What Self-Love Is, and What It Isn’t

An ultimate guide to practice it truly

“How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” — Rupi Kaur

Self-love, self-love, self-love.

It is a term we hear quite a lot, yet it is a subject full of uncertainty.

Does it count as practicing self-love when you take a long hot shower after a whole day of not being able to set boundaries that were supposed to protect your inner peace?

Or can you practice self-love by writing “you look great” on a piece of paper and sticking it at the corner of your mirror while tying your self-worth to other people’s thoughts?

So I think, these dilemmas create some sort of uncertainty that makes it harder to be able to feel like you really love yourself.

In my case, until a few years ago, I didn’t think I had any issues with self-love, but then I took a test on it, and realise how badly I needed to work on it.

In these years, I found myself struggling with the issue of not being able to define self-love truly, and not knowing how to practice it fully.

Now, I think I’ve come to understand that self-love is, and it definitely is not a puzzle to complete, but some kind of a tower to build.

It can be fully practiced in one sense while lacking in others.

But the point is not to beat yourself up for every missing piece, instead, it is to celebrate every building stone added.

With time, this approach can help us to be able to feel more and more loved by ourselves.

So although the detailed definition of self-love can change from person to person, overall it is basically to build a foundation for yourself to help you face life.

Yes, we may feel like we are far from our goal, but every little decision we take with the intention of self-love helps us to strengthen the ground we stand on.

Thank you for reading.

-E.K.

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