Loving Ourselves

A friend asked me about self love.  This friend remarked that " all of us love ourselves to a certain extent." My question then would be how you would feel if your mother loves you only "to a certain extent."  And to what extent is that? Does it mean there will be occasions when she will choose not to love you? And what occasions would that be? How do you know you can count on her when you need her love? And would you need to fulfill certain conditions to get it?

Self love is unconditonal love for ourselves. The closest example of unconditional love would be the love we feel for our children. We start loving our children even when they are in their mother's womb, even when we know nothing about them yet. How they will turn out or look like, their personality etc. We love them with no conditions attached. This is the same kind of love that we can also give ourselves.

Self love is being kind, understanding, patient, respectful and accepting of ourselves, no conditions attached. Whether or not we pass that examination, win that promotion, have the ideal figure and skin or whether we measure up to society's expectations, we stay commited to being kind and understanding of ourselves and our limits. As opposed to harshness, judging ourselves, pushing ourselves to the limit, selling ourselves out to gain the approval of others.

It is being willing and able to take care of our physical, emotional and spiritual needs. It is being compassionate to our bodies which have been serving us for years. Paying attention to it, giving it rest and nutrition instead of pushing it beyond its limit. It is taking care of our own emotions. What are our hearts telling us? Are we feeling happy, sad, disappointed or angry? And when we feel these emotions, do we acknowledge them? Do we know why we feel that way? Or do we wave them aside and ignore them and in the process, sadly ignore ourselves?

Do we allow ourselves to be trampled over or taken advantage of, time after time because we do not know how to say no to people? To love ourselves is to learn how to set boundaries for ourselves, to protect both ourselves and the other party. Why? Because if the other party were about to do something unkind to us and  we allow it, aren't we also assisting in commiting the unkind deed? Not standing up for ourselves is also akin to betraying ourselves. And that is the opposite of self love.

Why is self love so important? What if I were to say that self love is the foundation of your relationships with others, your health and your current life situation? What if I were to say that without loving yourself you will not get very far or be very happy? Because how you talk to yourself is also the way you will talk to others. How you treat yourself will also be the way you treat others. And the way that you relate to others determines the quality of your relationships. And without good, intimate relationships, what is life?  Self love is loving and respecting of others because in true self love, we cannot possibly love and respect ourselves yet be unkind to others.

And most importantly, if you are a parent, how harshly you scold and berate yourself when you make a mistake will also be the same way you will scold your child. And the way your child will also berate your grandchild in future. By the same token, if you are kind and loving towards  yourself, you will cultivate good relationships and happiness all round.

Learning to love ourselves is a journey.  We learned how to treat ourselves directly or indirectly from our parents, teachers and the world around us. We learned from young that to gain love and approval, we have to please those around us. In some ways, we have short-changed ourselves in the process, in order to gain that love. Because the love of others is so conditional, is it not better to learn to love and honour ourselves  instead of depending on external sources?