When we truly value ourselves to the core, we are less likely to settle for those that bring harm into our lives. We know we are worthy of love, respect, and fulfillment. If it doesn’t match up, we much rather stick to ourselves..
Those who constantly seek to find love in others will find themselves lost, or even feel broken when their beloved is no longer there.
Self-love can look like a lot of things, but in general, it’s the consistent tending to our own needs. The experiences we go through in life can diminish our sense of self-love. Critical parents, a bad break-up, traumatizing experiences at work. When we get into a routine of doing things we hate, to meet some sort of quota, we are slowly deteriorating our ability to fully love ourselves. When we stop taking care of our bodies in order to attain some sort of goal, we are diminishing our self-love.
Data shows that the lack of self-love has a significant correlation with depression, anxiety, addictions, and other unhealthy behaviors. A person that does not love or value themselves may do things that adversely affect their wellbeing, thus, creating an endless cycle where the person becomes highly critical and demeaning towards themselves. The lack of self-love can also lead to problems with relationships.
Lack of self-love in Relationships
A person who doesn’t love themselves tends to be highly insecure. They constantly seek validation from their partners and experience anxiety or exhibit avoidant tendencies when they feel like their partners are not giving them enough attention.
The lack of self-love can be found across a broad spectrum of people—perfectionists, professionals, teens, and even kids.
Self Love and Secure Relationships
Someone who exhibits positive tendencies towards themselves are more likely to trust themselves more. They trust their intuition when picking partners, and their ability to pick up on red flags right away.
When they have a partner they don’t feel the need to ‘possess’ or own them. They acknowledge that everyone, including themselves, deserves time to themselves, and have friends and activities outside of the relationship. People who truly love themselves strive for healthy and secure relationships, and they give the same level of trust to their partners as they would expect in return.
Self Love and Empathy
People that love themselves have mastered the art of self-compassion. When events in life go array, they don’t blame or label themselves negatively, leading to shame and self-hatred.
Because they’re able to be their own best friends, they can also encourage the same sentiment into the people around them, even strangers. They believe in people, rather than discourage them. They’re more optimistic about life, and this energy attracts other positive people into their lives. Empathy, kindness, and openness breed an environment for connections and relationships to take place in.
Self Love and Building New Relationships
There’s no need or sense of urgency of being in a relationship when someone has an adequate level of self love. They are fairly independent and can enjoy spending time with themselves, doing the activities they enjoy or spending time with their families and friends.
Their energy is not consumed by looking for someone to validate them. Instead, they find joy in pursuing hobbies, passions, intellect, service, and career. They may seek partners to share a deep and meaningful connection with or to support them in their aspirations.
When we wake up in the morning and am proud of who we are, we exhibit a type of energy that’s magnetic. We close ourselves off to negative energy, and keep propelling goodness and inspiration into our lives—whether in the form of meaningful work, or people.
The world is run by all sorts of relationships. The deepest work can be performed by a few people, but not without some type of initial catalyst from another or without collaboration to achieve fruitful results. Without strong alliances, our world would have been ridden by war or disease a long time ago. Whether that be politicians or scientists, strong relationships are at the root of solutions.
Self-love and Alignment
Relationships help us find meaning in life and propel us to achieve greater things in our lives. They encourage us to find alignment. And when we do, the happier and more certain we become about ourselves and our actions. The energy comes back full circle as we pass on this belief, empathy, and love to others.
To become more self-loving and aligned takes deep work. We must go back and address the factors in our lives that have caused us to feel diminished in our sense of worth. No one is born with low self-esteem or born hating themselves. We must identify those factors and then begin to resolve them. Rewrite the narrative in our own minds, and slowly start to retrain our minds to absorb more positive and forward notions of ourselves.
Rewriting this narrative takes time and often multiple iterations to get right. We might stumble and fall along the way, but as long as we continue to work and stay motivated to become more energetic and loving people, whether that’s to really connect with our purpose or to find the right relationship; it will happen.
Keep going, because along the way you might uncover pieces of yourself you never thought were there. You might start to crack open slivers of light, until one day you realize that a full transformation has already occurred, right before your eyes.
Conclusion
Anyone can benefit more from self love. In certain times, we may find ourselves in places where we’re giving less to ourselves, which is why it is crucial to make it a consistent practice to check in, recalibrate and tend to our own needs. When we foster this loving environment within ourselves, we invite for more positive outcomes to flourish.
Secret Prose 
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