We Are Loving Ourselves More and It’s Causing More Harm than Good
Can self-love cure loneliness?
After a breakup, you feel lonely, rejected, and unloved. You spend so much time trying to prove your worth. You may over-give your time and attention so you can win people’s love for you to feel loved.
We all go through pain differently. Some might become more active in their work life, while others redirect their attention to someone else.
But for me, I soak myself in a pool of self-love to unwind from all the emotional stress from the relationship.
Yes, I spoil myself rotten — with pampering, shopping, meditation — anything to keep my attention away from the breakup. Because the healthy way to heal after heartbreak is to reconnect with your inner self.
Self-love requires a deeper journey into who you are. You will discover why you stayed in the relationship, and how you can love yourself better as you move forward.
Makes sense, huh?
I bet I’m not the only one ravishing in the abundance of self-love. Go to Instagram and TikTok you will definitely find influencers dishing out advice on how to love yourself more than anyone.
Celebrities like Miley Cyrus proudly expressed her obsession for self-love in her words, “I can love me better than you can.” Lizzo never fails to include a positive mantra in her songs and Instagram posts. She encouraged her fans to do anything they can to feel good about themselves. “You deserve to feel good as hell,” she said.
Everyone is practicing self-love. Whether you are trying to lose weight, get your dream job, get into a relationship or start a family. We all have adopted self-love as security for good health and freedom.
When you go to your favorite local gift shop and you’ll find self-love manifesting candles decorated with roses and positive-affirmation cards, and pillows embossed with Emily Bronte self-compassion quotes.
Not to mention the National Self-love Day which is celebrated every 13th of February to remind us to love ourselves and strengthen our self-esteem and acknowledge the innate beauty within and around us.
We are all unique and beautiful in different ways and that is what self-love intends to achieve — for everyone to acknowledge the beauty inside of them.
How self-love enhances growth and wellness
It can be incredibly challenging when you are healing through trauma or heartbreak on your own. But trying to be kinder to our bodies can be one small step toward healing.
When we honor our bodies, we tend to shift our minds away from judgment and acknowledge that the people that hurt us — and we — are worthy of love and care.
Honoring your body could be in form of taking a warm bath with essential oils or scented candles, while your favorite songs play in the background, or dancing it out in your living room.
It can also be extended to activities like going for a walk, eating a delicious meal, or wearing comfortable pants that make you feel confident.
Setting safe boundaries in relationships is an important step in cultivating self-love. Such boundaries involve disconnecting from friends, family or partners who make you feel unworthy.
However, self-love is not easy to achieve. You face too many obstacles and hurdles in the pursuit of self-love.
During the early stages of healing, it’s normal and even healthy to grant yourself time to feel that loss, so long as you eventually work on accepting whatever happened in the past so you can move forward — and embrace your future as an opportunity to live differently.
The problem with self-love and why you shouldn’t obsess over it
Today, we live in a culture where asking for help is shameful and embarrassing, where fierce competition trumps compassionate cooperation, and where self-reliance is celebrated as an achievement.
No wonder social media is filled with campaigns on toxic positivity which often makes us feel like failures.
If you belong to a marginalized or oppressed group, you may internalize social stereotypes that tell you that you are worthless. Some may be pressured to overperform in an attempt to disprove they are worthy of recognition.
They begin to neglect their physical, emotional, and mental needs as they try to prove — to outsiders — that they are worthy and deserve respect.
Trauma survivors, who often struggle with shame and blame, find it more difficult to believe that they are worthy of love. Especially, with interpersonal trauma, like sexual assault or anything that crosses one’s boundaries.
However, social media influencers make self-love seem superficial or even toxic. The affirmation that “you just have to love yourself” to be someone or succeed at anything reeks of toxic positivity.
Because in a way, self-love is used to avoid taking responsibility for one’s actions or attributing success to selfishness rather than a privilege.
Notwithstanding, self-love can have a profound effect on your life if you define it as an acceptance of who you are and a commitment to personal growth.
However, selfishness can be unrealistic. If you keep cutting off our people who no longer serve you, your circle will be small and you end up with few people who understand you.
Sometimes practising self-love to the tee can make us lonely because we literally disconnect from everyone whose thoughts and actions do not align with ours.
We easily ignore important aspects of relationships such as understanding, kindness and compassion because we have centered our life on ourselves alone.
While showing love to ourselves, we forget that people express their love in different ways. Our strengths and weaknesses differ, and how we show tenderness in communicating our emotions will not match that of others.
We must remember that we are humans and we are programmed to be around people. Even though self-love can help us recognize our worth, forgive ourselves for our mistakes, practice mindfulness effectively, prioritize our needs and set healthy boundaries, we shouldn’t forget that it is equally healthy to indulge people who think differently from us.
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