Loving Yourself

Love, a powerful emotion that is expressed in many ways. There is romantic love, parental love, sibling love, love between friends, and even love of God.

However, the most important type of love, self-love, is difficult to achieve and apply.

Learning to love oneself should be begin in childhood. It should be as basic as learning the alphabets. But this rarely happens. At least it didn’t happen for me.

Why is this? It is easier to understand why after examining some of the reasons and messages associated with the concept.

The perception associated with self-love is not always positive. For example, I looked up words that were synonyms with the term. The number of affirmative words was limited. However, words such as conceited, narcissistic, pompous, arrogant, and egoistical, which have negative connotations, were in abundance.

Let’s be truthful no one wants to be associated with such terms. The sad part is these words do not represent love, at least not the love Jesus referred to.

One would think the church would be the perfect place to support and advocate for self-love. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. It was in the church where I repeatedly heard comments such as “Who does she think she is? You are smelling yourself. What makes you think you can do that?”

Why the resistance? Maybe they felt self-love opposed biblical principles? I can’t understand how since God is all about love. Or were they confusing healthy love with self-centeredness, arrogance, and pride? Again, that is not love.

Traditionally as women we are taught it is our duty to be concerned about everyone but ourselves. A good daughter, a good mother, or a good wife isn’t supposed to focus on herself. A female who loves herself too much is considered selfish and self-centered.

Society’s one size fits all standard of beauty. Instead of accepting our own attractiveness, we try to meet the impossible standards set by others.

If our parents or guardians didn’t love themselves, it was impossible for them to pass such valuable knowledge down to their children.

What messages did you receive about loving yourself? Were they positive or negative?

Why is it important that we love ourselves? Because self-love is the foundation for all other forms of love. It influences the quality of our relationships. It determines how we treat ourselves and how we allow others to treat us.

These are some of the symptoms of not loving ourselves:
1. Insecurity and low self-esteem
2. Comparative behavior
3. Settling
4. Depression and other negative emotions
5. Toxic relationships.
6. Giving up on goals and dreams.

Are any of these or other self-sabotaging behaviors present in your life? I battled with low self-esteem, toxic relationships, and settling.

We are not meant to live this way and such behaviors need to be eliminated from our lives. This can be done by learning to value and appreciate ourselves.

I don’t care how old you are or what you have experienced it is never too late to learn to love yourself.

Despite what you were taught, self-love is acceptable. It’s what Jesus taught. The Word of God says we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Get it, as we love ourselves. This means that God validates self-love.

These are a few Scriptures that teach us to value ourselves:

You are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).

The Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you will be above only and not beneath (Deuteronomy 28:13).

I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10).

Any message that teaches otherwise goes against the Word of God.

How can you learn to love yourself?
• Accept that it is okay to love yourself regardless of what others may say.
• Stop the comparing. Realize you are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are unique. Accept this and stop      measuring yourself by other’s standards.
• Separate yourself from negative people. If this is not possible, learn ways to limit their influence on your life, thoughts, and actions.
• Read the Bible. It is full of love. From it we can learn to love ourselves, others, and even God.
• Speak words of life over yourself by using positive affirmations and Scriptures. Examples of affirmations are: I am an intelligent, loving, and compassionate person. Or,  I am worthy of being loved.
• Go after your goals and dreams. You will be surprised how accomplishment affects self-esteem.
• Celebrate your successes. Don’t allow mistakes and failures to hold you hostage. I love what Nelson Mandela said about failure, “I don’t fail, I either win or I learn.” Develop this mindset.
• Form a support team. People you can trust. Those who will be truthful and supportive.
• Most importantly be patient with yourself. You didn’t develop these negative feelings overnight and they will not go away overnight. As a matter of fact, they may never away. But you can rob them of their power by believing in yourself and realizing you are worthy of being loved.

I do not want to mislead you. If for most of your life you struggled with loving yourself, it will not be easy to learn, but it can happen.

Let’s do this!!!