Hajra Naz
Over the years I have seen people making quantum leaps and achieving their most significant goals by just shifting their minds to self-love. These are the people who have great confidence in themselves; they consider themselves worthy even when criticized and keep a positive attitude toward themselves. They are happy with themselves and believe that they are worthy of all the good things that life has to offer.
Unfortunately, when we look around us, we notice that there is a lot of work that needs to be done in this area. Somewhere in our mind, there sits a judge who watches what we do, studies how we perform, examines the effect we create on others, tracks our success, and failure, and then eventually, passes a verdict. This is something that colors our entire sense of ourselves and determines our self-compassion.
It makes us believe whether we are worthwhile beings or should not exist. It makes us remember the experiences of our childhood and youth that might have developed limiting beliefs. These limiting beliefs have rooted in our subconscious mind and stop us from loving ourselves. We often hear ourselves saying ‘you disgust me, things always go wrong for you’. The problem is that we take in these voices because, at certain moments in the past, they sounded so compelling and irresistible.
In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
To be yourself in a world where everyone is trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Now if you want to make an effort to work on loving your own self, you must know that the rewards will be awesome. When you are indulged in self-love, criticism from others won’t bother you anymore; you will have higher self-confidence, better social relationships, and will have better work relationships. It will allow you freely express your own thoughts, feelings, values, and opinions because your self-worth no longer comes from the acceptance of others. Your self-love will make you successfully combat anxiety, depression, and difficulties that arise. You will end up experiencing more happiness and enjoyment in all areas of your life.
It does sound good right? These are 4 ways to practice self-love:
Connect with your inner self:
You identify yourself mostly with titles, roles, and achievements in your life. You identify yourself with your success and failures, relationship status, the title of your job, financial stability, and social status. It is because it tells the world who you are. But you are not what the material things around you indicate, your inner self beneath these upper layers of show and ostentation. You need to know that you are beautiful, divine, worthy, and deserving of all the good things in life. You don’t have to compare yourself with the standards the outer world has kept, be satisfied with your inner self and you will find peace within.
Treat yourself kindly:
When your inner voice gets critical, you start hating yourself. You feel you are not worthy of anything good and it kills your self-confidence to actually make an attempt to do something good. You need to learn to empathize with yourself. Treat yourself as you would treat a friend or a loved one when in need. Be gentle and give yourself the encouragement to celebrate the better moments.
Allow your authenticity to show:
People take so much pain in order to hide their true selves from the rest of the world. But it ignores the burning desires and dreams in order to meet the expectation of other people. In doing so, you forget that you are unique and there is no one else like you. You have special abilities which no one else can ever have, therefore, do not hide your true self. Respect your uniqueness and allow your authentic self to show. Embrace your true self and be happy with whatever you have.
Feel your emotions:
When you don’t feel your emotions, you slowly suffocate your inner self. It triggers a strong feeling of anger or pain inside you. It makes you wake up feeling irritable every day for no reason. But instead of fighting those emotions, It is best to surrender to those feelings. Pay attention to where your mind and body feel the pain. As you begin to understand it and feel it, it will fade.
The secret to getting started to love your own self is simple just do it. Who you want to be and who you are now is what you do from today onwards. It is because your actions will take you there but it won’t be easy if you don’t love yourself.
