Self-love and the importance of nurturing it
Self-love is a very fashionable term in women’s magazines or in personal development.
Personally, I find it difficult to know what it takes to cultivate more self-love: when to be understanding and when to push oneself to act?
In this article, I will explain how you can know if you lack self-love, how your body can tell you what you need to do to make up for your lack of self-esteem. But first why loving you is important for your life as a couple.
Self-love: 6 good reasons to nurture it
- Being better with others. When you love yourself enough, you simply have more balanced relationships with others.
- You communicate your needs and limits more easily.
- You don’t enter into a relationship with another person to make up for one of your shortcomings, but to exchange ideas. If you are “lacking”, the other person will feel this lack in you and the “price” of entering into a relationship with you (to fill the lack you have).
- You are emotionally independent and your emotional serenity no longer depends on the other person.
- You can more easily give what you know. How can you give love or have compassion if you have not tested the benefits by yourself? Loving others comes first and foremost through self-love.
- You inspire others to love and care for themselves more.
For the simple reason… how can you give if you are empty?
And to fill yourself up, cultivating self-love is vital.
Is your love for yourself strong enough?
A clue to your level of self-love is whether you take care of yourself physically (what you eat, whether you respect your need for sleep or relaxation, whether you take care of your hygiene (hair removal, body cream…), whether you dress in a way that makes you feel beautiful, whether you do a physical activity that you enjoy…). You may have noticed that you let yourself go if you are not feeling well with yourself?
Beware, I am not talking about the race to « suroptimise » the body, including excessive sport, permanent diet, botox, false eyelashes, stomach cover… which are for me also a sign of lack of love associated with a need to hide it from others.
How to cultivate more self-love?
What has personally helped me to cultivate more self-esteem is to use Lise Bourbeau’s book of the 5 wounds.
In her book, Lise Bourbeau describes how the 5 emotional wounds manifest themselves physically. Observing my physical appearance allows me to know which wound I need to heal and how I need to cultivate more love for myself:
• Abandonment. If you have the appearance of the abandonment injury, ask yourself the following questions: In what situations do you abandon yourself, i.e. do you give up or do you stop persevering? How can you be more committed to yourself?
• Rejection. If you have the appearance of a rejection wound, ask yourself the following questions: What do you reject in yourself? What can you do to accept what you reject?
• Humiliation. If you look like the wound of humiliation, ask yourself the following questions: In what situations do you humiliate yourself the most, that is, when do you denigrate your own value? Is it for example by eating things that are not good for you or by pulling yourself down? How can you regain your self-esteem and show more respect for yourself?
• Betrayal. If you have the physical wound of betrayal, ask yourself the following questions: In what situations do you betray yourself, i.e. when do you go against your own values or principles, when do you lack self-confidence? What can you do to change this?
• Injustice. If you have the physical wound of injustice, ask yourself the following questions: When are you being unfair to yourself, i.e. you lack compassion, are too harsh or not fair to yourself? Are you defending yourself in order to do yourself justice?
The wounds that need to close in order to have more self-esteem can change over time, just as our physical proportions can change over time.
For you
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