Girl Get up and Love Yourself 

People often say you should love yourself before entering a relationship or that self-love is important. However, people rarely explain how to achieve it, why it matters, or what it really looks like. Many people assume self-love should mirror the love they receive from a significant other, but that’s a misconception. Love comes in different forms. The love you have for your mother differs from the love you have for a friend or cousin, so the love you have for yourself won’t be the same as what you receive from a partner. However, loving yourself helps you set boundaries, protect your emotions, and navigate life with confidence and ease. It allows you to embrace your feminine energy, align with your true self, and live a more fulfilling life.

So what is self Love ?

Self-love involves self-compassion, understanding, and respect for yourself. You show self-love by setting boundaries, maintaining self-care rituals, practicing self-discipline, and treating yourself with kindness on difficult days. For example, self-love can be as simple as creating a bedtime routine or following a skincare regimen. Overall, loving yourself means accepting yourself fully, caring for your well-being, and prioritising your needs. If you would like to understand this further, you can watch Bahja Abdi’s video, in which she talks about evaluating your current self-concept.

Why is Self Love Important ? 

Self-love is one of many important catalysts to help us live a fulfilling life. Without it, people accept situations that don’t align with their values, stay in unhappy relationships, and feel incomplete. Lacking self-love lowers your vibration and prevents you from attracting your desires. Tam Kaur’s ‘Buy Yourself the Damn Flowers’ is a great read that teaches us how to actually approach it in your life.

Too often, I see women stay in relationships where they aren’t satisfied simply because their self-love isn’t strong enough. For example, if your partner leaves you on delivered for five hours and your intuition signals something is wrong, but you stay out of fear of being alone. That’s a sign of weak self-love and is a limiting belief. (If limiting beliefs are keeping you stuck in unhealthy patterns, read Limiting Beliefs: What They Are and How to Overcome Them.)

Don’t worry if this is you. Growth and inner work can help you overcome these situations. Please do not be disheartened if you feel like, ‘ughh, I don’t love myself enough. ’ Self-love is a journey. You gradually learn not to accept certain things and just allow your experiences to be lessons.. Always ask, “What can I learn?” rather than “Ugh, I can’t believe I…” and let God guide your journey toward self-love.

Self Love Vs Self Care

People often confuse self-love with self-care. Whilst self-care can be a form of self-love, self-care alone is not self-love. Self-care consists of looking after yourself, which can be both mentally and physically by doing things that make you feel good (usually on a surface level). For example, putting on a face mask, having a nice hot bath or a cute mini journaling session. All of these things are amazing things to do and are a form of showing yourself love. However, they do not account for all the other factors of self-love.

Self-love includes setting boundaries, knowing your worth, and having self-compassion on tough days. For example, self-love means pushing yourself to do something beneficial, even when you don’t feel like it. 

These differ for the self-care trends we see online (which I love, by the way, I’m always for a cute little aesthetic self-care vibe); however, they simply don’t replace the deeper work required to honour yourself fully.

Reasons Why We May Not Love Ourselves

A Lot of the time, we may think Yes, I do love myself, and I do not doubt that you do. But there may be some areas in your life where you are not showing yourself love. I mentioned some examples before, but I want to give more clear examples of ways you may not be showing yourself love.

1. Not having clear boundaries

This is something I’m still trying to navigate myself. Setting boundaries is a way of showing self-respect. This can be done in two different ways: setting boundaries with yourself and setting boundaries with others.

Setting boundaries with yourself looks like setting a bedtime of 10 pm and sticking to it. Setting boundaries with others may be telling someone, “ I don’t shake hands with men”, and sticking to it.

Think of it this way: if someone you love was being mistreated or asked to do something they aren’t comfortable with, you would want to get up and defend them. It’s the same concept with yourself. Set your boundaries with confidence and refuse to feel ashamed of them (though I know it’s easier said than done). This video helps you to understand setting boundaries and how to do so.

2. Beating yourself up when not doing enough

This is something I used to suffer with a lot. Often, we tie our self-worth to how much we have done or accomplished. This can be detrimental to us when we are unable to do things. If you’re struggling with this, listen to my podcast episode, Getting Through Life’s Tough Days – A Self-Compassion Guide to Bounce Back Stronger, for guidance. When we are sick or perhaps just overwhelmed or burnt out, we will start to feel less of ourselves. However, self-love involves having compassion during tough times instead of self-criticism

If a close friend felt upset about not accomplishing much, you would offer them kind words and support. Treat yourself the same way.

3. Not honouring your body

When you recognise your body as a temple that deserves love, you naturally choose to nourish it. This can look like eating things which are good for you, engaging in movement, and getting a good amount of sleep. Even just washing, cleaning and pampering yourself (don’t we love a cheeky self-care routine).

Not honouring your body shows that you are neglecting yourself and the body that gets you through life every day. Think about it: if a parent did not clean their child and feed them, they would be neglecting their child. Same with you, don’t neglect yourself!

4. Staying in a relationship that doesn’t serve you 

This one is very common, and I’m so passionate about it because you deserve to be treated like a queen, and I NEED you to know that. Walk away with confidence if someone mistreats you. You know when you’re not being treated right—your gut and intuition tell you. Too often, fear holds us back from leaving. The right person will always be yours.

Again, if someone you loved was being treated that way, you wouldn’t want that for them, so why are you allowing it for yourself? We only accept these behaviours because the love for ourselves is not strong enough that we can’t get up and protect ourselves. GIRL, PROTECT YOURSELF. I GIVE YOU PERMISSION!!! 

5.Holding on to Unhealthy Friendships

Friendships should align with your values and respect your boundaries. When someone clearly doesn’t align with you or breach your boundaries, don’t feel afraid to walk away. Don’t get it twisted; I am not one to tell you to cut off everyone in your life when they do something wrong because no one is perfect. But what I am saying is if you can see a “friend” who doesn’t align with you don’t be afraid to either speak up or distance and act accordingly.

Staying in friendships where you feel unsafe and uncomfortable isn’t honouring yourself. You’re putting yourself in a place of survival where you feel the need to act or behave inauthentically. This isn’t honouring yourself, as you aren’t creating a space in your life where you constantly have to perform.

6. You lack self discipline 

Self-discipline is an act of self-love. It means doing things that benefit you, even when you don’t feel like it. A great example of this is going to the gym. A lot of people dread it, however going will honour your body and make you feel great afterwards.

Some days, your body may be telling you it doesn’t want to do something; in this case, that’s fair honour your body. But on days when laziness tempts you, remind yourself that discipline is a way to love yourself.

How To Have Self Love

Having self-love is actually really easy. You just have to decide From today, I choose to love myself. If you need a practical guide, I highly recommend listening to Mel Robbins’ podcast episode ‘How Do I Learn to Love Myself Really?’—she shares powerful insights on self-worth and breaking negative patterns.

You might be thinking, This isn’t easy… how will I suddenly become disciplined or set strong boundaries? These changes won’t happen overnight (or maybe they will—only God knows), but once you decide to love yourself, you’ll naturally begin making choices that honour you. Even if you struggle to set boundaries, the self-compassion you have for yourself will allow you to give yourself grace and try again next time. Any time you catch yourself not honouring yourself, you make the decision, “I’m not here for this anymore”.

So make the decision and you decide cause you know yourself better than I do “In what area am I not showing myself love?”. Pick that area and decide to make at least one change today that will honour yourself.

In Summary

All in all, self-love is extremely important in our lives, and I hope after reading this you’ll decide to love and honour yourself in the way that you deserve. If you need any help don’t hesitate to contact me. You can also download my Self-Compassion Guide to help you build self-kindness and emotional resilience on your self-love journey. Anyway, you got this. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day x