How To Love Yourself In 17 Ways
How to love yourself when you don’t know how?
It’s exactly what it was like when I first started realising that I needed to love myself but have no idea where to start.
I felt embarrassed that I was clueless and that I should already know this stuff. “How to love yourself” sounded like something that everyone ought to know from young. You see…by the time I became aware about the importance of self-love, I was already an adult, married and with young children.
I even found it surprising (and even laughable) to realise that I was clueless.
Surely, I should be some kind of an expert? After all, as I recalled, relationship matters had been a key focus since my younger days. My attention was on dating, partying and looking for a potential partner. Over cups of latte, I would have long conversations with my girlfriends about relationship issues. As things turned out, I found myself failing miserably in my early relationships. I was in and out of love.
It took going in circles to realise that my issues were mainly rooted in a lack of self-love. The search was not to be made out there. What dawned on me was that my external search was meant to fill the void or emptiness I had inside. It became clear to me that I have had great challenges with finding a good relationship with myself.
Many self-help articles out there focuses on building self-esteem. Upon reflection, I realised that self-esteem and self-love are issues that are often related together. Your belief is that you are not good enough to be loved. If you perceive yourself as a failure, weak or stupid, mustering love for yourself can be very difficult. You are not able to embrace yourself unconditionally.
Learn How to Love Yourself Unconditionally
Learning how to love yourself may feel unnatural for a start since you could have been ingrained with negative beliefs for decades. Self-love has to be learnt – in other words, in the form of a practice.
Be aware that nothing is going to happen if you do not FIRST make a conscious decision to work on believing that you are worthy and that you are lovable. Indeed, inadequate self-love can make it difficult to attract relationships, all the things you would love in your life….which sums up to abundance. You can find it nearly impossible to ever reach your highest potential!
Learning how to love yourself starts with knowing that you do have a choice. And it is up to you to consciously make the decision of loving yourself. The choice to make is clear: to love yourself unreservedly, without apology and in every way! (As one of my clients proclaimed upon awakening to self-love, “but of course…why would I choose otherwise?”)
Your intention is to be happy, love yourself and lead a fulfilled life. By making the conscious decision, you are really saying that you want to come alive. You accept that you are responsible for the outcomes that you experience in your life and would like yourself to shine from living a full life.
“Love yourself first and everything falls into line.”
Lucille Ball quotes (American radio and motion-picture actress and comedy star, 1911-1989)
Ready to come alive with happiness? Make the decision for self-love. Proceed reading below…
17 ways on How to Love Yourself
1. Fall in love with yourself
Think about what makes you You.
Just like a flower that needs watering to grow, learn to nurture yourself in every way. Love yourself for all the good that you see and accept your flaws and the fact that you are imperfect. This does not mean that you do not learn to change from your shortcomings; instead, you are being gentle and kind to yourself despite all perceived”flaws”.
Learn how to love yourself with the mirror. Simply, look in the mirror and fall in love with the reflection that is You.
“To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.”
Oscar Wilde quotes (Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic, 1854-1900)
2. Eliminate Self Criticism
Do you often berate yourself over the tiniest thing? Is there a little voice inside your head that often tells you that you are no good because you are stupid or make mistakes? If you find that you often judge yourself, make an effort to stop the self criticism.
“I CAN is 100 times more important than IQ.” — unknown
3. Be Kind And Positive
When you start to think kindly and positively about yourself, the love you have for yourself just grows. Make it a habit to praise yourself everyday, while in the front of the mirror. Because of such thoughts, you naturally undertake empowering actions that support your development.
4. Acknowledge Your Effort
It is not always about winning or coming up tops in everything that you do. Many times, it is the effort that counts! Acknowledge that you have done your best, even if you have failed to produce tangible results.
5. Let Go Of Worry
Loving yourself requires you to let go of your worry. It is a horrible way to live a life filled with constant worrying. I can attest to that!
You make yourself sick if you worry excessively. Worry does not help in any way. It cannot, on its own, make things happen. Only wise actions can! So instead of worrying, spend time thinking about what you can do to help in the situation.
If the situation is beyond your control, then make a request to the Universe/God about what you want. Next, surrender your outcome.
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” — Epictetus quotes (Greek philosopher associated with the Stoics, AD 55-c.135)
6. Trust Yourself
Learning how to love yourself involves trusting yourself. Thus, you choose to have confidence in your abilities. You also follow up on what you’d say that you’d do. Know that you have the ability to make important changes for yourself, for as long as you put your heart to it.
“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”
Benjamin Spock quotes (American Paediatrician and Author, 1903-1998)
7. Forgive Yourself.
Learning how to love yourself is the willingness to embrace yourself even though you have made mistakes in the past. Everyone makes mistakes; so give yourself some grace. There is really no need to beat yourself up over them. Also, if you have been carrying around a baggage of emotional hurt because of a childhood trauma, learn to forgive yourself.
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”
Lewis B. Smedes quotes
8. Be Truthful To Yourself
Loving yourself requires you to be truthful about your own feelings. If you are happy, acknowledge the joy. If you are sad, acknowledge the sorrow.
When you are truthful about your feelings, you do not try to lie to yourself or seek to bury your negative emotions. Instead, acknowledging what you feel provides a good guide to what your thoughts are. And as we all know, thoughts can be changed, so that healing and self growth can take place.
9. Grow Spiritually
When you spend time growing spiritually, loving yourself becomes automatic. You become more peaceful, connected, kind, loving and compassionate. You nurture a mind that grows more beautiful by the day. You naturally love yourself in the process.
10. Make Positive Affirmations Everyday
Reframe your mind with positive affirmations. For instance, say this to yourself “I love and accept myself completely and unconditionally” or other encouraging words that lift your energy.
Don’t just say the affirmations without feeling and believing in them. If you want positive affirmations to work for you, you need to resonate with them from the heart.
11. Express Gratitude
How to love yourself involves feeling blessed. Hence, express gratitude for the person that you are. For instance, cultivate an appreciation for your strengths and gifts. Also, feel a sense of gratitude that you are alive and well, and fully capable of making a difference in your life.
12. Nurture Your Dreams
Why deny your dreams? By pursuing your dreams, you get to love the life that you are leading. Every moment that you live is joy because you give yourself the chance for creativity. You are honouring your soul’s wish to create from your heart. Loving yourself is to honour your desire to create a life of love.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. —Mark Twain
13. Boost Your Self Confidence
Make a deliberate attempt to look for opportunities that can help improve your confidence. For instance, if you are particularly good at doing something, set aside more time to indulge and improve your skills on it. Knowing that you have particular gifts can boost your self esteem and also, self-love.
14. Relax
Learn to love yourself by giving yourself space to take breaks every now and then. If you spend your time working, without paying attention to your health, it also means that you do not love yourself well enough to take care of your own body. Fill your time with silence, soothing music and visions of beauty; anything that nourishes your Soul.
15. Have Fun
Inject some fun into your life. Life is meant to be enjoyable. Don’t take life or yourself too seriously. If you can think of life in this manner, you automatically relax and quit worrying over things that do not matter.
16. Look After Your Body
It is important that you strengthen yourself with proper nutrition and regular exercise. Your body is a temple and you should treat it with respect. It has been found that the lack of self love is often the root causes of conditions like eating disorders, obesity or even terminal diseases. Learn how to love yourself through applying self-care.
“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”
Jim Rohn quotes (American Speaker and Author.)
17. Learn To See Beauty
When you learn to see beauty in every thing, you will also see beauty in yourself. Hence, stop to smell the flowers. Notice everything. Feel everything. The pink blush of flowers in your garden, the greenness of the plains, the whisper of the gentle wind and the surrounding aromatic scent.
How to Love Yourself Affirmation
Understand that learning how to love yourself involves a practice. Raising the self-love quotient to an adequate level may take some time. The following is a self-love affirmation that you can make on a daily basis…
“I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it — I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes.
Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know — but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me.
However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me.
I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.”
Virginia Satir quotes (American Psychologist and Educator, 1916-1988)
Update #1: Self-Love Secrets Book
I had written a book, Self-Love Secrets, arising from email questions written to me as a result of this post.Would like to learn more about how to love yourself unconditionally?
Check out my Self-Love collection that covers how to love yourself in the mind, body and spirit –
Click Here for Instant Download of Self-Love Secrets
Update #2: 10-year Anniversary for this Post
Posting this article 10 years ago has been life-changing for me. I’ve received tons of responses from people all over the world. I’m forever thankful to you and the readers out there who has blessed it with love 🙂
If this is the first time you are reading it,
can I get your help to share it on Facebook, twitter or pinterest?
This post has been a catalyst for many self-love articles written by others today. Hopefully, it can continue to help someone else out there who is depressed and struggling with self-love issues.
From my heart to yours, thank you 🙂
Update #3: Self-Love Healing
I wish you much love and abundance always! xx Evelyn Lim
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