Self-Love Chapter 1b

 

HIGHLIGHTED

Without a strong sense of love for yourself, you may experience:

• Anxiety
• Defensiveness
• Depression
• Insecurity
• Materialism
• Shame
• Unhealthy Coping

WITH a strong sense of love for yourself, you may benefit from gains in:

• Belonging
• Confidence
• Empowerment
• Happiness
• Love
• Motivation
• Relationship Quality
• Self-Care
• Physical Health

WHAT LOVE ISN'T

• ENTITLEMENT: Entitlement should not be confused with the idea of recognizing your worth. Consider it a basic human need. Compassion, care, and acceptance are as fundamental as water, food, and shelter.
• SELFISHNESS: Although self-love is a reflective process in which one turns energy inward, the benefits are not selfish. Self-Love requires the courage to distinguish your weaknesses, challenges, and obstacles.
• SINFUL: Self-Love is the journey to care for yourself in order to prompt a domino effect of care and compassion for those around you.
• EXCUSE: A critical component of self-love is recognizing your limits, needs, and worth, and asserting interpersonal and intrapersonal boundaries as needed to uphold them. The full process of self-love includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. It is also the decision to recognize your areas for growth, tailoring a potentially difficult yet necessary plan of attack, and bravely tackling it head-on.

Self Love: Chapter 1a

 

Highlighted

"self-love -- The active practice of accepting, caring for, and encouraging oneself."

"Self-love is an intentional practice to learn and cultivate... It is the opportunity to see yourself completely, to recognize and value your strengths and weaknesses... it is critical to acknowledge your imperfections in order to nurture personal growth."

"Self-love is not a summit to conquer...but a continuous practice of caring for yourself."

Thoughts -- What does self-love mean to you?

"Self" comes with so much cultural baggage -- attention to self even more. It is work for me to ignore the calls of selfishness and guilt to acknowledge that it isn't selfish, but necessary and healthful. In this moment, self-love means holding myself with kindness and gentleness. It means providing opportunities for insight and looking inward. It is both allowing acknowledgement and celebration of the places I shine - - and also holding space to notice the places I am dull and jagged, without judgment. It is finding outward outpourings of that love to those around me. It is finding peace with the storm inside.