What is Self Love to You?

Self love is a hot topic these days, and for good reason! Our relationship with ourselves impacts absolutely every area of our lives. But it seems like most people think self love and self care are the same thing. They are actually different, the two are connected but not the same thing; self care is part of self love. Self love is a deeper concept.

While these two are different, they’re both necessary to a healthy, fulfilled lifestyle. Self care is basically the part of self love that involves YOU taking care of YOU physically and mentally. Things that come to mind are exercise, nutrition, rest and relaxation, bubble baths, and massages. These are all great self-care practices, you just need to find what works for you and start practicing it because it helps you refocus your brain, just as meditation would.

Self love is not only about you but also about your relationship with others. Of course you have to start with yourself, just like flight attendants say "make sure that your own mask is on first before helping others next to you". To begin loving yourself, you must begin to remember who you are, to make a conscious commitment to cherish, protect, and nurture your self, your life, and your inner path. 

It's a self (re)discovery journey! Become fascinated with discovering who you are, what you need and want out of life, what makes you unique, identify your interests, connect with the different sides of yourself. Once you become reacquainted with your inner world you can come into a total self acceptance and appreciation of yourself, even on rough days, so you'll be able to maintain a healthy relationship with yourself rather than beating yourself up over the little things.

Then comes the other part of self love, the one about your relationship with others. Referring to other people while talking about self care and self love seems out of place because it's often believed to be separate, but in fact, a common reason to promote the idea of self-love is to remind people that they need to care about themselves as much as they do others. The truth is, loving others is an act of self love. I see this in 2 stages:

First: Care for Others. When you give to help or nurture the needs of other people, you are also nurturing yourself. And I know a lot of people feels depleted when caring for others, but this only happens if you are not keeping the balance with loving yourself as well. True generosity is giving with a joyful spirit. Giving to others in a way that is not joyful and fulfilling is no longer serving anyone, so when this happens get back to the main part of self love, the commitment to your self appreciation.

Second: Receiving Care from Others. I believe for most of us (specially my fellow moms reading this) allowing other people to take care of you is more difficult than prioritizing your self care. Think of it like this: When you truly love yourself you are able to receive love from others because you believe you are worthy of it. Asking for what you need and allowing others to provide is also an act of self-love. 

It's an amazing arrangement that benefits ourselves and others; by receiving we enable others to thoroughly love themselves! So allowing other people to take care of you benefits them too. Once you think of it that way hopefully makes it easier for you to accept it. Reach out for help, accept time, attention, compliments, and other generous acts from people. Let people love you!

To sum up, self care is taking care of yourself physically and mentally, while self love is that plus showing kindness to yourself and a devotion to your soul’s path and wellbeing through a regular conscious practice of self discovery and, giving and receiving love.

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Thank you so much for reading. I’m very passionate about this topic and I’m going to be doing a challenge/giveaway on Instagram. Here you can see what’s in the giveaway and how to enter. I’ll also leave a link for my Instagram account below.