What is self love?
This is a question I get asked regularly, and is a topic I love to explore — not just for myself, but for this community. Self-love seems to be everywhere these days; everyone has their own definition of self love, and how to find it.
I’ve talked about self-love and its link to grief and recovery. I’ve explored self-love’s sibling — self-intimacy, and how we can build it into our daily lives. Self-love has always been a big part of my own healing journey. Taking the time to break down, digest and share more about this process, aligns with my values and my hopes for this feeling focused writing space.
So how do I define it?
Self-love is the process of turning to ourselves — mind, body, and soul with love, acceptance, compassion and accountability. Self-love can look like dedicated and firm self nurturing, with a commitment that goes beyond self- indulgence and materialism.
Self-love is an active practice of acceptance, caring, validating and growing into yourself. How you achieve this can be uniquely personal and specific to you, your needs and your strengths. Think of self-love as a flexible framework that can be adapted to your experiences, lifestyle and intentions.
If you think about the times in which maybe you’ve seen love in your own life, felt love in relationships, or even just watched love in the media, you can easily see that love can be both gentle, supportive, and can be a space for accountability, respect and radical compassion.
When you love something, it grows. Self-love is that beautiful and messy process of intentionally turning inwards so that you can grow into the best version of yourself. I believe that self love truly begins with unlearning society's and our own self-imposed "conditions" for worthiness, and can feel a lot like grieving (more on this here).
Unfortunately, many of us are taught implicitly and explicitly through past relationships and experiences that love, compassion, nurturing, and respect are conditional. Meaning, these things are only accessible to us when we achieve success, are productive, say/do the right thing, or exist in a certain body. We associate this validation, love and support with things external to us — some of which we can't control.
Learning to love ourselves without having to prove our worthiness through material success, “good” decision making, or our outward appearances is incredibly hard when we've had a lifetime of learning that tells us we are just not good enough as we are. Comparisons can steal our joy, sow seeds of shame and resentment, and encourage the futile pursuit of perfection. Self-love is about realizing that expecting perfection from ourselves isn't just unrealistic, but harmful to our mental wellbeing.
One of the first things I recommend in beginning your self-love journey, is to begin self-exploration. This process can broadly be defined as the courage to learn more about yourself, develop self awareness and add to your self knowledge base. Self-exploration is not just a valuable tool for insight and growth, but is also a key feature of successful self-love practices.
Knowing yourself allows you to begin challenging the thoughts, beliefs, habits and opinions that threaten your inner peace, and ultimately disengage you from loving yourself. This journey is not easy, and it will come with learning about who you are, as well as who you are not. You might encounter parts of yourself you don’t especially like or love that much.
This is all normal. Avoidance of these insights is not the answer for effective self-love. Loving yourself means taking the risk to engage with all of you, the good and the bad. Self-knowledge when used effectively, can be the strong foundation on which sustainable self-love is built.
To get to know yourself, start by asking yourself a few questions. No need to overcomplicate this. Try easier questions first before diving into the difficult ones.
Here are a few prompts to help you get started:
What is my favourite book/ movie and why?
What do I like to do in my spare time?
As I child I enjoyed doing…
I know I’m stressed when…
Some of my biggest strengths and assets are…
What are my current non-negotiable boundaries and limits?
What am I fearful of?
My worst habits are…
What am I ashamed of?
How do I respond to change and transition?
When do I feel most fulfilled?
What do I believe is my life’s purpose?
How do I want to be remembered?
These questions and prompts are designed to provoke insight and begin your journey to accountable, non-judgmental and compassionate self-love — whatever that may mean for you.
Self-love is a process that challenges you to boldly accept who you are, flaws and all. Try not to let attempts at control and perfectionism cloud the journey. You are allowed to be a work in progress.
Happy healing,
Meg