Unless you are a narcissist, practicing self-love can be a hard nut to crack. It does not mean you have to forget about everyone and everything, and focus on yourself. No. Before we get to know how to practice self-love, let’s see what it means. Self-love is a state of appreciation for oneself which is enabled through the process of physical, psychological and spiritual growth.

Children should be taught how to practice self-love

In school they teach us to be respectful to others, discipline and subjects that broaden our minds in regards to nature, social studies, science etc. However, nobody makes a point of loving yourself first. Does anything matter if you don’t appreciate yourself for who you are? It is difficult to accept the world when you don’t accept your own existence, which then leads to decreased motivation, low self-esteem, lack of confidence and inability to cope with uncertainty and societal problems.

Self-love can be acquired by following these steps:

Allow yourself to make mistakes

This one is one of the most important concepts to grasp in order to develop self-love. I used to judge myself for making mistakes and as a result, I judged others, too. With no surprise, I would constantly say that I was bad at doing things and couldn’t understand how to do them right no matter how hard I tried. I fed myself lies about who I was and it all sounded pretty convincing. What I didn’t tell myself at the time was, “it is ok to make mistakes“. We don’t learn through immediate success. Period. Also, we don’t improve through projects that disable our ability to see our potential. We can utilize it by trying different methods, not just the one that worked once. That said, we learn to create and filter techniques that are applicable in various situations based on our experiences.

Trust yourself and your decisions

How many of you trust yourself when it comes to quitting your job to follow your passion? And how many of you tell yourself that maybe you should stay quiet when given an opportunity to voice your opinion or propose an idea? How many of you stay in a relationship which makes you feel unappreciated but you fear being alone for the rest of your life? How many of you trust others when they say you won’t succeed?

When you trust or don’t trust yourself, your thoughts become reality regardless of them being directed positively or negatively. You become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your reality. Your decisions, whether they make you happy or unhappy, create learning experiences that in the long run either motivate you to move forward or hold you back, but if you feel that you are being held back, pause your brain for a minute and allow yourself to be reasonable. Convincing yourself that all the effort you’ve made is worthless can be destructive. Instead, think that steps you’ve taken showed you that adjustments need to be made to your plan. Give yourself more time to come up with better solutions. The potential is infinite and so is the amount of ideas you can create.

Acknowledge your fears

Fear can be tricky and it awaits you to become vulnerable to hit right when you are about to break through. Somehow it manages to control our thoughts and actions, and we take a step back… To understand where your fears are coming from can take time but if you look back into your past, it’s gone. It’s your memory and you cannot revive it, and you don’t need to. You are given the opportunity to move on and apply the best of your knowledge at the current moment. Being afraid that your idea won’t work or that the decision you’re about to make will fail you is unknown but with the right thinking no matter the consequences you can choose to accept them and change your plan, change your methods to achieve your goal.

Put yourself first

This means to give yourself time for self-discovery, understanding and acceptance. When you spend time with others, you learn from them as much as they learn from you, you teach them as much as they teach you. Learning to practice self-love takes time. However, if you don’t let yourself explore your true nature, you may struggle expressing yourself and understanding other people by constantly interacting with them. Give yourself a break to recharge and analyze your behavior and how it impacts your life. This will allow you to observe others and be more compassionate in regards to their decision-making, choices etc.

Let yourself experience emotions

Most of my life I spent thinking “I’m sad”, “I’m mad”, “I’m upset”. Instead, I could’ve been observing those moments as learning experiences that could help me understand myself. I rarely had positive emotions. I quickly suppressed them and it became my habit. That’s right. I was in the habit of feeling sad and didn’t do much to comprehend it fully.

Now I spent time noting behavioral patterns of myself and others. In the process, I have unlocked the ability to accept my emotions, not suppress them. Believe it or not, but suppressing your emotions can negatively affect your behavior because you constantly lock them up and you disapprove their presence as something bad. This leads you to judging yourself and other people for having these emotions in the first place. On top of that, when you lock up these emotions, they bug you and test your patience when another situation rolls around where you feel the need to control yourself.

When negative emotions knock on your door, open it up, greet them, let them come in, ask them why they’ve come to visit you and let them go. You can let them hang out for a while but avoid giving them attention. Otherwise they will pester you and you won’t be able to focus on your growth. It sounds simple, right? It actually is.

Hatred showed me how beautiful self-love is

I was suicidal for years and since I was able to do it, it’s possible for you too. I did exactly what I said: I asked myself why I was feeling a certain way, I analyzed my behavior that these emotions were causing and by acknowledging them as if they had been a human being, I let them go.

Although, it does seem like someone moved in with you and is being annoying, you still try to learn to live with them unless you avoid them at all costs. Usually, you learn who they are, what they do, their interests etc. Eventually, you may become friends. Why not do the same with your emotions? “Ugh.. but they’re ruining my life”, you may say. The only thing that can ruin your life is that kind of thinking. That’s it!

I started to practice self-love by learning gratitude. Instead of being unappreciative of what I have, I try to tell myself more often that I am proud of myself for getting as far as I have and it puts a smile on my face.

See beauty in the simple things

The moment I started practicing self-love, I began to notice beauty in just everything: from flowers to clouds in the sky, to buildings, cars, and trees. What I realized during this process, I was also expressing love towards everything else. In the morning as I walk to work, I send love to stars and the Moon because it’s still dark outside and I can see them. I give love to trees and it makes me happy. I used to be grumpy so for me doing something simple and “silly” like that, what it may sound like, makes me smile. It’s a huge achievement that not everyone can understand but it’s a fundamental step to learning self-love. Besides that, I send texts to my friends with love and wishing them to have a great day. That, too, reflects on me as I program myself to have a good day as well.

Be kind to yourself

Unfortunately, it is easy to forget how kindness can bring so much positive into your life. Criticizing yourself for not being who you’d rather be does not direct you towards the path you need to take in order to actually become who you want to be. Try to notice what you have achieved by now and look at it as the opportunity you have taken to obtain what you have, and as a chance to work on new projects, take up new hobbies, actualize new ideas. As soon as you come to realizing that not every moment in your life you need to spend aggressively working on improving yourself or judging your decisions when instead you can analyze those decisions to make proper adjustments, will you let yourself enjoy experiences that come to you from all directions of life for you to comprehend its meaning.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end. Hope you find it useful and can start to practice self-love very soon!

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