. If you eat sugar constantly, or drink energy drinks all of the time, this can lead to many health problems you have to deal with later on in life.
For mental health: setting boundaries, taking breaks, having free time. Setting boundaries is crucial to protecting your time, your mental wellness, and even your finances. When you love yourself, you practice that by not letting people take advantage of you. You protect your peace, and you don’t let their negative energy affect you.
Taking breaks and having free time is just part of trying to live stress free. If you make yourself too busy, you’ll become burnt out and overloaded. Set goals to reach but don’t forget to take breathers and do things that you love to do. Making money or reaching fitness goals are important, but nothing is as important as your inner peace.
So, no, saying that you have to love yourself before you have love doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve love unless you love yourself; it simply means that you cannot have a deep connection with another person until you have first explored that deep connection with yourself. You must learn yourself before you learn another person. By appreciating yourself, you can fully appreciate others.
With that being said: Go love yourself.
Invoke the wonder, command the power.
-L