How To Love Yourself And Not Hate The Whole World

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-07 22:18

Now it has become very popular and even fashionable - everyone is trying to find out how to live correctly and become happy. This is difficult to blame, because it is so natural for a person to want to live a better and more pleasant life, and the job of psychologists and psychotherapists is precisely to help the client achieve this. But among the numerous recommendations and advice there is an idea that stands out by a large margin - to Love Yourself.

This idea has been promoted for so long and so confidently, but it sounds so logical and pleasant that the average man in the street is sure: all his, at least psychological, problems will be solved as soon as he masters this magical ability. However, the formulation "Love Yourself" is exactly as hypnotically attractive as it is completely incomprehensible: everyone knows that it is necessary to love yourself, they can name the advantages of such a life for distillation, but rarely can anyone explain what this actually means and how physically achieve. It turns out a kind of psychological unicorn - everyone is talking about it, but no one really saw it.

From this fact, a whole class of literature and Internet content is logically born, explaining to a mere mortal what this mystical phrase "" means. Some write obviously strange things like "to love yourself you need to love, respect, accept and forgive yourself", which gives absolutely no answer, but only adds questions. Others take a course in practice and suggest “taking time, choosing your interests, praising, rewarding and pampering yourself, appreciating your good qualities, trusting your intuition and protecting your boundaries,” which is certainly good in itself and can even help in life., but again not directly related to Self-Love. Still others insist on the classic - "Love others and love for yourself will come", which in my professional opinion is a dangerous trap.

In my work, like my colleagues, I am constantly confronted with the topic of Love of Yourself and, in fairness, I note that, indeed, life in harmony and love with yourself is a very pleasant and happy life, and the formula "Love yourself and you will be happy" - really works. If not 100 percent, then at least 90-95 percent. The problem is that Love simply does not arise out of nowhere, even to oneself. However, it can be achieved and here is a quick and practical how to do it. Of course, this is far from the only way, and I absolutely do not pretend to be the ultimate truth. This is just the method I use with my clients.

Before I reveal to you the secret of the Holy Grail from Psychology, it is important to understand that the ability to love yourself is, in essence, just a mental skill, and mastering any new skill takes time and effort. Be prepared for things to go very slowly, crookedly, and awkwardly at first. This is completely normal and should not be feared. This is how new skills are developed - slowly, through trial and error. Don't stop and just keep trying until you start working out.

This program is structured in such a way that each previous step naturally and logically leads to the next. Therefore, master these steps consistently, do not try to jump over a stage or rush yourself. This is the training of the psyche, and it happens gradually and consistently. In the process of mastering each step, it is important to maintain and cultivate an appropriate attitude in yourself, because the more consciously you do everything, the more often and more attempts you make, the faster you will achieve the result.

Self-Love Program:

1. ATTENTION

• Objective: Learn to draw attention to yourself
• Important: This is the beginning, without which everything else makes no sense. All other steps are based on this skill.

• Practice: Unfortunately, our culture is often taught to pay attention to others, relatives, loved ones, but not to yourself and your feelings, sensations, impulses or needs. You will have to fix this. There is a very simple way: start a couple of times a day (for example, when you wake up and before bed) pay attention to what is going on inside you. Try to listen to what is happening with your body, what are your feelings, what are your desires at the moment? If you are not used to this, then you may not be able to "hear" yourself at first. It doesn't matter, just keep looking and listening until you see and hear. Try to give yourself time to pay attention to yourself and listen to yourself in different situations (for example, before making any decision: when you choose a dish in a restaurant, want to buy clothes, you are invited somewhere, you were given a new task, etc.) … As soon as you start to succeed, increase the number of times you "listen" to yourself.
• Hint: The core of self-awareness is the time you spend listening to what is going on inside you.

2. UNDERSTANDING

• Objective: Try to understand yourself
• Important: This stage should be started only when you have already learned to draw attention to yourself, otherwise you simply will not be able to understand why you react in this way and not otherwise, because you will not have enough information. Conversely, if you very often notice yourself, your feelings, sensations, impulses and desires, then it will become quite easy to understand yourself.

• Practice: In this step, you need to learn to match your feelings, sensations, impulses and desires with the world around you and notice cause and effect relationships (for example, if you notice that you are hungry, it will not be difficult for you to understand why you pounced on food so quickly and ended up overeating). Take an interest in yourself and your inner processes. Spend time sorting out different situations that are happening to you to train your understanding: how did this happen? what led to this? How are my feelings related to my reaction in this situation? Self-understanding is a reliable support in a relationship with oneself.
• Hint: The basis for understanding yourself is interest and knowledge of your feelings, feelings and reactions. As in the previous stage, you need to try as often as possible to understand and understand yourself in all kinds of situations and manifestations. Any of your reactions makes sense. If you look closely and take into account all your feelings, you will definitely see this.

3. ACCEPTANCE

• Challenge: Accept yourself
• Important: Don't start practicing this step until you know how to understand yourself. Once you are able to understand your feelings, feelings and reactions well enough, it will become easy for you to be tolerant of yourself and accept these reactions.
• Practice: At this stage, on the basis of understanding, you need to learn to recognize your feelings, feelings and reactions as the most logical, normal and correct of all possible (for example, if you noticed that you are hungry, then realized that it was because of hunger that you pounced on food and in the end overeat, then it will not be difficult for you to admit that overeating in such a situation was a natural and logical consequence, it could not be otherwise, otherwise your body simply does not work). Try to see logic in your reactions. Train yourself to be tolerant of each of your reactions based on an understanding of its natural causes.
• Hint: The basis of self-acceptance and tolerance is an understanding of your inner logic, i.e. cause-and-effect relationships between their sensations, feelings, reactions and the outside world. The more often you build this inner logic and realize that the consequences are very natural, the easier it will be for you to accept yourself and be tolerant of yourself.
• Danger: Be careful and don't confuse self-acceptance with indifference or justification. The previous steps will help you distinguish these things.

4. KINDNESS

• Challenge: Treat Yourself Kindly
• Important: It is very important to start this step only when you learn to accept yourself and be tolerant of yourself. When you really, honestly, acknowledge the naturalness of your feelings, feelings and reactions, then it becomes very logical and just to treat yourself kindly, with compassion or condescension.
• Practice: By understanding how your reactions work, recognizing their normalcy and logic, learn to empathize with yourself and treat yourself kindly. You can help yourself with the question: "How can you treat yourself kindly in this situation?" or "what attitude could be called kind to yourself now?" (for example, if you notice that you are hungry, you understand why you pounced on food and overeat and accept the logic of this natural consequence, then it will be easy for you to sympathize with yourself, because you did not want to harm yourself). With the practice of being kind and compassionate, you’ll want to start taking care of yourself more so that you do not get into trouble or pain (for example, making sure you don’t feel too hungry next time, which makes you overeat, so that you don’t feel bad from overeating later). … Being kind to yourself, if properly developed, will become the most effective tool for self-care.
• Hint: This sympathetic and condescending attitude must be cultivated and maintained constantly, even if you notice that there is a voice inside you that does not treat you kindly, or even humiliates and scolds you. It's important to practice being kind to yourself, in spite of him.
• Danger: Be careful not to confuse kindness with connivance. All the previous steps will help you distinguish these approaches.

5. LOVE

• Objective: Love yourself
• Practice: At some point, from a good relationship, as if by itself, Love itself, as a relationship, will begin to arise. Remember that Love for Self is a consequence of the whole previous process and without the steps described above it cannot be born.
• Hint: Self-love is also important to cultivate as soon as it begins to appear and to specifically support it, even if that little voice that scolds and devalues still continues to live inside you. Let there be a kind and loving attitude regardless of him. The more you consciously invest in this, the more benefit you will get from it.
• Danger: Be careful not to fall into the trap of connivance or excuse. All the previous steps will help you distinguish them from Self-Love.

This program describes a general direction, some "main points", and each step in itself will bring you a lot of benefits. However, you can complement each of them with some other techniques that will help you cultivate or instill an appropriate attitude towards yourself. Use whatever you feel useful and adapt the program individually for yourself.

All of these steps assume that you can successfully complete them yourself. But if you are faced with a difficulty or do not understand how and what to do next, do not hesitate to seek help from a psychologist or psychotherapist. Falling in love with yourself is not as easy and simple as it seems to everyone at first glance. There are pitfalls and currents in this process that can be quite insidious, and which alone, without help, will be very difficult to cope with.