2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
The theme of self-love is shrouded in a lot of speculation and stereotypes. From the notion that loving yourself is, in principle, selfish and inadmissible, to the notion that self-love is expressed in the desire not to deny yourself anything, to fulfill your every whim. As in that ad: "After all, I deserve it!" I propose to take a closer look at what is hidden behind this term.
In short, loving yourself means being in touch with yourself. Interest in learning what I am and what I am not. Such interest, as if we met a wonderful person with whom we wanted to be our whole life. Study yourself out of love, out of respect, out of acceptance, collect information about yourself bit by bit.
We are not our body, not our habits, not our beliefs, not our fears, not our successes and achievements. We do not need to prove to someone that we have the right to be ourselves, we do not need to meet someone's expectations. And we can refuse all of this. If we recognize ourselves. To do this, you need to devote time and attention to yourself. What our attention is directed to is developing.
We need to learn to accept ourselves as we are at this stage of life, and always strive for development. My observations show that it is extremely difficult to change your shortcomings, real or imaginary, by specifically working on them. After all, what we pay attention to is what develops. If we want to eradicate flaws - we focus on them - and we get the opposite effect. But if you accept in yourself what is now, and direct attention to development, all the extra husk will eventually fall off as unnecessary without special efforts in this area. Simply striving for development and actions in this direction will supplant what hinders progress. When new patterns of behavior and new beliefs are developed, the old ones that do not work will go away.
Taking self-love is a sign of a mature person. And, if we come into contact with this feeling, we understand for sure - yes, this is real! And then the fear of not meeting someone's expectations goes away. After all, our painful perception of criticism is connected with the fact that we hear in the mouth of another what we knew about ourselves, but hid, did not recognize what we were ashamed of ourselves. If we are offended by the words of another, then we have clicked on some sick, already existing corn.
And if we do not accept ourselves, we try to play roles in order to please, to correspond to various ideals, constantly rejecting those parts of ourselves that are condemned by these ideals.
It turns out that the discovery of different things in oneself - pleasant and not so, the way of knowing oneself and allowing oneself to be - this is love for oneself. And, at the same time, this is a very significant personal growth.
In general, there are fairly recognizable criteria by which you can see that a person really loves himself. About them below.
What kind of person is he who loves himself?
A person who is in contact with himself is honest with himself. He is respectful of his needs, desires, his boundaries, his feelings. He will not break himself and overstep his values in order to be good for someone. But he can negotiate and give feedback, telling how he can be dealt with, and what is not acceptable. This person knows how to set their boundaries and respects the boundaries of others. He may refuse what is unacceptable to him, even if the other may not like it. Because he knows that silence only aggravates the situation and gradually leads to alienation.
A person who loves himself trusts and listens to his feelings, because they were created in order to inform us of important information about the processes taking place in the world or within us. He does not push his feelings inside, but listens to them and allows them to manifest themselves - environmentally. He accepts these feelings in himself. Even if it is such emotions as resentment, anger or envy. Precisely because he respects his feelings, he can understand and accept the feelings of another without condemnation, can sympathize and support.
It is impossible for a person who knows himself to sell what he does not need - he is not led by manipulations and marketing tricks, he just feels that this is not mine.
For the same reason, it is difficult for him to manipulate, it is difficult to put pressure on him. He will not remain in oppressive relationships and interact closely with toxic people. He does not allow others to hurt himself. First, through the establishment of boundaries, and, if this does not help, through the exit from the destructive relationship.
Also, he does not allow others to treat himself disrespectfully: ignore, humiliate, label, harshly criticize, impute guilt, tease, break promises, give unsolicited assessments and advice, or devalue his feelings.
Such a person knows or "feels with his heart" his values and follows them when making a decision. Therefore, he lives his own life, makes his own choices, and does not follow the beaten track, because "everyone around is doing this" or "I was told, and I went." And his choices are usually well reasoned, although sometimes he just trusts his intuition.
A person who loves himself takes time for himself, gives himself the opportunity to be alone with his thoughts. Because it is in silence, when there is no incoming information, that your own valuable thoughts emerge, at such moments you can really hear yourself.
A person who feels and accepts himself takes good care of himself. Because he understands that if he is not filled by himself, he will not be able to give anything to other people, even the closest ones. You can only pour something from a full vessel. He dresses well - not necessarily very expensive or fashionable things, just high quality and beautiful. He eats good food and will not poison himself with what he considers harmful to himself. She gets enough sleep and monitors her health. Not bigoted, but enough.
A person in contact with himself understands that the responsibility for his happiness lies with him and only with him. And he does not shift an unbearable burden onto other people to make him happy. The way he lives now is a consequence of his past choices. And the future depends on today's elections. Therefore, it is so important for him to make these choices in contact with himself.
This is roughly a portrait of a person who really loves himself. It seems that he does not at all look like a terry egoist who thinks only of himself.:) Rather, it is a description of a mature person who respects himself and others.
And how are you? Do you really love yourself? Or maybe this article gave you a hint on what areas to look out for, where self-love is lacking? Share!
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