Contributed Post
In some ways, we could view self-love to be akin to self-esteem though self-esteem tends to be more about how competent we feel about our external lives, for instance, our ability to achieve a particular goal… whereas, self love is more about loving yourself as you are, a sense of acceptance and compassion for your holistic being – rather than being pegged to a specific attribute. With the new year, many people have a goal to head to the gym and get in shape, but at the base of most people’s motivation, particularly when it comes to physical improvements – what they’re actually looking for is an increased feeling of self-esteem and self-worth. Therefore, in this article, we’re going to take a look at how love yourself more this year.
- STOP TRYING TO FILL THE VOID
We’re all guilty of distracting ourselves from time to time, but this level of distraction can become unhealthy when it turns into addictive tendencies. The key point is that everything is healthy in moderation, for instance, there’s nothing wrong with checking out Vaaesthetics – Dermal Fillers or getting cosmetic dentistry, but we’ve all seen people that use cosmetic enhancements as a way to fill the void they feel within their self-esteem.
It’s very easy to chase after things, or people, in order to fill the void within – but the best way to fill that void is to simply accept it exists, honour the feelings you have around this, and look for nourishing ways to flesh out your own life rather than being dependent on a relationship or particularly aspect of your life (e.g. work or business) in order to prop you up emotionally.
- STOP DOING THAT WHICH HURTS YOU
There’s normally a trigger that causes physical pain and emotional pain – when we think of something like back pain, we know that sitting at a desk all day, not stretching and leaning over our laptop at night is going to aggravate the physical pain… emotional pain works in the same way. You therefore need to stop doing the things that are causing you emotional pain, and start taking better care of yourself.
- TREAT YOURSELF WITH RESPECT
We often crave respect from other people. Nobody likes being treated without dignity, yet if you notice, the people that don’t feel much self respect are the ones that tend to get walked all over. Respect needs to start with yourself, first. Similar to how you can’t expect anyone else to love you until you love yourself first, you can’t expect anyone else to respect you until you first respect yourself.
As soon as you start treating yourself with more respect the people in your life will either adapt their behaviour to treat you according to your own standard, or they might leave your life, thus making room for someone more nourishing and valuable to enter your life.