To Love Yourself, You Need Support of Others

My dad always used to tell me that you have to love yourself before you love others. To a certain extent, I believe this to be true. I believe that if you don’t love yourself, you will take your flaws out on whoever is closest to you. I believe that if you don’t respect yourself, you can’t respect another. However, what if something has happened to you that makes it difficult for you to love yourself? A checkered past or rough childhood, for example. This is where friends and family must come into play.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a button that says “Love Yourself Now!” So how must you go about loving yourself?

1. Patience is key. I cannot stress this enough. You (and your loved ones) will need A LOT of patience. Some days are going to be great, but it is the days when you’re not feeling great that you’re going to need the people you love around you most.

2. No false expectations. Realize that you are only human, and you will get further faster. Your loved ones must also realize this as well. You will have up days and you will have down days.

3. Realize this will take years. Not days or weeks, but months and sometimes years. You must learn by trial and error. Make sure your support group knows this as well.

4. Look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself you’re beautiful, intelligent, whatever you feel you are lacking in. You may not believe it, but positive self-talk can do wonders over time.

5. Have a confidante. People are all biased. Some people are judgemental. And sometimes people have their own problems to deal with and just don’t have the energy to listen to yours. That’s why it’s great to have a therapist, maybe one that you just see every other week or once a month, to have an unbiased view into your life. They will be able to guide you in the right direction as to how to go about certain situations, and how to handle and react to them. If you don’t have a therapist, consider journaling or some other constructive activity to let out any negative emotions you may be feeling.

6. Have an awesome support system. If you are married to someone but feel you cannot talk to your spouse about anything and everything, that is a problem. When you are at your worst, you need your support people to be the ones to pick you up when you’ve fallen down and can’t get back up on your own. When you don’t feel beautiful or intelligent, or whatever it is that you feel you’re lacking in, you need your significant other, your friends, and family, to be the ones to say “you are beautiful”. They should be there for you to say encouraging things to help you on your bad days. If that’s too much for them, find a new support person.

7. Don’t take your issues out on people. This is probably one of the hardest things NOT to do, and I struggle with it all the time. It’s one thing to go on a tangent about how so-and-so was doing this at work, but it’s another thing to act rude to the person you come home to. Odds are, they’ve had a trying day as well, and have their own issues to deal with as well. The fact that you’re adding on your mood on their “things that went wrong today” list, doesn’t help your partner’s situation, and doesn’t make them at all willing to talk to you about anything. If you’re feeling slighted, irritated, or angry, do something constructive first before talking to your partner about your day. However, your partner/confidante/friend, should let you rant and get it out of your system; it’s overall healthy, as long as you control it!

8. Realize that some people just aren’t healthy for each other. If you’re in a toxic relationship (and it doesn’t have to be with your spouse), realize that you will never be able to grow. If you feel your partner/relative/friend is bringing you down, it’s time to either sit down with that person and have a discussion, or leave the relationship. Usually, personal growth comes easiest when not in those kinds of relationships.

9. Respect yourself. Treat yourself how you would treat others. Seems backwards, right? But you probably wouldn’t be critical of other people you’re talking to, correct? You’re probably nicer to other people than you are to yourself. You may even make excuses for other people. In that case, make it a point to treat yourself the same way.

10. Stop the negative self talk. When you think of something negative to say to yourself, turn it around with something positive. “I’m not pretty enough.” Well, if you’re in a relationship, your significant other obviously must find you attractive. If you aren’t, tell yourself you’re happy with yourself just the way you are and you wouldn’t want to change a thing. Often times you’re your own worst enemy, and it’s because our thought process just naturally takes us down that route. For each negative thought, think two positive thoughts about yourself.

11. Realize you are who you are. People who love you will not want to try and change you. And neither should you.

12. Find a song/painting/book that you can connect with on a personal level. It will make you feel better to know that you’re not alone.

All of the points I’ve listed will be hard to do at one point or another. But the nice thing about these points is you don’t have to start at 1 and end at 12. You can do them at your own pace. These are things that have worked for me in the past. Different things work for different people, as well all know. I’d be interested to hear what has worked for you as well! Feel free to comment below.

~ by mmasters89 on January 21, 2013.