What The Heck Is Self-Love Anyway?
An unflinching look at self-love, what it is, the practices of loving ourselves, and how we can have truly authentic, balanced and complementary relationships.
“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” — Lucille Ball
It’s easy to forget sometimes about the love that’s always available to us. Even the simple act of receiving an animal’s affection is a potent reminder that we are deeply, easily loved. My cat Lynx bumping his head into mine, purring affectionately, licking my face — all of these seemingly innocuous actions are good reminders that love is never “lost” in life.
It’s so easy to externalize love; to ruminate on the person, friend, lover or partner that is no longer physically with us and to regard them as the primary (or only) source of love in our lives. This is a very dangerous illusion. So long as we view the other person as THE source of love in our lives, we feel an intrinsic sense of emptiness upon their departure.
This is not to suggest that we abstain from mourning a true loss of someone we deeply care for. I am suggesting, however, that we abstain from buying into the illusion of viewing them as our source of love, thereby creating additional, unnecessary suffering for ourselves. By misinterpreting them — an external source — as your source of love, the causality of your happiness and the core of your world — you are creating a pit of hell for yourself and willfully flinging yourself in with abandon.
In truth, you are surrounded by love from so many sources. Companion animals, close family, dear friends, trusted colleagues, the solitude and peace of nature — these are all touchstones of love and support that you can access. Moreover, the one common denominator in every single relationship in your life is… YOU. This means that your experience of love and connection has been, and always will be, self-generated. To be sure, the right energetic resonance, magnetism, interests and alchemical mix can spark connection or ignite feelings of love, but you are the generator, the perceiver and the experiencer of those feelings. They emanate from within you and extend outward. Therefore, you can self-generate and experience love, independent of the presence of another person.
When we practice this seemingly esoteric and poorly-defined thing called “self-love”, it can be, well, kind of confusing and definitely disorienting. Firstly, because loving yourself is not something that’s taught in most schools or religions and rarely discussed or considered in most family dynamics. Self-love has only recently entered the mainstream lexicon and defining it (much less practicing it) has been tenuous and murky at best. So, we grow up and start to see memes and quotes like…
“Your ability to love another person is a direct reflection of the love you’ve intentionally cultivated for yourself.” — Jason Wrobel
Ummm… okay. The intellectual, thinking brain gets that, but doesn’t that feel somewhat ambiguous? The question arises, “Well, then, HOW do I intentionally cultivate a deep love for myself?” This is a great question. Before I jump into some answers, I want to provide a critical distinction. There’s a commonly held perspective that loving ourselves is synonymous with narcissism. However, I think there are critical differences between the two. My definition of narcissism is when you think it’s “all about you”; that all of life is somehow here to cater to your whims, desires and needs. Conversely, I think self-love is the realization that you have the ability to generate the self-awareness to practice meeting your own needs and desires without using other people as a means to your ends.
In this case, it is only by practicing self-love that we can cultivate truly balanced, deeply loving, mutually nourishing and honorable relationships we were are not using each other to get our perceived needs met. Or in other words, it’s being an adult in relationships, rather than a child in an adult body trying to have someone else take care of us.
The distinctions show up in our relationship language as well. Rather than saying something that feels needy and co-dependent like, “I need you, don’t ever leave me”, we can shift our language towards something like, “I want you. Not because I can’t live without you; because you’re the cherry on my sundae.” I use this food analogy because there’s a lot of people walking around thinking they’re an empty dish and they need someone else to come along and be their sundae. And to that, I say, “YOU ARE THE SUNDAE ALREADY!” Legit, you’re delicious, amazing and complete unto yourself. If someone happens to come along and add some sprinkles, hot fudge or a cherry on top, that’s great. But don’t buy into the illusion that you’re not already this incredible creation, complete and whole on your own. This is the mental shift that helps us move away from co-dependence to inter-dependence, wherein the relationships we choose enhance our already awesome lives and don’t exist as an emotional crutch to validate our lack of self-worth and self-love.
“To fall in love with yourself is the first secret to happiness.” — Robert Morely
Ahhh… don’t think I’ve forgotten about the lingering question hanging in the air…
“Yeah, but HOW do we practice this self-love thing?!?”
I am by no means an expert at this (I’m actually still stumbling and experimenting) but I’ve gotten much better at finding some personal answers and useful practices over the years.
A good first step is to identify our own core needs and deepest desires and ask ourselves honestly if we are fulfilling those on our own right now. As part of this inquiry, it’s important to identify if we are engaging in any co-dependent behavior that places the responsibility of fulfilling our needs or desires on other people in our lives.
The second step is to ask ourselves, “What brings me joy and contentment?” Write a list of all the things that come to mind and see if you can start doing more of those things for yourself.
Third, ask yourself how much time you’re giving to YOU each day — to your passions, dreams, hobbies and desires. If you find that it ain’t much, it’s time to re-prioritize your calendar and build in more time for yourself each day. Yes, even if that means getting up 30 minutes earlier to meditate, journal or create. Even if that means you substitute working out for binge-watching the newest Netflix series. Life requires sacrifice and the question is, “What are you willing to sacrifice to give more time and attention to YOU?”
“To love yourself right now, just as you are, is to give yourself heaven. Don’t wait until you die. If you wait, you die now. If you love, you live now.” — Alan Cohen
Fourth, take yourself out on a damn date every once in a while, will ya? So often, we wait for the validation and the “buy in” from our partner, lover, spouse, best friend to do the things we really want to do. My Grandmother Rose used to do this all the time (God love that woman!) She’d ask me, “Do you want to go out for Chinese food?” I’d reply, “I’m not hungry Grandma.” And she’d go, “Okay….. we won’t go then” with a disappointed look on her face. I knew she wanted Chinese food, but she wanted the verbal buy-in from me to give herself permission to do what she really wanted to do, which was to get some eggrolls, Lo Mein and some spicy mustard. I love that spicy mustard.
For real though — how often do we do this in life? Wait for permission from someone else? Beg for their validation? Or hope they’ll be able to read our minds without us stating our deep desires? My advice is to say “fuck that!” and do what you really want. Take yourself out for Chinese food. Treat yourself to a nice brunch at your favorite cafe in town. Draw yourself a bath with flowers and candles. Buy yourself tickets to the movie or your favorite band’s concert. Go for a freakin’ walk in the park by yourself from time to time. Or, by God, take yourself on a solo vacation! I don’t care what it is — just stop waiting for permission, validation and the buy-in from people to do what you truly want to do with your life.
Fifth — and this one is by far the least fun — identify and name any lingering traumas, blocks, resentments or barriers that are holding you back from loving and being deeply loved and seen. Working with a psychotherapist, counselor or healer to exhume any deep-seated wounds to be examined, acknowledged and healed is a necessary practice for damn near everyone on this planet. I don’t know anyone who’s not in pain or suffering silently with something, harboring traumas that have gone unspoken and unexamined for too long. Speak your pain, ask for help and be lovingly resilient in understanding all aspects of yourself. This is not easy work and it sure ain’t a walk in the park. Identifying and resolving our trauma can be excruciating, but to be open to deeper levels of self-love, acceptance and peace is worth the effort.
Sixth — you’ve gotta learn how to love the seemingly unloveable parts of yourself. The icky bits that you don’t like to share with anyone, much less contemplate yourself. The things you haven’t forgiven yourself for. The things you think you “fucked up” in your life. The seemingly poor decisions. The perceived failures and gaffes. It’s easy to love the fun, sunshiney parts of our lives. The real test is how we forgive, accept and love the parts of ourselves that we leave in the dark corners to fester and congeal. We must look in the proverbial dark corners of our hearts and our psyches to integrate the aspects of ourselves that we feel shameful about.
I sure as hell don’t know how to love myself the best, but I’m putting in the practice to learn. And as we learn to love ourselves, we begin to cultivate more self-reliance, trusting ourselves to meet our own needs and desires, looking at our relationships as beautiful compliments to our already wonderful, messy and magical existence.
“If you can learn to love yourself and all the flaws, you can love other people so much better. And that makes you so happy.” — Kristin Chenoweth
Leave a comment below to share your thoughts.
Like what you just read? Give us a clap and click the green “Recommend” button below to help others find it. For more content like this, scroll down to follow.
To get more magical mojo on a weekly basis, sign up for the Wellevatr newsletter. When you do, you’ll receive the “you are Enough” PDF workbook as a thank you.
Keep in touch on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
This writing was originally posted on Wellevatr.com.
