self-love

Self-love is commonly the cliche go-to after a breakup. However, having self-care and looking out for ourselves before building an intimate relationship is what contrasts confident individuals from those who are insecure. Our relationship with ourselves impacts directly those we have with others. There are countless ways to attain self-love, as there are countless ways to love ourselves. We should aim to accept and embrace our physical, emotional, and mental selves. We can show ourselves pride and gratitude by identifying those skills and traits that make us happy to be us. This can be our wisdom, honesty, humor, dedication, passions, kindness or even hobbies. A simple way to do this is to draw a mind map with branches of things we admire about ourselves. Some of us are aware of what makes us special, and some of us need to explore our unique brilliance, and such an activity is incredible for building a loving, caring, forgiving relationship with ourselves. Building on the forgiving, of course, every one of us have done things we might not be proud of or happy about. It is important to realize that such mistakes or actions are in the past, don’t define us, and becoming a better person is in our own hands. For those of us who struggle to let go of the past and previous traumas, a home remedy can be writing a letter of separation and burning it, creating a piece of artwork, or venting it out to a trusted friend or family member. It is important to remember that we will always know ourselves the most and to love ourselves will be what separates us from being disappointed to being encouraging and accepting of our mistakes or faults. Once we build our self-love and discover who we are and our potential, every interaction we have in the world will be rewarding in some way. One last thing to keep in mind is that essentially, we are born alone, and we die alone. We should always aim to value our own needs, celebrate our accomplishments, forgive ourselves, and set goals to better ourselves.