The Relationship Coach: Learn to love yourself
Dec. 3—Editor's note: This column was published originally on Dec. 5, 2022.
What comes to mind when you think of self-love? Do you consider yourself someone who practices self-love, and if so, what does that look like?
I believe it's an incredibly important concept, and I want to share my thoughts about self-love in the hopes that it will encourage you to explore how you might invite more of it into your life.
Many people hear self-love and think of self-care. Images of weekly massages, bubble baths with a glass of wine, or a yoga class come to mind. While I do consider self-care a part of self-love, the practice of self-love goes much deeper and can be exercised even when you're in a life circumstance where you can't carve out hours of luxurious self-care.
I used to equate self-love with self-centeredness. The idea of spending any energy or time loving myself felt ... selfish. I was brought up to put others first, to not think more highly of myself than I should, and to remain humble. All of these are values that I still hold, but I have seen how I misconstrued those values as meaning that my own self was of little value. In my misguided understanding, if I were to love myself, it would mean that I believed myself more important than others.
What I now understand is that the opposite is true. Not practicing self-love limits your ability to truly love and serve others. The more you receive and allow love toward yourself, the greater your capacity to love the people around you.
So what do I mean by self-love? It might be better described as self-compassion, or self-acceptance. The act of being compassionate and accepting toward yourself. The way in which you speak to yourself. The thoughts you think about yourself. The way you respond to yourself when you are "less than perfect." The judgements you make about your behaviors. The things you say when you look in the mirror.
Do you practice love and compassion toward yourself?
Or are you, like most of us, harsh, critical, and unforgiving toward yourself?
One of the biggest myths is that if we're nice to ourselves, we'll stop moving ahead. We won't accomplish as much. We won't work as hard. We believe acceptance is like giving up. I believe this is an archaic type of motivation, because when we're performing in order to feel good enough, we'll never receive the very thing we're working so hard to achieve: the feeling of being enough. We end up resentful, unappreciated, and exhausted. We painfully realize that we've worked so hard our whole lives and still feel empty.
In truth, when we are loving toward ourselves, we find we have greater courage to take risks, more energy to show up, and less attachment to when things don't go our way. When we grow in self-love, our past becomes less painful and our future becomes less frightening. We come to our relationships and our jobs with less of a need to receive validation and more focused on how we can give. We feel more empowered, more capable, and more in tune with our gifts and passions.
How do we begin to practice self-love? We start by becoming aware of how we speak to ourselves. Notice what is in your head. What is the predominant "voice"? Is it kind, or is it cruel? How do you feel when you're thinking those thoughts? What would it be like to start saying loving things to yourself? How would it feel to take time to appreciate who you are?
Changing how you speak to yourself is step one in cultivating self-love. You'll notice that as your words toward yourself become more compassionate and less judgmental, the world feels a lot less hostile. At the end of the day, the person whose love and approval you seek the most, is your own. Why not give it to yourself.
Rebecca Stark Thornberry is a mastery certified life coach and the owner of Rebecca Stark Coaching. You can contact her at 720-412-6148 or visit rebeccastarkcoaching.com.
