by Brian Warriner
Self-love
is the act of accepting your whole self, treating yourself with respect and
kindness, and prioritizing your health. You maintain a positive outlook on yourself
(Martin, 2023). I know that the number of people who show themselves self-love
is low. Because we all put ourselves last, our outlook is negative, and we
think of others before ourselves. I am guilty of this. When you care for your
parents or anyone else, it is not easy; we tend to forget ourselves, and even
as parents, it is all about the children. We tend to make our priorities
dependent on others. If the children are happy, I am happy, or a happy wife, a
happy life. We make everything dependent on other things and other people.
I
know I have taken care of my parents and stayed up late to get ahead on my
schoolwork when I should have been sleeping. Get up and do everything all over
again. When I can, I would take a break because I have learned you can do
everything you have planned and still give yourself a break. You are doing the
best that you can. For example, when I am doing schoolwork, I finish one
assignment, check on my parents to see if there is anything they need, do the
dishes, do the laundry, and take out the trash and recycle. Then I go back to
my schoolwork. Granted, at the end of the night, I am exhausted, and lying in
bed is all it takes to go to sleep.
However,
I noticed something important missing from my life: self-love and self-care. I
discussed self-care in a previous post. When I do add some self-love to my
life, I find myself feeling better. Because when we are wrapped up in this
world and our activities, we forget that we matter too. If you feel like this,
there are some things you can do to fix it. You can cultivate self-love by
being compassionate toward yourself, setting boundaries, practicing self-care,
celebrating your achievements, using positive self-talk, practicing self-acceptance,
seeking support, and embracing self-discovery (Martin, 2023).
It is
not easy sometimes when we have this negative mindset and perspective. However,
it is important to combat that kind of negativity. When you show self-love, it
has been shown to lower stress, increase your resilience, and make you more
willing to take risks, show compassion, and feel self-efficacy. Saying no is
saying yes to yourself (Tetreault, 2025). Let us face it, who is not guilty of
always saying yes to others and being exhausted and having no energy for what
you need, and being able to say no to others’ requests for your time by saying
no.
Science
has shown that self-love is rooted in neuroscience. Self-love reshapes your
brain's function, especially in the limbic system, the brain's emotional
center. This is where your emotions are more regulated. Self-love strengthens
your self-awareness, which takes place in the prefrontal cortex. Also, this is
where your decision-making, emotional balance, and calming the amygdala. With
that, it will reduce fear and anxiety. Self-love triggers the release of the
feel-good hormone dopamine (Tetreault, 2025). It makes you feel good and warm.
The same hormone is released when you hug or cuddle for about twenty seconds.
When
you want to change your behavior, no matter what the pattern in your brain, it
takes about 66 days, which is over two months. You need to give yourself a
space to change because you will make mistakes, and it takes nurturing new
patterns with acceptance and compassion (Tetreault, 2025). I know we have all
tried to break old habits and form new ones, but we keep failing when we try to
change. The idea comes to mind when it comes to dieting and exercise. It takes
consistency to build a new habit. It took time for me to adjust to the fact
that I am a type two diabetic. I have to check my blood sugar twice a day. I
was trying to watch what I ate and drank. I had to give up my favorite things.
It took time to develop the right way to test my blood sugar. Then, when I
started to see my endocrinologist. I realized I was doing it wrong and had to
relearn how to check my blood sugar. To this day, I still mess up, and I keep
starting over.
However,
there are practices we can use to support our self-love journey. These
activities can help you become a better version of yourself. I cannot stress
enough how important self-love is to our mental health because it places us at
the center of the issues. You can let go of the judgmental mind, celebrate your
uniqueness, do things that light you up, feel your emotions and move on, allow
compassion, take in the good, unpack your fears, and increase your intuition
and self-trust (Tetreault, 2025). I had to face my fears, both my parents at
two different times, where I could have lost them, and I experienced the
possibility of losing them. My mom had cancer, and my dad had sepsis and acute
kidney failure. We almost lost my dad; the experience of this was traumatic and
stressful. Since then, I realized that once we made it through those experiences.
I realize that losing my parents will be hard, difficult, and traumatic for me.
However, we will make it through it because it is a part of life, and we all
will pass away sooner or later. From these experiences, I learned to unpack my
fears and face them head-on.
At
the root of the struggle is having to get things right, being perfect.
Perfectionism is the habit of beating yourself up over anything that chips away
at your sense of self-worth (Sandoiu, 2018). It is this constant action that
can leave you less happy, distraught, and feeling unworthy and unable to do
anything right. This can cause your mental health and self-esteem to decline. To
combat perfectionism, try self-compassion. This is where you show yourself kindness,
you recognize your achievements and the place you share in humanity and
mindfulness (Sandoiu, 2018).
The Benefits of Self-Love
When
you begin to show yourself the self-love you deserve, you will notice
improvements in your mental health, greater self-acceptance, higher
self-esteem, greater motivation, stronger determination, increased
self-awareness, less anxiety, and improved sleep (Asghar, 2022). How can you show
yourself self-love? By avoiding negative self-talk, including derogatory humor,
creating personal rituals, setting healthy boundaries, being compassionate
towards yourself, and making space for self-reflection (Asghar, 2022). I would
even include journaling as a practice of self-love, because it creates space
for reflection, personal rituals, and healthy boundaries. It is a practice of
learning to listen to yourself, relearning pleasure, doing something that you have
never done before, and building yourself up, like yoga, creative endeavors, and
being consistent with developing a new skill.
In conclusion,
the world is already hell, why do we want to add to it by making our own lives
filled with unloving and misery. St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta often spoke of
this world's lack of love. When you do acts of love, do small acts with great
love. She was right, and it is the words I try to live by, especially when I
need to show myself a little self-love.
References
Martin, S.
The Power of Self-Love. (2023). Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/conquering-codependency/202306/the-power-of-self-love?msockid=3c615a7a3ec3684126f04bdc3fda69d9
Tetreault,
N. (2025, February 26). The Practice of Self-Love:
A Gift to Your Mind and Soul. (2025).
Psychology Today.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wire-your-mind-for-love/202502/the-practice-of-self-love-a-gift-to-your-mind-and-soul?msockid=3c615a7a3ec3684126f04bdc3fda69d9
Sandoiu, A.
(2018, March 23). The importance of self-love and how to cultivate it.
Medical News Today. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321309
Asghar, A. (2022,
February 14). The science of self-love: The evidence-based benefits of
loving yourself. Ness Labs. https://nesslabs.com/self-love
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