Learning To Love Yourself: 5 Recommendations

Learning to love yourself is very important for your emotional health. If being positive about others has important benefits, being positive about yourself is fundamental. After all, you have to live with yourself throughout your life.

To love oneself is to value oneself, which means that practicing self-love is something like exercising a healthy selfishness where you prioritize and treat yourself well. It comes from acknowledging who you are and accepting your strengths as well as your shortcomings.

Furthermore, only when you learn to love and nurture yourself as if you were your own child can you give love to others. If you underestimate yourself, you will never be able to develop a sense of self-confidence and your self-esteem will be shattered. Learning to love yourself is a priority.

Love, do not love

Many people think that they do not love themselves. This, in part, is not true . We love ourselves because it is impossible not to do so, since we are only one person on sending and receiving ends. But there are people who still think they do not love themselves. Actually, what they mean by that is that there are certain parts of themselves or their personality that they do not like.

You may also feel that you do not love yourself when you feel remorse or shame over something you said, thought or did. This is quite normal because you are not perfect . Everyone has imperfections, and you need to learn to deal with yours. But this is not a reason to stop loving and appreciating yourself.

Characteristics of people with low self-esteem

Low self-esteem gets a lot of bad publicity. Many mental problems can arise from it. In fact, it is associated with addiction problems, an excessive need for approval and disorders such as anxiety and depression.

People with low self-esteem, in addition to treating themselves badly, tend to look down on and downplay other people as well. That is, they project their own feelings about themselves onto others. In addition, we can also see that they:

• Constantly seeking approval from others.
• Want to control others.
• Suffers from poor treatment from partners, colleagues or friends.
• Creates dependent relationships with people, institutions, things or substances.
• Have distorted thoughts.
• Has feelings of self-dissatisfaction, self-hatred, disgust and contempt for oneself.

As you can see, low self-esteem comes with a variety of interpersonal, work-related or other types of issues.

Poor self-esteem can be the source of certain mental disorders

Learning to love yourself protects you from mental illness. In fact, it lowers self-esteem depression, anxiety, eating disorders and body image disorders.

In older people, low self-esteem has been associated with poor health, greater disability, greater anxiety, depression and more pain. In addition, low self-esteem can be a risk factor for suicide. But in each case , it is one of the many factors that make up the root cause. This means that self-esteem alone, is not responsible for an eating disorder, for example.

5 recommendations that can help you learn to love yourself

Learning to love yourself is closely linked to self-esteem. You can use a variety of strategies to improve it, they are as follows:

Talk to yourself in a positive way

The way you talk to yourself has consequences. If you constantly criticize and blame yourself, you will feel bad. Now, if you treat yourself with respect and are aware of the language you use, you will feel much better.

Judging yourself harshly prevents you from growing and moving forward. It is important to learn to see your positive sides and be happy with them, as well as to accept the shortcomings you have. Trying to change them to be perfect is tantamount to pretending not to be human. In fact, change is only possible if you accept them.

Take care of body and soul

The body and the soul cannot be separated. What is good for one is good for the other as well. This means that taking care of yourself both physically and spiritually will lead to well-being.

A balanced diet, a good night’s sleep, exercising every week, listening to nice music, going through nature or having a candlelit dinner with someone who is important to you, are some of the things that can make you feel better. Do an activity or hobby that nourishes both your body and your soul.

Treat mistakes as learning opportunities, instead of punishing yourself

Once you have made a mistake, there is no point in punishing yourself for it. We all make mistakes, and we must accept them as part of our lives. Yes, of course it is better if you do not make mistakes, but to pretend that you never make mistakes is to lie to yourself.

There is a lesson behind every mistake, an opportunity to learn to do things differently. It is better to focus on the lesson, instead of blaming yourself for it.

Discard conflicting messages

A conflicting message is a compliment and a criticism at the same time. It is very common for people with low self-esteem to do this. For example, a conflicting message might be “you did very well, but you spent a lot of time doing it”.

Kick these conflicting messages out and turn them into grateful self-compliments. Just remove the part that contains the criticism. For example: “I feel very good because of the work I did”.

Go to a healthy place, build healthy relationships, and do healthy activities

Healthy places are places where you restore your peace of mind and desire to live. They can be mountains, an ocean, a park… Now, if you stay at home, surround yourself only with what is useful and cozy. If you need it, reorganize your house. In some ways, this will help you reorganize your life.

Healthy people are those who have presence and company that gives you peace and energy. Meet people you are comfortable with and avoid toxic conditions.

On the other hand, healthy activities are pleasant activities that give you the strength needed to cope with the stress that arises in your daily life. Reading a good book, watching a movie, playing sports or just resting are examples of this.

As you can see, learning to love yourself is fundamental. Now, as with any skill, it requires commitment. Supporting, caring for and valuing yourself is important for good emotional health. It is the way you can build a good and happy life.