How To Practice Self-Love

A friend wrote this, “you are literally your first lover; so you have to love yourself and you have to learn how to do it right.“

Self-love; I like to think is the greatest love of all. Self-love means genuine love for oneself.

Before one can practice it, you have to understand what it is all about.

You really can’t love anyone if you don’t love yourself first and I must put it straight to you that you might not be perfect, but you are the best you anyone can find.
Most times, we say we love ourselves. I mean, no one hates oneself right? We all want what is best for ourselves, but do we practice self-love?

Self-love means putting into great consideration your happiness, well-being, what you allow in your personal space. It means taking care of your needs, putting yourself first, and not sacrificing your welfare to please others.

For different people, self-love can mean different things, and that is because we have various ways of taking care of ourselves.
As an individual, it is important to figure out what self-love means to you cause it is an integral part of your mental health.

So what does self-love mean?

1. Prioritizing yourself
2. Being sincere to yourself
3. Being nice to yourself
4. Setting healthy boundaries
5. Detaching yourself from toxic relationships/ habits
6. Forgiving yourself.
7. Speaking about yourself with love.

It can also be in form of self-care:

1. Giving your body enough rest.
2. Taking breaks from work when necessary
3. Eating healthily; sometimes treating yourself to a specific/favorite meal
4. Putting time aside to reflect, meditate.
5. Exercising regularly; talking walks.
6. Going out with friends etc

You know what self-love is all about now. It means accepting yourself as who and what you are now while working towards growth. It is validating your emotions and putting your physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being first.

Why should you practice self-love?

Simply put, you’ve got no other healthy option.

I mentioned earlier that you are your first lover; so you have to love yourself in the best way possible.

You can’t leave you. It’s a ride-or-die affair. You break, pick yourself up and start all over again. You have to be your number one fan.

‘It was when you realized that no matter who left, you would always stay. That no matter who hurt you, you would find a way to heal again. You’d always be there for yourself. That’s when you learned what self-love meant. It was you and it was always going to be you in the end’ – Ruby Dhal

Read that and pause for ten seconds.

Ways to practice self-love includes:

1. Quit comparing yourself to others: Don’t do that. Stop it. You have been created beautifully uniquely, specially, and wonderfully. You have all it takes to get you what you want. So why would you compare yourself to someone else? It is perfectly fine to strive to be better and that’s where the place of growth comes in.
2. Giving yourself the chance to make ‘mistakes’: You see, we want to be the best version of ourselves but somehow we don’t want to do the work. Allow yourself to learn. Allow yourself to try new things. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Start that new thing. So what if it doesn’t work out? At least you did something and you learned from it too. That way, you grow.
3. Worrying less about people’s opinions: Truth be told, if we concentrate too much on what people think of us, it will be detrimental to our well-being. It’s a difficult thing to please others, and the fact is you can’t really do it. You Only Live Once my darling, So why not live the best of it?
   “Haters will hate, even potatoes will potate.” Never forget.
4. Set boundaries: Protect your energy from bad aura. Cut off from toxic people and things, you can’t keep allowing people to hurt you over and over again. You need people who really love you and people that make love/ living easy
5. Taking actions and making decisions based on your needs rather than your wants. Focus more attention on your needs, and focus less on your wants. What you do not need now, it’s a want and you can always get it some other time.

Finally, to achieve all these, you have to be very intentional. Be kind, compassionate, sincere, patient, sweet to yourself. Approach self love the way you would with someone you really care about. Spend time to know yourself, your likes, your dislikes. Date yourself.

As we practice self-love, me must also learn how to deal with peer pressure. Read my article about peer pressure here

P:S- Remember that just as your physical health is important, so is your mental health. Always make yourself happy.

#selflove #howtopracticeselflove #genz #lifeofagenz #adulting #adulthood #loveyourself