The Importance of Loving Yourself

On my previous blog post which talked about ways to show yourself love, I gave some pointers, submitted by friends and family, on how you could show yourself love. It is something hard to learn but you will appreciate yourself even more if you try to change your mindset on yourself.

There are a lot of factors which explains why loving yourself, is important. I made a list of ten reasons why I should show myself love. For the first one, I said it will help lead me to living a happy life. Your days won't seem to drag when your hair didn't turn out the way you wanted or those jeans were just a little too snug. Because when you show yourself love, you overlook those small things and still make your day worth living doing whatever makes you happy rather than sit around all day thinking how your entire day is ruined. I honestly cannot express how many days I have sat around, depressed, because I am not thin, my thighs touch and how my hair is almost always super frizzy no matter what I do to it. Or, I think about all the chores I needed to get done that day, and I don't get around to them. Mainly because I am moping around.

A lot of times, I found myself comparing myself to friends, people I see in town and, especially, on social media. Society says you have to look this way and that way and heaven forbid you have tummy rolls. Or how dare you be too skinny! It is all ridiculous and disgusting. Because the same society that shames us, also praises us for being different and "normal" or generic. When I began changing my life around and focusing more on self love, I realized I stopped comparing myself to others. It is amazing how much happier I have been because of this. Instead of comparing myself, I praise them for being themselves. I admire more than anything.

In my last blog post relating to self love, I had mentioned appreciating your body and all it does for you. I am talking about our senses. Without your body working properly, you wouldn't be able to admire your loved one or see your youngest child graduate high school or even smell your favorite flowers or eat Grandma's homemade chocolate chip cookies.

It is sad to see so many people ruin their bodies mainly because this is the only body/life we have, so live it. I am not talking about tattoos or piercings- because I have both of those; I am talking about harming yourself. I am talking about hardcore drugs that fuck up your life. Meth, cocaine, crack- all of those. I do not put marijuana in this category whatsoever. I am also talking about cutting. Although I have harmed myself with objects to make myself bleed, I scarred my body and I hate that I did those things. There wasn't a need. In that moment, I thought there was and that is completely okay because I have learned. Please, if you are doing these things, seek help. You can get help- you can sober up. I have seen it before my own eyes with my husband. If there is a will, there is a way.

When you show yourself love, often times you find yourself wanting to better other aspects of your life whether that be do a diet change (Keto, Vegan- all those!), exercising more, or even start a skin care routine. Whatever change you want to do that benefits your life, others or even just the environment, I say go for it! This can also mean picking back up a hobby of yours you haven't done in years like running, reading, writing, collecting rocks, drawing, painting, anything! I highly encourage you to do these things.

Not only is adoring yourself good for you overall, it is also super healthy. Your mindset improves which is wonderful for your mental health. Often times, you want to try new things like maybe Intermittent Fasting (there will, eventually, be a blog post about this!), a new diet, or even take on a new hobby like running marathons. There are so many health benefits when you start learning how to love yourself.

Not only is it good for you, it is good for those you surround yourself with. You set an example for the younger generation, older generation and even this generation. Little kids, if growing up in the right home, often do not see anything wrong with how one dresses or wears their hair- especially if their parents teach them not to judge. With you showing how wonderful and okay it is to show love to yourself, you teach these kids that you can grow up with the mindset of not having to judge yourself or others.

Like myself, with learning to be happy with myself, I can now help other people learn to do the same for themselves and then they could become an advocate for self love also.

Overall, loving yourself is not taught in schools. That is why we are masters at hating us instead and I actually wrote a poem about that:

i just realized:

no one has taught us

how to love ourselves-

that's why

we mastered the art

of hating us instead.