Learning To Love Ourselves
In the 21st century, with all the pressures we face to be perfect, beautiful and keep up with the Joneses, it can be hard to love ourselves. Our own personal struggles seem like they're never enough but they just might have been what got us here in the first place. We have to look outside of ourselves for validation and approval when we should be content as is. Let's stop looking for love from other people and put our hearts back into loving ourselves... because there's nowhere better than here!
This blog post is about how not only has self-love gone out of style, but why it has gone out of style too.
First, what is self love?
Self love is the practice of loving oneself and taking care of oneself. It's believing in yourself, knowing you're special and counting on yourself to be able to do anything. Self love allows you to see your strengths and your mistakes without judgment. Self-love is about respecting yourself and allowing yourself full expression without judgment. It's about embracing the fact that everyone else will be judged for their faults as well, but we don't have to be! We can only have self-love for ourselves.
Self-love has always been considered a positive thing. It used to be thought of as a practice by spiritual and yogic masters, who set out to love every aspect of themselves. There was an emphasis on embracing all the "imperfections" about you, your flaws, your style, your quirks. Self-love was never considered vain or arrogant; it was practiced to help one connect with their true self and spirituality. The idea that everyone is beautiful in their own way has been passed down from generation to generation. The people who were considered weird or different were the ones that later became known as our innovators and geniuses for the ages.
During Victorian times people tried not to draw attention to themselves so they would not stick out from the crowd. Self-love was not something people were supposed to practice or feel in the Victorian era: they were supposed to live their lives as a sacrifice to God.
Over the 20th century, self-love has become increasingly more important, because our world has changed so much. People started to migrate from the country and into high rises in cities. The pace of life became hectic and fast. Everyone was trying to catch up with each other, living like there's no tomorrow; as if time is running out for everyone. Everyone is busy trying to be someone else: it's like a competition of who can be better than the next person. This pressure from society is a huge contributing factor on why self love went out of style.
With all these changes happening in our world, we need to take care of ourselves more than ever!
The pressures to be perfect has increased the stress in everyone's lives. It seems like our society doesn't allow for any mistakes, or any "imperfections". To be regarded as a success and to have a good life people feel they need to be perfect and do everything right. This pressure is everywhere: people are expected to look perfect, act perfect, live perfectly and have the ideal relationship. The fact that we're not aware of this pressure is actually one of the ways it affects us so deeply.
There's a high chance we have exactly what it takes to do things the perfect way, but that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do! We have so much anxiety about doing something wrong and being judged for it, even though we can be assured that no one is perfect. A lot of people nowadays believe that if they don't achieve the perfect relationship with themselves by getting divorced or cheating on their spouse, then they're a failure. Whats worse is when some people start to blame themselves for a failed marriage only based on how they were raised or society's ideal standards of marriage. It gives no room for them to grow as an individual and learn new ways of seeing things.
When we start to measure our self-worth by the way we look, act or perform in a relationship, then we tend to take it the wrong way. We judge ourselves for our choices and how we've tried to please everyone else instead of ourselves. Having our partner be the one to make all of the choices for us is not what is required in a successful relationship. No one gets married and changes everything about themselves for a relationship: people change for their relationships because it's more about having someone to love than it is about getting married. We know that no one can change who we are and how we act: we ourselves will always be a compilation of all our relationships with the people around us.
"If you want to be happy, don't worry about being happy; just do what makes you happy." - Prince Viktor of Brunei
The relationships we have with others outside of ourselves is not as important as having a healthy relationship with yourself. We should believe that everyone is beautiful in their own way, regardless of if they're overweight, skinny, tall or short: it's a common misconception that the only way people see others as beautiful is if they fit into society's ideal standards.
"Everyone else is so beautiful and I'm not." - most of us at some point in our lives.
We shouldn't just look at how others are living their lives, but what we can learn from others. There's no one who can teach us more about ourselves than ourselves. If we don't love ourselves then how can we truly love another? It doesn't mean we need to hate anyone that judges us on appearances or those that criticize or put down our relationships, but it means learning to accept them as they are because they too are struggling to figure out themselves. Try to always see things from the other person's point of view: you never know how much struggle they're going through outside of their relationships as well.
Everyone has an issue or two that they need to work on, and no one should be punished for it. Self-love involves loving yourself, while at the same time accepting that you too have issues to work through. Everyone has a flaw or two, but you can use those flaws to learn and grow as an individual. It's up to you how you want to take advantage of the opportunities given to you.
Self-love is the most important thing any of us can practice because it will make us a better version of ourselves. Everyone has different goals they want to achieve in life: those goals may change over time, but the only way we can fully achieve them is if we have self-love and self-respect. A lot of people don't realize that self-love is actually a spiritual journey that we need to work on every day. There are plenty of examples in history about how successful people were different from everyone else because they did things their own way.
Conclusion
Self-love is an important part of any relationship: it builds trust and makes us stronger as individuals. It's okay to worry about your relationships and how you act around your partner, but just don't forget how to be yourself! There's no one in this world that can teach you more about yourself than yourself, so always remember that the answers are within you. It doesn't matter if your partner is in a relationship with someone else or has their own personal issues, we all need to love who we are because no one is perfect or has been through the same experiences as anyone else. We all deserve to feel loved and pursued in our relationships: love is blind when it chooses weak people, so everyone deserves a chance.