In my twenties, the song The Greatest Love of All was a huge hit for pop diva Whitney Houston. At the time, the song which advocates self-love confused me. I recall asking myself: “Isn’t loving yourself egotistical, selfish and vain? Isn’t it a sure fire way to turn people off from making friends with me?” It’s only decades later and with the benefit of life experience as well as through my work as a therapist that I am getting closer to understanding the essence and power of loving oneself.
With the rise and influence of the positive psychology movement and its focus on character strengths, resilience and gratitude, self-love is now considered by many as integral to good physical and mental health. A recent trip to my local bookstore made me aware of the plethora of books by sporting greats, celebrities and other influencers who have weighed in on this subject. I suspect it’s because the practice of self-love is difficult for many people. Some of those reasons stem from a misunderstanding of what it means to do so. The very idea is often confused with narcissism or selfishness. Like my younger self, there is a worry that if we express positive feelings about ourselves, we’ll appear self-absorbed or arrogant.
What is self-love?
So, what is self-love and what does it entail? The answer to these questions will no doubt mean something different to each person. For me, self-love is a state of appreciation for oneself. It is about valuing, acknowledging and appreciating your uniqueness. It is the capacity to accept and respect yourself as an imperfect individual and still believe in your intrinsic worth as a human being. This means embracing the full spectrum of your qualities and characteristics including your strengths and resources as well as being at peace with your flaws and limitations. Self-love means that you prioritise your own well-being and happiness by ensuring your fundamental needs for care, consideration, respect and protection are met.
What self-love is not
Self-love doesn’t mean that you will never have times of self-doubt or self-criticism. It is a part of living life that we will have moments of stress, anxiety and uncertainty. This will inevitably be the case when we go outside our comfort zone to have new experiences, learn something or take the risk of being vulnerable in our intimate relationships. When we make mistakes or fail in our endeavours, it is likely we will also immediately react by beating ourselves up but having self-love means that we do not heighten these momentary reactions or let them define us.
Self-love is not about telling ourselves that we are perfect and that we don’t need to change a thing about ourselves. It is accepting that imperfection or flaws are part of the human condition and that our inherent value is not based on external markers prescribed by society and culture. At the same time, self-love is not letting yourself off the hook for actions which are hurtful to yourself or to others but holding yourself accountable for poor choices, mistakes and inappropriate behaviour.
It’s also not about elevating ourselves above anyone else, but rather about appreciating our own uniqueness separate from others and their opinions.
Self-love in a relationship
You will be familiar with the adage: “You need to love yourself before expecting others to love you”.
By their very nature, our personal relationships expose the extent of our self-love. If our self-worth is low, we will unconsciously attract people who will reinforce this by the way they treat us including in a manner which is controlling and/or manipulative. If you have a pattern of friendships which start out promising but develop into being difficult and unworkable, you need to examine the messages you are sending out to others about your relationship with yourself.
Emotionally committed relationships such as romantic and intimate relationships have a way of revealing our level of self-love perhaps more than in any other context. The intensity of such a relationship has the most potential generally to bring out our anxieties and insecurities about being loved and accepted. Whilst it is normal and understandable to seek another who provides us with a positive view of ourselves, if this occurs in the absence of self-love, it will ultimately lead to major problems once the honeymoon stage is over. If one or both partners are prone to neediness due to low self-worth and feelings of inadequacy, they will require constant validation and a partner who provides them with the love and worth that they cannot provide for themselves.
Emotional fusion will inevitably result from seeking a significant other to bolster and compensate for a lack of self-love. Emotional fusion (often referred to as emotional oneness or ‘stuck togetherness’) occurs when a couple is operating out of a need for approval and validation, or from a fear of rejection. Without the capacity to experience each other as two separate, unique individuals, it is difficult to have arguments or even discussions over differences. This results in over-dependence, a lack of boundaries and excessive caretaking, putting a couple at risk of a range of problems including in their sex life. The pressure to perform or respond in a certain way to please or accommodate the other makes sex a “proving ground”, impeding a couple’s natural capacity to engage in sex for enjoyment, pleasure and/or as a way of bonding.
Because these interactional patterns cannot be sustained in the long-term, they often lead to blaming, power struggles, chronic avoidance, emotional distancing and feelings of resentment.
Practising self-love
As a lack of self-love is essentially at the heart of all psychological issues, many of my clients ask me about what changes they need to make so they can love themselves more. Of course, it’s more complicated than following a few simple steps.
I believe that self-love isn’t a destination or goal which you can reach and tick off from a list of things to achieve. Rather it’s an attitude or approach to living life. Self-love is an outcome of an ongoing conscious choice to act in ways that support your physical and psychological health and growth. Whilst there are many helpful practical activities and acts of self-care which encourage this attitude, what is more important is adopting a compassionate and self-nurturing mindset from which such actions flow. The following are three fundamental aspects of practising self-love:
Making room for your insecurities
By acknowledging that everyone has insecurities (even though it may not be apparent) you can let go of self-judgement and give yourself permission to feel OK about being less than self-confident or self-assured at times. It’s only normal that you will occasionally have self-doubt and be self-critical. It’s not realistic to think that you won’t. Self-love is about acknowledging these thoughts (as a normal process of the mind) and letting them come and go without getting involved with them. The practice of mindfulness is a way to learn to separate yourself from your thinking.
Accepting your imperfection
In my last blog post, I wrote about the pitfalls of perfectionism. Perfection doesn’t exist but given we live in an image obsessed and performance driven culture, the concept of perfection is compelling despite the fact that it is unrealistic and unachievable. If you are able to embrace your basic humanity and to appreciate all aspects of yourself (even the parts you do not like) that make you unique, you can then redirect your life energy from seeking perfection to focusing on the things that make you more content, resilient and fulfilled.
Connecting with, and acting on your values
Once you learn to stop attaching your self-worth to social status, achievements or image and appearance, you can turn your attention to explore the things that are truly important to you and define you as a person. It involves understanding what you truly value and allowing yourself to live a life that aligns with those values. Values reflect what you stand for in life and unlike rules, they are not about what you “have to” or “should” do, rather about what is meaningful to you.
The impact of self love
Loving yourself enables you to:
- Build resilience to cope with life challenges. This entails accepting and processing difficult emotions which inevitably come with experiencing negative life events, knowing that you will ultimately work through them and adjust to the changes.
- Develop self-compassion so that you do not fall into a puddle of shame or self-recrimination when you stuff up or make mistakes.
- Have a strong sense of agency meaning that you can act on your own behalf without the support of others if it is not forthcoming.
- Try new things knowing that you could fail and accepting that failing is an important part of the learning process.
- Be comfortable with making decisions and taking action to look after yourself even if doing so upsets and disappoints others.
- Set and maintain appropriate personal boundaries so you do not sacrifice your well-being to please others.
- Let go of comparing yourself to others, shifting your life energy instead to developing your unique qualities and potential.
- Separate your self-worth from the choices of others so you do not take what they say or do personally.
- Take risks in order to lead a rich, full and meaningful life.
Getting started…
Loving yourself is like any other significant shift you wish to make in your life. It requires commitment, intention, time, lots of practice as well as patience and tolerance. Our habitual ways of thinking about ourselves become so ingrained that making this change isn’t going to be simple or easy nor will it happen in a short span of time. Nevertheless, with repetition (which builds momentum) and increased awareness, we can gradually learn to let go of our default thought patterns and respond differently.
It is most likely that you will experience frustration when you falter (reverting back to old mental storylines around inadequacy or failure) and be tempted to give up entirely due to feelings of hopelessness and shame. Instead of reacting to your missteps with self-punishment and reproach, this is a prime opportunity to make the shift to practising self-love by reframing your self-talk.
We live in an achievement-oriented world in which we’re socialised to measure ourselves against external markers of success and taught to beat ourselves up when we fall short. Instead of continuing to adopt this approach which is not only self-defeating but saps us of our life energy, we can learn to meet our own needs for love and connection from within and ultimately, to treat ourselves with the care and kindness we all deserve.
Sources/Resources:
- For more on Emotional Fusion, please refer to my blog posts: www.rwapsych.com.au/blog/breaking-out-of-emotional-fusion
Is It Love Or Emotional Fusion - RWA Psychology - Psychologist in Beecroft & Hornsby Shire
- The practice of Self-Compassion is the key to unlocking self-love. Kristen Neff’s website (Self-Compassion) has all the information and resources needed to get started.
- Mindfulness meditation app headspace has a huge library of helpful resources including a section on self-love which I would highly recommend: How To Practice Self-Love - Headspace
