Loving ourselves isn’t always easy. Modern life is stressful, and it’s easy to feel like we are failing or letting people down. Most of us are far too hard on ourselves, and self-care gets left behind when we’re busy. But your relationship with yourself is perhaps the most important relationship in your life. It is important to practice self-love. Loving yourself helps you to be happier and more confident. It means that you care less about what other people think. That you trust your judgment and that you can let other people in to build other fulfilling and positive relationships.
The good news is that there are plenty of things that you can do to reduce anxiety, get stress relief, and learn to love and appreciate yourself.
Be Compassionate
We’re often compassionate towards other people but fail to show ourselves the same understanding. We struggle to forgive our mistakes; we focus on the negatives and find it hard to forgive ourselves. Learning to show compassion is one of the first steps to true self-love. Next time you say something negative to yourself, ask if you’d have said that to a friend.
Be Kind
Kindness is another essential. Being kind to yourself means forgiving and showing compassion, but also listening to your body and its cravings and giving it what it needs. Being kind to other people can also make it easier to love yourself. Whenever you are kind to someone, you feel good about yourself, so try to practice kindness at every opportunity.
Get Help
We all deal with stress and anxiety from time to time. Sometimes, self-love is all you need to rebalance and work through. But getting help when you need it is perhaps the ultimate act of self-love. If you want help with stress or anxiety tapping therapy can be ideal. EFT for anxiety can be incredibly effective, but make sure you visit a practitioner of EFT in London who will offer a tailored approach to suit your needs. Tapping UK can also help with stress and be a valuable part of a mindful lifestyle.
Identify Stressors
It’s harder to practice self-love when we’re stressed out and tired. Stress typically makes it harder to see the positives and easier to focus on the negatives. So, try to identify stressors. If you can spot stressors, you can better prepare yourself for stressful situations, you can avoid stress, or at least limit its effects with coping mechanisms.
Ditch Comparisons
Comparing ourselves to other people very rarely leads to happiness. Whether you compare yourself to people on social media or in real life, try to remember that life is a journey, and there are parts of yours that other people would feel jealous of.
Practice Gratitude
Practicing gratitude is a great way to highlight the positives and to give life a more positive spin, which can help you to love yourself. Every evening, think of three things you are grateful for from your day.
Find Joy
There’s always a joy to be found. Sometimes you just have to look harder for it. Finding joy, even when life is hard, will help to remind you of how good your life can be.
Loving yourself is incredibly important, but it’s something that we can all struggle with, and it’s certainly not always easy. If self-love seems tough, try these tips to help.