A few years ago when someone shared with me the concept of self-love, I felt… kind of weird about it. The idea of being so soft towards myself felt insulting, wrong, and.. even a little beneath me.
This is because I felt it was better to be the kind of person who can be strong and deal with the hits of life, accept challenges and extract lessons from each one of them to grow and grow. That stopping this process and being so soft with myself just would mean becoming a lazy, complacent person who I could not respect.
I learned that it is, in fact, important to develop a strong relationship of friendship, responsibility, trust, loyalty and forgiveness with yourself. Life is ever-changing, but you are always stuck with you. So this relationship should be pleasant, comforting, and strengthening.
a sweet and good balance
This relationship would be similar to a good relationship we might have with someone else we love very deeply in our lives. For me, love would mean that I would encourage that person, try to comfort them in pain, and help them see and grow the best qualities in them.
I would also try to be honest with them in a way that helps them see their blind spots that might be getting in their way of growth. Good love is not the love that makes you feel so comfortable that you become complacent, but it is also not such a harsh judge of character and strict in discipline that the person breaks and loses confidence and hope in their self.
Sometimes we pick up this habit of too much criticism for ourselves from the culture we’re part of, or from the people around us, or the external expectations that we don’t or cannot meet. Our intention is to improve, but we just damage our inner self this way. So self-love is really self-loyalty, self-respect and compassion for your being. If you make a mistake and you don’t encourage yourself back up, then who will?
On the other hand, how long can you accept staying in comfort? If you don’t push yourself to challenge yourself then no amount of “self-care” will help you bring out the best in you. Life will get wasted and you will become someone who you cannot respect yourself. That itself leads to another world of insecurities. In this case, self-love is really self-discipline.
kindness to self breeds self-confidence
In my life, I have felt that there were many times where someone else was not able to understand the significance of an event or milestone in my life. But if I care about and celebrate it, then it doesn’t matter as much. It is not a lack of care or affection on the part of others either. It is simply part of being human. We cannot deeply understand and feel for each other all the time.
If you have a strong relationship with yourself, then you know that whether or not people recognize you, you will certainly recognize you. That can give you the emotional strength to keep going and try new challenges without external approval. There is no need for it when you already gave yourself that approval. At the base level you’ve got your own back and you are satisfied with or accepting of yourself.
It is also really important to hold yourself accountable. No matter now many compliments you may be getting from others, part of having an honest and loyal relationship is to recognize your own bs and take accountability for it. But it doesn’t mean to tear yourself down (there are enough external forces to do that for you in life… 🥲).
A good relationship with self just means that you figure out when to use either of the strategies that take care of your emotions, your heart, as well as your progress, dignity and integrity.
It just means that you need to deal with yourself like you respect and value yourself, because if you don’t, who else always will? Life changes all the time. There needs to be a strong base within oneself to rely on in both good and bad times.
self-conversation
For me, It means to speak to myself like I would speak to a friend who is very very dear to me, who I want the best for. Sometimes with kindness, happiness and encouragement, and sometimes with self-analysis and self-correction and accountability.
At the end it is about maintaining an absolutely honest and very humble sense of loyalty with myself, where it is my job to accept all parts of me and work with them with wisdom, kindness, and discipline. This process leads to a lot of resilience and inner strength. You can keep walking your path whether people are with you or not, and whether your goals align with external standards or not. You have the strength to keep taking hits from life, recover more deeply and make better decisions in your favor.
indirect improvements in life
An observation: Interestingly, being more kind to myself has reduced my habit for procrastination, because I am not leaving work for my future self to punish myself. There is no need to be unnecessarily harsh to myself, so why create difficulty for myself that doesn’t make me feel okay?
If a workload is too much, I will just make adjustments that work for me instead of thinking it is my fault for not being able to do something outside of limits despite making many efforts.
It was not different strategies like learning time management skills, using different calendars or apps, or trying to make myself more disciplined that helped me out. Surprisingly, It was becoming more soft and kind with myself that indirectly became the solution. Who knew, that taking care of yourself and your emotional needs can actually improve the quality of your life? Hahaa 😊
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Faiza 