Self-love is ultimately the key to growing personally and psychologically correctly. It is necessary to recognize our faculties and virtues to understand all that we are capable of.
In this sense, Sean Covey in his book “7 Habits of the Adolescent Highly Effective“, defines paradigms as the lenses with which we see the world. That is why many times, the limitations that arise are nothing more than ourselves and the paradigm we have.
In the following article we explain the benefits of cultivating self-love, how to recognize it and some tips to increase it.
What is self-love?
The concept of self-love must be detached from the beginning from egomania or narcissism, and always taking care not to exclude or dismiss others. It is to recognize, respect and prioritize oneself.
Self-love is essential for personal evolution, and influences the way we look. This also directly impacts how we face situations, always trying to go in the direction of what is best for our well-being.
Therefore, we act from what we want, our goals, what we enjoy doing and directing ourselves towards what we want to become and feel.
Walter Riso in his book “Fall in love with you“, says that loving oneself is the most important fact to ensure our survival in such a complex world.
Benefits of Self-Love
Positive self-concept helps us focus on our goals and ideals, as well as prepare us to face difficult situations.
You have the ability to learn from adversities and see them as opportunities to learn, develop skills, and gain personal maturity.
Below we break down all the benefits that self-love brings with it.
Increases self-esteem
In the research work ” Self-esteem, the art of loving you “, it is defined as the peak of the evolution of consciousness, where the mind intervenes in the care of the body through positive thoughts.
In this sense, “To love each other is to recognize that we are worthy of being happy for the mere fact of being alive.”
Therefore self-esteem, in definition, is the amount of appreciation we have towards ourselves, self-love being the starting point where we build positive self-esteem.
If, on the other hand, we have thoughts where we reproach or discredit ourselves, we are not even going to try to achieve something on our own. We believe that we are not capable or that this is not for me.
Increase confidence and security
Believing in you is the key. Knowing that making mistakes or failing does not make us losers, and understanding that the only thing that is really impossible is what we never try.
Self-love makes us vibrate higher and recognize our value, as well as having a solid self-concept that positively pushes us to make decisions and get out of our comfort zone.
You are clear about who you are and what you want
Self-love is a tool that allows us to know and discover ourselves.
Papalia and Wendkos(1995) State that the self-concept is the sense of self. It is our perception that we have been and done, guiding us to decide what we will do and want to be.
When we love each other, we know our worth and what we are capable of. Introspection helps us reflect on ourselves and obtain a clearer self-assessment.
You take advantage of your virtues and qualities
Exploring our talents allows us to increase confidence in our abilities. It opens our understanding of the expression of our being and commits us to authenticity.
Therefore, we stop focusing on the negative things we may have, to enjoy the potential we have. We recognize our good attitudes, interesting things and we give strength to our virtues.
You accept and value your physical appearance
What we find attractive or not is our own choice. Walter Riso says that “the important thing then is not to be beautiful or beautiful but to like oneself”, and so it is.
When we have self-love, we recognize what are the things we like about ourselves and we stay with it.
We discard the strict stigmas created by society and understand that we are all perfect in our own way.
It may sound cliché, but it’s definitely proven how attractive security becomes to a person. Even when it doesn’t fit the beauty standards.
You give the best of yourself to others
When you love yourself, you know yourself, you respect yourself, you have a pretty clear idea of your place, and that allows you to bring out the best in you.
A person who has found himself and is at peace with it always seeks to show the way to someone else.
Anita Moorjani with her book ” Die to be me” is a clear example. She seeks to share the experience of how self-knowledge and self-worth is liberating, and even healing. She wants everyone to find through her story “their own place of hers in the universe.”
You increase the focus on achieving your goals
As we previously mentioned, one of the first things that self-love brings us is self-knowledge. The “who you are and what you want”, so recognizing it and assuming it always puts you in a position where you want to end up becoming that person you project into the future.
In addition to feeling capable and avoiding giving up at all costs. We become competent and persevering people.
you love and you are loved
The improvement in interpersonal relationships is evident. Empathy increases and a more objective perspective of things is usually obtained.
If you do not love yourself, it is very difficult to naturally accept external affection, since rejection is predisposed and anticipated.
People who value and love themselves, thanks to this, improve the ability to relate and are willing to love others freely, understanding that it can be reciprocal and why. So the interactions become more assertive.
live happy and satisfied
Taking care of ourselves allows us to enjoy our times and definitely be the protagonists of our lives.
They are sure of themselves and live calmly with it. Without torturing themselves with phantom scenarios of possible failures and they do not need external approval to make decisions.
your health is boosted
In the study entitled “Self-esteem and health“, carried out by the psychologist Guillermo Ballenato Prieto, he explains how self-esteem can be linked to pathologies such as depression, anxiety, insomnia, anorexia, social withdrawal, etc.
This allows us to understand how the self-concept we have influences and produces results in our lives.
That is why high self-esteem inclines us to care for food, psychological education and well-being. We dedicate time and energy to being and feeling good, attending to the needs of the body.
Bonuscells respond to what you feeltag. Feelings tend to always be physiological responses and biochemical reactions that, being persistent, can affect the immune system, thus triggering the activation of certain genes.
Recommendations to strengthen self-love
Talking about self-esteem and self-love always ends up being much easier than putting it into practice. It is in fact, although it is hard to admit it, the type of love that is most difficult for us and that we avoid admitting the most.
All this has a lot to do with the misrepresentation that they usually give it and the lack of education about the importance of it.
Here are ways to strengthen self-love.
Identify how you perceive yourself
Being honest and assuming responsibility for ourselves when analyzing and getting to know each other. For this reason, recognizing our strengths and weaknesses is key to functioning correctly.
The image we have of ourselves is something acquired. It is learned, collected through experiences throughout our lives, and it is important to admit that those ideas developed are often quite difficult to modify.
Identifying ourselves is knowing what makes us happy and getting closer to our true self.
Be aware of your needs
It happens that our brain is strictly designed to survive and not pursue happiness, so recognizing what our needs are allows us to become aware and make decisions for our well-being.
Frankly admitting if something or someone suits us is crucial to clarify scenarios that seem totally lost and make us unhappy. For this we need to have courage, but above all value ourselves.
Avoid toxic environments and people
Although in the evolution of being, we tend to detach ourselves from affective ties that do not contribute or benefit us, it is also a decision.
Toxic people are negative and wear us down psychologically. In addition, they do not usually rejoice in our achievements but dismiss them.
Some characteristics that toxic people usually present, which helps us to recognize them are:
- They tend to victimize themselves.
- They are pessimists.
- They do not have empathy.
- They are conflicting.
- They complain about everything.
Maintaining a relationship with people of this type will never compensate for the detrimental effect on our emotional well-being. The best thing is to get them out of our life.
Learn to say no
Respecting ourselves will always mark the healthy limits that we must preserve so as not to affect the balance that we have achieved within ourselves. You should make it known where you stand and not feel bad about it.
Free yourself from guilt and grudges
Forgive and let go are the two keywords. To love each other in all capacity we must recognize how destructive guilt and grudges are. You have to eliminate them or learn to deal with them to avoid hurting yourself.
It causes emotional exhaustion, we feel helpless and discouraged and in the long term it can produce anger.
We must guard against feeding these feelings and accept our mistakes. Even other people’s.
Take care of your needs first before those of others
With self-love we must prioritize ourselves. Recognize that although the people who are in our lives are important, no one else is going to take care of us in a more sensible and conscious way than ourselves.
We must avoid making the mistake of leaving our happiness in the hands of other people. Always put ourselves first.
Accept yourself with your virtues and defects
We must not deceive ourselves. Do not propose impossible goals in the short term so that they compromise the security that we have built and our self-esteem.
Whenever we recognize our virtues, we have our limitations, which must be respected in order to have control over our “I” and know how to manage our emotions regarding the criticism we may receive.
Express your opinions and emotions
Acknowledging the importance of your thoughts, your criteria and your way of feeling is essential for self-love.
So the security that it brings us away from the fear of rejection and allows us to show those we love the world that we carry inside.
Set goals and work to meet them
The satisfaction of meeting proposed goals and building with effort the person we want to become fills us.
In fact, creating habits and enjoying the process of concretizing them gives us the feeling of fullness that helps to improve our self-esteem.
Even if small goals are being met, the focus on positive results will favor our security.
Do more of what you like and make you happy
Of course, the goals that we set ourselves, the needs that we cover, the exploration of our virtues… Everything must come with the motivation that it is something that will give us satisfaction. It will make us happy.
Self-esteem pushes us to self-realization emotionally and spiritually, which is why we are closer to being happy and understanding why we are deserving of it.
University Professional in the area of Human Resources, Postgraduate in Occupational Health and Hygiene of the Work Environment, 14 years of experience in the area of health. Interested in topics of Psychology, Occupational Health, and General Medicine.