It is important to love yourself because of the simple truth that you cannot take care of others until you take care of yourself first. When you fully love yourself, this allows you to live with deeper compassion for others. Loving yourself is the foundation that allows you to be assertive, practice self-care, pursue your interests, goals, and feel proud of who you are.
Also, you’ll have greater resilience to withstand any challenging life event or personal adversity. Depression, anxiety, stress, and the obsession with perfection, will vanish in the face of pure optimism that self-love creates!
I am the breadwinner in my family and for me, my job is my life.
My life revolves around working to subsist and support my family.
My happiness is to help my family.
As the Covid-19 pandemic emerged, everything has changed. I got scared because I am away from my family. I have a lot of questions in my mind. Who will help them if I lose my job? What will happen to them if I got sick? My family always comes first, and I forgot myself. I got inspired by Why It’s Important to Love Yourself when I started reading the book You are a badass how to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life. This book is remarkable and one thing that made a mark on my mind is to ‘Love Yourself’. These are some of the ways I’ve been learning how to embrace myself for who I am — as well as being open to change:
Be Gentle with Yourself
We seem to set much higher standards on ourselves in comparison to the standards we hold others to. We often beat ourselves up for not being able to achieve something by a certain age, unable to secure that win, unable to top the class, unable to get that job or internship — we can go on forever when it comes to criticizing ourselves. Be more gentle with yourself. Forgive yourself for not knowing better at the time. Forgive yourself for being unable to muster up the strength during that time. Forgive yourself for what you have done in the past. Forgive yourself for the survival patterns and traits you picked up while enduring trauma. Forgive yourself — but be open to change the traits that have been toxic to both others and you.
Have an Aim to Change Rather Than Staying Broken
Most of us find it easier to stay broken rather than moving towards change. In really tackling our mental health, many have shared that there is a struggle to make the effort to make changes — for change requires greater effort in comparison to festering in the problem.
Sometimes what doesn’t kill you gives you a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms and a dark sense of humor. However, you are only stuck in that version of yourself if you allow yourself. Yes, you are used to acting or be a certain way because these have helped you in the past. But the reason why you find yourself being unable to move forward is that you keep applying the same old formula to a new level in your life. Be unafraid to change this formula from your past to get you a different result in the future.
Surround Yourself with Positive People
The people around you will determine how far you’ll go in your personal and professional life. Surrounding yourself with negative people cannot make you a positive person. Feeding your mind with the world’s worst won’t lighten up your inner world. Therefore, it’s important to choose your company carefully. Associate with positive people who will help you confront your fears. Apart from that, focus on the positive aspects of life. Remember, your mind is like a piece of land. When you take your time to cultivate it, it will bring forth sweet fruits. If you don’t cultivate it, weeds will grow naturally. And once they take over, it will be very difficult to eliminate them.
Keep Fighting
There are many days where you are unable to shut off your thoughts. There are days when being able to say you survived is an achievement itself. There are nights when it all gets too much and you’re frustrated at how you’re unable to explain what is going on within yourself. There are moments when you know you’re still chained by the things in your past and you hate yourself for still being affected by it all. Take the time you need to deal with it. Take that day off or go on a day out if you are unable to muster the strength to go on. But don’t give up entirely. As difficult as things may be, know that you have the power to work through it — or around it at least. There may be events in our lives that have shaped who we are, to a point that we are unable to detach ourselves from what has happened. Here’s the truth: You can either wallow in the weight of depression, or you can fight for your life and make it a good story.
Take it one step at a time, one day at a time.
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