We are all told that we should practice self-love, but what does self-love actually do? In simple terms, self-love is simply choosing yourself above others, prioritizing your health, needs, and wants in order to fulfill your desires. This does not equal to being selfish, self-love can be practiced while having healthy relationships with other people. Once you choose yourself, you will also choose people who are good for you and the relationships which you make like you are of worth and which don t exhaust you.
Choosing Yourself Can Further Help You To
- Get to know yourself better- it is easy to sometimes lose yourself in work and get occupied with a variety of things that we deal with every day. Choosing yourself, and spending time with yourself would allow you to retrospect and introspect upon your own thoughts and actions.
- Prioritize needs and wants- prioritizing your needs, wants, and goals, both short-term and long term would allow you to get to know yourself better and even find someone who’s perfect for you to spend your time with.
- Be realistic with yourself- you are probably the only person with whom you should not feel the need to sugarcoat anything at all. Be realistic with yourself in terms of your capabilities and goals so you have clarity with yourself and you can make the person in front of you clear regarding the same.
- Being a better person- knowing and choosing yourself comes with knowing your strengths and weaknesses. A good stephead would be to recognize them, maintain your strengths and work on your weaknesses.
Choosing a partner for yourself is a huge step, which ultimately frames how your life will be. You need to be in a good and self-aware state before you try to get another individual to share your life with. People fear that choosing themselves would be a selfish move and avoid doing so but choosing yourself and being selfish are mutually exclusive. In fact, not choosing yourself, dealing with certain issues, and beginning a new life with someone else without healing from your past problems might end up ruining the other person s life. Marriage is not meant to heal all your problems and your significant other is not meant to deal with problems that they did not create. Partners should be supportive but not your therapists.
Choosing yourself is a step in the right direction, it leads to self-growth and development in the best way, but it is especially important when you wish to come into a romantic relationship. Prioritizing yourself makes you aware of your strengths and weaknesses and further stops people from taking you for granted. If you don’t value yourself, maintain boundaries, and prioritize yourself, why would the other person do that? You define your own worth for yourself and for others to respect. A lack of self-worth and awareness would lead to ambiguity in understanding your own wants and needs. Make sure you make a list of things that you wish to have in your partner and see accordingly. You will be able to make this list and stick to it only after you re aware of your needs and respect them.
Some Ways To Choose Yourself
- Taking care of yourself- while taking care of others and being stuck in our busy schedules, we often forget to take care of ourselves. This is harmful to your physical and mental health. Make sure to have your own self-care days where you take care of yourself in every way, shape, and form.
- Be kind to yourself- the easiest person to scrutinize is, unfortunately, our own selves. We can point out our flaws faster than anyone else can and this is not healthy. Be kind to yourself, especially on days when others are not treating you that great. If you can have the ability to beat yourself up on your flaws, you can surely build the ability to be nicer to yourself.
- Do what you want- many of us don t like the course that we have opted for for the job that we are in. Take out some days to just relax with yourself or your partner and do what you genuinely like
If you have a hard time understanding yourself and prioritising yourself, you can always use professional help in doing so. Therapy creates a professional and nonjudgmental space for you to express yourself, your concerns, and the problems that you deal with. It aims to make you feel safe and deal with your concerns in an adaptive way and try to replace your maladaptive behaviors with adaptive ones.