Self-love has been a popular term these days, especially in the new age spiritual community, as well as people who are keen on self-improvement in general. 

But of course, not everyone agrees with the term self-love. 

Sadhguru, a famous yogi, in one of his videos (click here to see it), ridicules the concept of self-love. He argues that it needs two to love, and if you think there are two of you, then either you’re schizophrenic or you’re possessed. 

Similarly, Eckhardt Tolle, another famous spiritual leader, in one of his videos (click here to see it) states that the term self-love is a ‘very strange thing’ as it’s confusing to see who is loving whom. His question to the affirmation “I love myself” is: “Who are you? And who is that self that you love?” 

Despite ridiculing the “I love myself” concept, Eckhardt Tolle agrees that it is certainly better than saying, “I hate myself.”

I’m not writing to ridicule, nor discredit, those two spiritual leaders and people who have similar awkwardness towards self-love. 

I wholeheartedly believe it is healthy to question things. Hence, just because they’re spiritual leaders, it doesn’t mean they understand everything about human aspects. 

And just because I question them, doesn’t mean I don’t believe what they say. I don’t and won’t completely disagree with them in general as they have many great messages for us. But for the term ‘self-love’, I will have to disagree with them. For now. 

This is my understanding of self-love. However, it’s not impossible that in the future, I may disagree with what I believe now. From experience, I’ve disagreed with my younger self several times, including swinging from being a capitalist to a socialist, and now, after seeing the ugliness of both sides, I’m in the middle, not wanting to side with any of them. 

What is Self Love

I wrote about what self-love is here in this article a while ago. Briefly, loving ourselves means having true emotional validation and having a healthy boundary. 

Why do we need to have ‘true’ emotional validation and a healthy boundary? Because many of us were born to fulfil our parents’ happiness. If you ask most parents why they decided to have children, their answers are almost uniform: to feel complete and happy. 

On a side note, having children does not necessarily make you feel complete and happy. Professor Paul Dolan, a professor of behavioural science at the London School of Economics, conducted scientific research and found that the healthiest and happiest population subgroup are women who never married or had children. For further details about this, click here.

Now back to the main topic about children who are born to make their parents feel complete and happy. What happens next is that parents may unintentionally stifle their children’s personal development by forcing the children to obey the parents regardless of how the children feel. 

“If you don’t share the toy with your brother, you will not get ice cream tonight!” Or worse: “If you don’t share the toy, I’ll break the toy and none of you will play!”

Rewards and punishment play a heavy role here. There’s seldom a discussion with the child why they don’t want to share their toys. Many children need to have their possession acknowledged and they’d be happy to share if they’re asked nicely. Now being someone who has no children, one may ask how I know this. I watch documentaries and I also tried the method on my niece and nephew. It works. 100% works.  

When parents force their children to obey them regardless of how the children feel, over time, the children start to get used to numbing out their emotions and having blurred boundaries.

One of the worst consequences would be the child may grow with a doormat mentality, having difficulties saying no, not only to their parents but also to their friends, spouse, etc. Over time, there’s nothing left but a deep feeling of resentment which eats them from the inside, causing various (often strange) illnesses or other abnormalities that cannot be cured as they are all heavily linked to their emotional wellbeing. Not a good way to live. 

Therefore, the first step to love ourselves is to acknowledge ourselves as a person of our own. This means to recognise ourselves from our point of view instead of believing what our parents or others say about us.

Here Are 8 Practical Tips on How to Practice Self-Love:

1. Spend Time With Yourself – For Yourself

It’s easy to spend time with ourselves, but we often end up chatting with our friends and families or thinking about what we’re going to feed our children or pets, or where to go for the next vacation with our loved ones, etc. 

While it’s good (and important) to care about your friends and families (if they care about you!), it’s also important to care about ourselves. 

Some examples of spending time with yourself – for yourself – would be drawing, painting, photography, hiking, playing a musical instrument, reading a book, writing, with the purpose of your enjoyment and not for professional work or as a gift for someone. 

Of course, you can do those activities for professional work or as a dedication to someone special, but in this case, just do those for yourself only. When doing something for yourself only, you stir clear from the fear of people’s judgement. Equally important, don’t judge yourself. Just enjoy whatever you’re creating. 

For example, if you choose to draw something, treat your drawing as a 5-year-old’s. When a 5-year-old child shows you their drawing enthusiastically, no matter how bad their drawing is, you’ll usually say something nice like, “Oh wow! Nice drawing!” And then you can proceed with gentle feedback about the drawing. This is loving. Unless you’re an asshole who has nothing but an insult. Then I can’t help you. You’re doomed. Burnt in hell for eternity. Kidding. I don’t believe in hell. But I believe in misery. You’ll be in misery if you chose to live as an asshole. Don’t believe me? Try it yourself. But stay away from me. And the rest of the world.

2. Look at the Mirror and Pick 3 Things That You Like About Yourself

Most of us, especially those with low self-esteem, when looking in the mirror, tend to nitpick what’s wrong with our faces. The nose is too long, the nose is too short, the skin is too patchy, ugly eyes, eyelashes are too short, OMG a pimple!! How the hell did it get there? 

Therefore, it’s now time to smile and pick three things you like about yourself. Perhaps you have a nice smile. Write that down. Or you have beautiful eyes. Write that down. This process can help us love ourselves (instead of disliking or hating ourselves). 

3. Write a Letter To Your Younger Self 

When Sadhguru and Eckhardt Tolle suggest that self-love is a strange concept, I’d guess, they didn’t take into account how fragmented many of us have been, thanks to our upbringing and culture in general. 

Many of us grew up running around like a chicken without its head just to please others. Nothing’s wrong with pleasing others so long as we don’t abandon ourselves. 

For example, going to a party just because our friends want us to be there when in reality we’re not really in the mood for a party, or downright exhausted. 

Another typical example would be those who study medicine just because their parents think it’s prestigious when in reality, all they want is to make art or music. 

So now it’s time to be on your own, to prioritise what you really want in life, validating your true emotions.

Write a letter for your younger self that you understand their anger and frustration and you believe that they did what they knew best at that particular moment.

Forgive your younger self instead of pointing out their mistakes and going on and on aggressively and bitterly about how things could’ve been different if only they knew what you know now. And then slowly and kindly, you also let them know what you know now and wish them know then. 

The process of writing them will open your mind and yes, it would be like there are two of you, one lecturing the other. This also helps us to see similar problems that we may be having with a wiser perspective and therefore with a potentially wiser solution.

The process induces us to think more kindly and more wisely towards ourselves. That’s when self-love happens.

4. Talk to Yourself

It’s not crazy or schizophrenic or possessed when you’re talking to yourself. It’s similar to journaling, except that now you’re talking. To yourself. 

Lois Zoppi, whose article has been medically reviewed by Timothy J. Legg, PhD, PsyD, points out that there are three categories of self-talk that differ depending on the tone of voice. These include: 

– Positive self-talk: Encourages and reinforces positive beliefs about a person. Engaging in positive self-talk may decrease anxiety and improve concentration and focus.

– Negative self-talk: Usually involves critical and discouraging dialogue.

– Neutral self-talk: This type of self-talk is not significantly positive or negative. People may use it to give instructions themselves rather than reinforcing or encouraging a particular belief or emotion.

A scientific review by Dr Herbert’s team, presumably referring to positive and neutral self-talk, states that there are many benefits of talking to ourselves, including promoting mental health, preventing stress, organising our thoughts, and controlling our emotions, to name a few.

Don’t be discouraged when your negative self-talk is louder than your positive or neutral self-talk. In fact, you can get your positive self-talk to help you combat the negative self-talk. 

For example, you made a blunder at a coffee shop, accidentally spilled the coffee and broke the cup. 

Your negative self-talk may jump in and yell at you, “You’re so stupid and useless!! Look at what you’ve done!! What an embarrassment!!” 

And your positive self-talk may jump in and yell at the negative self-talk, “Relax!! It’s not the end of the world!! By tomorrow or next week, everything will be forgotten. Well if you suspect it’s not forgotten, then don’t go to that coffee shop again. But is it necessary? People spill coffee all the time! Smile! Say sorry, reimburse the cup if necessary and voila! Done and dusted!!” 

When your positive or neutral talk is louder than your negative talk, you’re on the right path to love yourself. However, I don’t think it’s a good idea to silent the negative self-talk completely as it can be useful to prepare yourself for what to say when someone says similar negative things to you. And sometimes it’s useful to make you laugh at yourself or the situation as it can be genuinely funny. Laughter releases endorphins that promote a sense of well-being and relieve stress.

5. Say No if You Want To or Have To

It’s your friend’s birthday and another friend expects you to buy a cake. But you’re feeling miserable for whatever reason, and not in the mood to go to any party at all, let alone buying a cake. You can simply say, “Sorry, I can’t go. I’m unwell.” 

While many people believe that “NO” is a complete sentence, I still think letting them know the reason, no matter how brief it is, sounds better than just a ‘no’. It’s a courtesy. It’s being friendly and civilised instead of being a territorial bulldog. But of course you can turn into a territorial bulldog if they don’t take no for an answer. 

6. Don’t Compare Yourself to Others but Don’t Be Complacent Either

This is a bit tricky because sometimes comparing can be motivating. But just like one coin that has two sides, comparing can also be discouraging, especially when we compare our current situation to someone else’s current success without looking at how they got to where they are. 

When you compare yourself to others, especially to those who are much more successful than you are, you’re likely to beat yourself up and feel small. That’s not self-love. 

When you’re being complacent without opening your mind to the possibility that you can grow and improve, that’s not self-love either. That’s stifling your own personal development. Stifling is not loving. Therefore, don’t compare yourself, but also, don’t be complacent. Always be open to opportunities for growth and improvement. 

7. Write Down Your Achievement and Accomplishments

Some people are reluctant or downright afraid to list their achievements or accomplishments because they believe it’s an ego trip. While it’s not a good idea to define yourself based only on your achievements/accomplishments, it’s important to acknowledge what’s good in you, as many of us tend to focus on what’s bad in us.

So write down your achievement and accomplishments, big or small, weekly, or if possible, daily. 

8. Write Down What You Learn and What You Can Do to Improve Any Bad Situation You’re Experiencing

Bad things happen. That’s life. But instead of berating yourself, look at what you can learn from them and how to improve the situation.

Just screaming, “I can’t do anything!” or “It’s not my fault!!” without doing anything else will only trap you into a victimhood mentality.

When you’re in this type of mentality, you tell yourself that you’re powerless. This is negative self-talk, and it’s far from self-love, so don’t let your negative self-talk control you. 

All in All

Self-love is important for our well-being. Not loving ourselves will eventually harm our mental health and ultimately affect our physical health. 

Loving ourselves is not only good for our well-being, but also good for those whom we care about, as we have more energy and positive thoughts when dealing with them. 

As Osho said in his book, “First in the Morning: 365 Uplifting Moments to Start the Day Consciously”, p.51:

If you can love yourself, you have fulfilled the basic condition of love. 

~Osho