The Art of Self-Love Abstract
This paper shows the essence of love for self. True self-love develops self-growth. It will help people to reach the extent of their being as they love and accept their selves. Most people tend to hate themselves because they think they are unworthy and useless. Insecurities will lead to self-hating and will eventually turn into someone who is unreal. People became the enemy of their selves because of the hatred and anger they are holding in the depth of their hearts. This can trigger a mental illness that will affect how someone will cope or interact with his/her surroundings.
This aims to provide a concept of true self-love and give awareness to people about the importance of loving ourselves.
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Keywords: Enemy, Environment, Growth, Hatred/Anger, Disease
Introduction
There are various definitions of the subject called love. Some people define love as an expression of affection towards someone else. The love you feel for your partner is not the same as the love you feel for your mother and the love you feel for your mother is not the same as the love you feel for things you want. Love is the most powerful emotion that a human being can experience. When you ask someone what is the word love, they have a different interpretation, viewpoint, and definition of it because it is based on their own experiences. Based on the definition of others about love, it is all about giving, committing, and expressing feelings for someone, and in this case, sometimes we tend to disregard the fact that we need to love ourselves.
Self-loving is the most important element in this world. It is the source of love between people and all things in this world.
Self-Hating vs. Self-Loving
In today’s generation, the presence of failures, judgments, and problems has been controlling the lives of people. We tend to disregard the beauty within us because the negativity dominates our entire being and it leads to hate ourselves. Self-loathing according to Jodi Clarke (2018) is developed by the influence of bad things that we experienced along the way on our journey. It is said that self-hating does not trigger by only one experience, but is influenced by many factors over time. Those factors or experiences affect the way we treat ourselves.
Self-hating is a symptom of mental illnesses like depression and anxiety. According to Hannah Ritchie (2018), “around 1-in-6 people globally (15-20 percent) have one or more mental disorders and one of the factors that affect a person’s appreciation of himself/herself”. It is one of the reasons why people tend to end their lives to be able to escape their sufferings in this world.
When hatred dominates our system, it drowned us in misery and agony. It will fatally destroy us bit by bit. People, who hold a grudge against their existence, tend to engage in destructive behaviors. It will affect their lives as well as their relationship with people and nature. They will avoid interactions and will be forever a prison to their darkness. As people let the demon plays inside them, the concept of true self-love will be ruined.
True self-love encourages us to appreciate our own uniqueness and to know the extent of our strengths. Based on the article entitled “A Seven-Step Prescription for Self-Love” by Deborah Khoshaba (2012), when we love ourselves, we begin to love every bit of ourselves including our flaws. In this way, we will appreciate not only the beauty of us but as well as the world.
Self–love being the main source of all love will bring a light between people. If we know how to love and appreciate ourselves, it will reflect on how we handle things and how we interact with others. The way we see our worth is the same as how we see the value of the things in this world. We can achieve the fulfillment of being a human if we know the essence of self-love. Now, we can say that self-love is really a powerful emotion that can make people recognize the beauty they possess as well as see the beauty in this world.
The power of self-love
Knowing now that self-love is really important to all individuals and how it can affect the viewpoints of people regarding the beauty of living in this world, we can now discuss the power underlying it.
People who love themselves are more likely to have satisfaction in everything that is happening in their lives. According to Wendy G. (2017) in her article entitled “The Importance of Self-love”, people who practice self-love tend to have greater life satisfaction. The way we appreciate ourselves helps us to appreciate all the things or events in our lives. As we know our worth as an individual and we are aware of our purpose in this lifetime, we can live happily and peacefully in this world.
Self-love also increases the productivity of people. Recognizing our strengths and worth will also affect our performance in life. It will help us to move forward to our goals in life and achieve them by working hard. A strong love for ourselves helps us to perform good work because we have trust in our capabilities and we know that even if we fail in doing something, we can still try it until we succeed. This will gain us a better life in the future.
A stronger personality is associated with people who appreciate their entire being. They are not afraid to face crises in life because they believe in the extent of their power. They can easily manage to seek solutions to every problem that is coming in their lives. They do not let the negativity dominate their entire selves because they know that they can overcome it with the help of their positive behavior.
Learning to love ourselves will also lead to loving others. The way we handle ourselves as a human is a way we also handle our family, friends, partner, and all. Knowing that we are capable of accepting our flaws and appreciating what we are will help us to embrace the imperfection of others and the world. In the article of Jon Negroni (n.d.), building a healthy relationship with ourselves will also develop a healthy relationship with others.
In this way, we can say that self-loathing will do no good in our lives. It will only ruin our minds and body and make us suffer for a long time. Self-hating is the reason why people want to end their lives because they can’t see their worth and their purpose as an individual. We should all embrace ourselves in the power of self-love for us to see the light that the world has.
Achieving Self-love
In the article of Alexandra Harra (2014) entitled “The Art of Self-Love”, there are practices we need to know in order to achieve the element called self-love.
- Accept our imperfections. We all have flaws and blemishes. We are not perfect in the first place, so don’t hate yourself for lacking in something. Instead of hating ourselves, we should use those imperfections to improve. Being content with what we have will make us feel free and happy. Remember that your imperfection defines who you are.
- Forgive ourselves. We are all making mistakes in life. We should not be hard on ourselves. We should have to accept that we are just a human; we commit mistakes and failures because we are not perfect. There are no mistakes and failures if we learned a lesson from that mistake and become better than before.
- Protect ourselves. We should protect ourselves from things that can ruin us. Environment plays a big role in the development of our personality. We should avoid things that can harm us. Avoid people who will influence us with bad things or try to judge and discourage us. Also, avoid negative thoughts lingering inside our minds, they will surely ruin us. We should be physically, emotionally, and mentally healthy.
- Acknowledge our worth. All of us are precious. We are all special. We should know our worth for us to love ourselves. We should know that God sees us as a special gem that has a big value in this world. Don’t forget that we have purposes in this world and we just need to know that we are all equally important.
- Appreciate ourselves. For us to love ourselves, we should appreciate our whole being. Let self-love spread in our system by ignoring criticism, insecurities, and doubts that may come our way. Appreciate our entire being.
These things will help us to love ourselves purely and unconditionally. The love for ourselves will stand out if we won’t let negative things affect us. These facts will surely help us how to really accept and appreciate ourselves.
True self-love will let us flow freely away from judgments and doubts. Being able to recognize our strengths, capabilities, and values can be our weapon to bravely face the problems and obstacles that will come in our lives. Pain and struggles will serve as our motivation to be better and stronger. Self-love will help us to grow and fulfill our goals in life.
Conclusion
Many people are now lacking in the aspect of true self-loving. We tend to let ourselves be drowned in insecurities and criticism of our surroundings. We let those bad things affect our lives which leads to self-doubting and self-hating.
Self-hating is a serious battle within us. We became the enemy of ourselves. Hating us for being a failure or a mistake will lead us to the darkness of the world. Letting the demon play inside our minds will turn our lives miserable.
Self-love is the only thing that can take away all our insecurities and doubt we have inside us. Eventually, the extent of our beauty will bloom to the world. Self-love is a feeling that everyone must possess. It is important to make us better as well as our lives. The way we treat ourselves is the way how we handle things and treat other people.
Love ourselves despite the failures we did and wrong decisions we chose, because those things will help us to move forward. Those will help us to grow because self-love will result in self-growth in physical, mental, and spiritual.
God sees us as his perfect children. God loves us so much so we don’t have to hate ourselves because He will be always there and remind us how precious we are. We are perfectly imperfect because God made us. We just have to learn to love ourselves to be able to show the power we have inside. Love yourself and live well.
Bibliography
- Harra, A. (2014). The art of self-love. Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/conscious-relationships_b_4677966
- Clarke, S. (2018). Learn to stop self-hate to enjoy life and relationships. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/ways-to-stop-self-hatred-4164280#definition
- Khoshaba, D. (2012). A seven-step prescription for self-love. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/gethardy/201203/seven-step-prescription-self-love%3famp
- Negroni, J. (n.d.). How to love yourself and improve relationships. Retrieved from https://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/how-love-yourself-and-improve-relationships.html
- Ritchie, H. (2018). Global mental health: five key insights which emerge from the data. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/global-mental-health#note-4
- Wendy G. (2017). The importance of self-love. Retrieved from https://www.brookhavenretreat.com/cms/blog-22/item/2977-self-love-important