Loving Yourself First
As we enter the month of February, with Valentine’s day fast approaching, many people will be shifting their focus to their romantic relationship or the absence of it. With this heightened attention, I thought this would be a good time to share what I’ve found to be the key to having a fulfilling, loving relationship. So whether you’re looking to create a new relationship or improve the one you’re in now this article can benefit you.
In our culture, we focus a lot on external love. As a collective, we mostly believe and accept that the key to happiness is finding someone who we love and building a life together. What I have found is that the key to a thriving relationship actually works in the opposite way.
Instead of finding love externally to create happiness, when you first find love for yourself within, create your own happiness and then look for love externally, you will be able to create a much more fulfilling relationship.
Why does this work?
Well, with a solid base of love and happiness for yourself, it is much easier to love others. This is because love is a need. We all need love in some form. If we don’t have a strong foundation of love for ourselves, we will only get the love we need from our family, friends and romantic partners. But, without this strong foundation, our happiness is dependent on this love from others, putting us at the effect of how loving the people in our lives choose to be. It also becomes much harder to love others in a full way because now love has become a scarce resource, taking energy away when you’re not receiving enough and making it harder to give.
The truth is, is that love is infinite.
We have infinite capacity to give and receive love, to ourselves, to others. It is not a finite resource, but an infinite one.
We can create as much love for ourselves and for others as we choose.
By choosing to live in a way in which you truly love yourself, you approach others with an “overflowing cup.” This means that you aren’t in need of love from others. Although it is nice to receive, you have so much love for yourself that your cup is full. With this fullness love can flow over to others.
Love is like any other resource. It’s easier to give when you have a lot of it.
When two people have love for themselves and come together to create a partnership, what can be created is a very fulfilling and joyful relationship. With both people having a foundation in self-love, they can give a lot more love to each other. Having this structure in the relationship, makes it something that is sustainable and rewarding for both people.
How do you love yourself more?
There are infinite ways to love yourself. Here’s a list of some ways that have worked for me.
- Focus on your successes.
It’s much easier to love yourself when you’re looking at all the good things you’re doing versus the bad. If every night before you go to sleep you write down at least 5 successes for the day, you will start to shift your view of yourself to focus on your positive actions versus the negative.
- Write why you love yourself.
Similar to #1, if you write down one thing you truly love about yourself each day, then you will start to shift your focus of yourself to your good qualities versus perceived bad ones. I recommend doing this at the start of each day, so that you’ll have a positive aspect of yourself more present for you in your mind throughout the day.
- Self care.
Taking time during the week to make sure you’re taking care of yourself and getting quality time doing things that relax you or that you enjoy. Whether it’s getting a massage, doing art, going for a hike, giving yourself time to do things that make you happy, tell your subconscious that you prioritize and value yourself.
- Know yourself.
Truly knowing yourself on a deep level, understanding what motivates your actions and decisions makes it much easier to love yourself. Lack of self-love is usually because you’re being judgmental of yourself, comparing yourself to how you believe you should be. But by understanding truly what causes you to be as you are, it becomes easier to not judge yourself because with understanding comes acceptance.
- Deeper connection to yourself.
Similar to knowing yourself, deepening your connection to yourself involves finding what truly brings you joy and actively working to bring this into your life. By doing what makes you feel fulfilled, you value yourself in a much more profound way. This fosters love for yourself because you are creating a life for yourself that brings you joy, and that creation can only be done out of love.
Next Steps
I hope you enjoyed this article and found value in thinking about loving yourself more, so that you can have the loving relationship you desire.
If you are interested in strengthening your connection to who you truly are or learning about a path to know yourself please visit the Contact page to sign up for a free consultation.
