To celebrate Love Month, I’m sharing excerpts from my book The Princess Guide to Loving Yourself First. Whether you’re in a romantic relationship with someone or alone wishing to be in one, having healthy self-love is very important.
February and December can be two of the hardest months if you’re single. It seems like everyone around you and everyone on social media is being celebrated and loved. I dated a couple of guys who disappeared around Thanksgiving and didn’t reappear until the flowers began blooming. Make no mistake — They disappeared so they wouldn’t have to do anything for me during Christmas and Valentines. It made me feel terrible and less than important. I began making one of the qualifying questions to get a date with me, “Do you celebrate holidays and look for ways to make it special for the woman you’re dating?” Being in a long-term relationship with someone who chooses not to do things for you can make you feel even worse.
When studying Marriage & Family Therapy in graduate school, I learned that women who are highly educated and professionals have a higher rate of divorce. My instructor said it has something to do with women having more choices today with increased income. (Previous generations got married to have an income.) While being married appears to be the goal for many women, some find that staying married is a lot more work than anyone will tell you about.
I may sound like a broken record, but I will say once again that loving yourself and practicing loving actions toward yourself will not only help you cultivate healthy self-esteem that no one can take away from you, but it will also give you the skills you need to love others when the right relationship comes into your life.
How do you really love yourself, especially when you’ve been rejected, or you’ve been told through other people’s words or actions that you are not lovable? How can you put self-love into practice? Let me say that being all alone when you begin the process is the perfect time and atmosphere to focus on yourself without the judgment or distractions of others. I highly encourage it, if you have that option. Relationship expert Dr. Margaret Paul gave The Huffington Post these suggestions for learning to love yourself:
- Listen within to your own feelings. Many people easily tune into others’ feelings yet have no idea what they feel. If you ignore a child’s feelings, that child will feel unloved. Ignoring your own feelings has the same result — your inner child feels rejected, abandoned and unloved by you.
- Be compassionate with your feelings. If you judge your feelings, telling yourself you are wrong for having them, your inner child will feel rejected and abandoned by you. If you are kind, gentle, tender, understanding, and accepting of your feelings, your inner child will feel loved by you.
- Be open to learning about what your feelings are telling you. Just as an actual child feels loved when you are compassionately interested in why he or she is hurting, your inner child will feel loved when you explore what your feelings are telling you … Compassionately attending to your feelings, learning what they are telling you and then taking action to remedy the situation, will make you feel loved.
- Create a solid connection with a spiritual source of love, wisdom, and comfort. Love is not a feeling we generate from our mind. It comes from the heart when our heart is open to our source of love. When you open to learning with your higher power about loving yourself and others, love flows into your heart, and you feel loved.
- Choose to be around loving people. We don’t always have a choice — such as in work relationships — but when we do have a choice — such as in personal relationships — choosing to be around caring, supportive and accepting people will make you feel loved. If, when you have a choice, you consistently engage with unkind, judgmental or abusive people, the message you are sending to yourself is that you are not worth loving.
- Take loving actions for yourself around others. When you are around someone who is being unkind, speak up for yourself letting the person know that you don’t like being treated that way, and then either be open to learning about what is going on, or lovingly disengage from the interaction. Allowing others to treat you badly sends a message to your inner child that he or she is not worth loving.
- Take care of your body, your time, your space and your finances. You will feel loved and lovable when you feed yourself healthy food, and get exercise and sleep. When you ignore your health, you are giving yourself the message that you are not worth loving. When you respect your own and others’ time and space, you are letting yourself know that you are worth it. When you overspend, putting yourself in unnecessary debt, you are not taking loving care of yourself, and your inner child will feel scared, alone, and unloved. Just as an actual child needs to feel safe regarding the necessities of life, your inner child needs to feel the same way.
- Find work you love. Since work takes up a big part of your day, finding or creating work that fulfils you is vitally important. If you continue to force yourself to stay at jobs you hate, the message to yourself is that you are not worth doing whatever it is you need to do to create a fulfilling work life.
- Create balance. We need balance in our life to feel loved and lovable. We need time to work and time to rest and rejuvenate. We also need time to nurture our body and soul through activities that bring us joy.
Learning to love yourself isn’t easy. If it were, we would all be pros at it — and therapists would be out of jobs. However, I’m living proof that it’s possible. Taking it day-by-day and practicing these principles intentionally will eventually (over several weeks and months) will make it automatic in your thinking and behavior.
Senée Seale is a book author, mental health professional and life guide passionate about helping people create positive changes in their lives and relationships. Are you ready to start attracting positive things into your life through practicing daily affirmations? Get your free copy of The Princes Guide to Gratitude Affirmations. If you’d like to work directly with Senée, she’s accepting new clients.
