What Self-Love Really Looks Like
The lack of self-love in humanity today is a global epidemic. Many cultures, societies, and religions have improperly conditioned their children to focus on the needs of others while partially or even completely neglecting their own needs. Therefore, instead of teaching self-love to ourselves and our children, we have encouraged a culture of self-neglect and self-abandonment. This has caused the wellbeing of the entire world to be diminished, resulting in unnecessary exhaustion, pain, and suffering for us all.
In order to change this dismal state we find humanity in, we must choose to be different, starting with ourselves. We must choose to consciously love ourselves above everyone else so that we can secure both wellness for ourselves and the resulting capacity to help others as well.
The truth is that most people don’t even know what self-love really looks like. So many of us, like myself, were raised in religions or cultures that not only failed to prioritize self-love, but also often misrepresented it even when they mentioned it. However, true self-love is strong, self-protective, just, and consistent–not lazy, comfortable, self-delusional, and self-neglectful like some would suggest. Because very few people have seen self-love demonstrated by their parents, peers, cultures, or religions, I am going to provide some examples of what self-love really looks like, organized by different categories below:
Examples of True Self-Love
Self-Love with Diet
Isn’t:
Giving yourself permission to eat tasty, unhealthy food all of the time–this is self-abuse.
Malnourishing yourself to lose weight or eating junk food to gain weight–this is self-abuse.
Choosing to accept unhealthy body fat levels, either excessively lean or obese–this is self-abandonment
Is:
Giving yourself permission to occasionally eat tasty, unhealthy food as a reward for eating healthy food most of the time.
Eating healthy, nutrient-rich foods with reasonable calorie deficits and surpluses (500kcal or less) while losing or gaining weight.
Choosing to maintain healthy body fat levels based upon one’s sex and age.
Self-Love with Exercise
Isn’t:
Training excessively or abusing your body to achieve self-punishment, performance, or aesthetic goals–this is self-abuse.
Forcing yourself to train in a way you hate–this is self-punishment and a lack of self-consideration
Is:
Training with enough consistency, intensity, and duration to heal old injuries, strengthen your body, and improve your overall health and fitness, but not so much that you’re picking up too many injuries and are unable to properly recover.
Finding a way to train that you enjoy (or is at least the most preferable if you don’t like exercise) that is both effective at improving your health and sustainable.
Self-Love with Career
Isn’t:
Giving up on your dreams and desires–this is self-abandonment.
Tolerating abuse from bosses or collegues–this is self-abandonment.
Doing the type of work that others expect you to do–this is self-abandonment.
Is:
Doing your best to find a way to fulfill your dreams, even if it’s only on the side or it requires an inconvenient transition.
Respectfully confronting any abuse and changing workplaces if necessary.
Doing the type of work that is the best for you that you want to do.
Self-Love with Relationships
Isn’t:
Tolerating abuse, disrespect, or mistreatment–this is self-abandonment and a lack of self-respect and self-worth.
Tolerating one-sided relationships, neglect, or a lack of reasonable prioritization–this is a lack of self-respect and self-worth.
Accepting relationships with people who aren’t good for you because you’re desperate for love and validation–this is self-abandonment, self-devaluation, and a lack of self-worth.
Being nice and hiding your true thoughts and feelings to avoid conflict–this is self-rejection, disrespect for the other person, and the promotion of an emotionally-unsafe and false relationship.
Is:
Confronting abuse, disrespect, and mistreatment and requiring genuine apologies and attempts at relational repair, and if both aren’t received, terminating the relationship after several failed chances.
Having reasonable expectations for the people in your life and if they don’t meet them, replacing those relationships with people who actually value and prioritize you in their life.
Being willing to be alone until you find people who treat you properly and choosing to give yourself the love and validation you desire from yourself first.
Showing respect for yourself and the other person by expressing your true thoughts and feelings to them, ensuring an emotionally-safe environment for authentic self-expression, and promoting a real, genuine relationship.
Self-Love with Sleep
Isn’t:
Sleep depriving yourself OR oversleeping all of the time OR never allowing yourself to sleep in or take naps–these are self-abuse, self-abandonment, and a lack of self-care respectively.
Is:
Maintaining a healthy sleep schedule so that you guarantee plenty of quality sleep and have a disciplined life, while also allowing yourself to occasionally sleep in or take naps when you feel like you need the extra rest.
Self-Love with Sex
Isn’t:
Ignoring, diminishing, or rejecting your sexual needs and desires because of sexual shame–this is self-neglect from toxic beliefs about sexuality that started in your childhood.
Having less sexual activity than would be ideal for your wellbeing because it’s inconvenient for you or your partner(s) –this is self-neglect.
Choosing not to masturbate when your partner isn’t available–this is self-neglect and potentially sexual shame.
Is:
Exploring your sexual needs and desires freely and openly, both on your own and with your partner(s) if you have any, and discarding any sexual shame.
Having quality sexual activity at a frequency that maintains both sexual satisfaction and peace for yourself.
Prioritizing both solo and partnered sex because both have a place in a fulfilling sex life.
Self-Love with Truth
Isn’t:
Lying to yourself to stay comfortable and avoid growth–this is self-disrespect and self-abandonment
Suppressing your truth to make others comfortable–this is self-rejection and self-devaluation.
Is:
Being honest with yourself about what is true about yourself, others, and reality so that you can improve yourself, navigate relationships with others in a healthy way, and live your life for what really matters instead of wasting your limited time and energy on things that aren’t true, real, or worthwhile.
Respectfully standing up for what you know to be true and moral, even when others disagree with you.
Self-Love with Self-Care
Isn’t:
Failing to→brush your teeth twice a day, floss once a day, eat quality food when your blood sugar is dropping, take regular showers, groom yourself well, or dress with dignity–these failings are evidence of self-neglect and a lack of self-respect.
Failing to get outside and spend time in the sun–this is self-neglect
Allowing the needs of others to continually push aside your needs–this is self-neglect and self-abandonment.
Is:
Establishing a routine to guarantee that your body is properly taken care of every day.
Regularly prioritizing time outside whenever possible because fresh air and sunlight are essential for emotional and physical wellness.
Prioritizing your needs while only taking care of those for whom you’re responsible and maybe anyone YOU have chosen to give kindness from a place of love and not obligation.
Will You Choose to Love Yourself?
I hope that these examples have inspired you to love yourself more in everything you do. Whenever you’re making decisions, ask yourself, “What would be the self-loving thing to do?” and then DO IT! Stop making excuses to justify neglecting, abusing, abandoning, devaluing, disrespecting, rejecting, harming, hating, and shaming yourself and choose to love yourself instead!
You need to be honest with yourself, because if you keep choosing to neglect yourself despite understanding what self-love looks like, then you don’t love yourself. And if you don’t love yourself, it’s probably because your parents didn’t love you (or themselves) in a healthy way. And if this is the case, if you value yourself at all, you need to make a conscious decision to love yourself consistently anyway, even if you don’t feel like it, even if you think you don’t deserve it, because no one else can do it for you.
If you’ve been looking for love from others or religion, you’ve been looking in the wrong place. You need to find love within yourself, and the beauty of it is that anyone can choose to love themselves. You only have to make the commitment to yourself to do it.
It’s up to you. Are you going to love yourself in a way that probably no one else ever has for you? If so, congratulations because your life is about to change for the better! However, if you’re hesitating to love yourself, you need to figure out why and resolve it. I highly recommend hiring a coach or a therapist to help you understand yourself better and move towards self-love; but, even if you don’t get professional help, you still need to ask yourself why you’ve accepted a life of self-neglect. Just know that everyone deserves love and that you’re no exception.
It’s time to live your life for YOU and to become the healthiest version of yourself. However, you can only do that by consistently choosing to practice self-love.
Learning to Trust Myself After Narcissistic Abuse
I was raised by narcissistic parents who taught me to doubt myself. Instead of teaching me how to think for myself and trust my intuition, they tried to train my independent thinking out of me. They also assumed that I was “sinful” and “evil” at my core and thought that it was their duty to keep me from expressing my “naturally wicked” self. In addition to that, I never felt safe as a child to express (or even possess) ideas contrary to their own because disapproval and manipulation would ensue. This behavior of theirs still continues to this day, with no respect given for any thought, idea, belief, or behavior that doesn’t align with their rigid view of the world. I learned quickly as a child to never dare to question their behaviors or choices, because being narcissists, they would shame me for questioning them or blame me for their faults. Even as I am now an adult, any accountability I hold them to for their actions and how they’ve hurt me has resulted not in heartfelt apologies, but instead gaslighting and villanizing of my character. To my parents, the only questioning or doubting that was appropriate was that which I directed toward myself. In my family, I was conditioned to believe that doubting myself and assuming blame was the virtue of humility, regardless of whether or not I was at fault. To judge my parents by their actions (rather than their skillfully manipulative words) and hold them accountable–that was abhorrent. I was just being ridiculous, “too sensitive”, and “not seeing things correctly”.
All of these parental behaviors trained me to believe that I was always mistaken if my ideas didn’t align with others and that my perception was always flawed. As a result, I believed for most of my life that I could never trust myself or my judgement and that I wasn’t good enough. Furthermore, my parents taught me to trust authority instead of myself–with themselves being the primary benefactors–so that they could control me and exonerate themselves of any responsibility for their mistakes or poor behaviors. The irony is that while my parents believe in obeying authority for themselves too (given their religiosity), due to their narcissism, they have actually been serving themselves as the ultimate authority in their lives. As I became older, I saw this inconsistency in their lives, but I dared not to challenge their hypocrisy. After all, they had trained me to fear their reprisal and doubt myself to keep me from ever holding them accountable. They could do whatever the hell they wanted and get away with it because they had emasculated their son of his self-trust and courage–at least for a while. It was all eventually going to backfire on them, as it usually does for narcissists.
A couple of years ago, in 2023, I had an awakening moment. I realized that I was living my life to please everyone else instead of myself, just like my parents wanted for their benefit and control. I saw how despite some of my needs being met, I wasn’t living from my heart and securing my wants and needs like a healthy person would. I began asking myself what I needed to feel good again, to be healthy, and to take proper care of myself. For the first few months, when I asked myself what I needed, I got very little response from my intuition. I started to realize that I had been detached from my emotional self and my intuition my entire life. In my research, I discovered that it’s common for children raised in toxic homes (where self-expression was punished with shame, disapproval, or rejection) to hide their true selves and repress their emotions to survive and maintain security within the family. I learned that children altering themselves like this is an evolutionary instinct to prevent separation from the family (and inevitably death) while they were still too vulnerable to fend for themselves. I too had instinctively made this adaptation in my childhood, learning to hide my true self and suppress my emotions, which my dad had taught me were “weak” anyway. Now that I was trying to call my buried heart to the surface, I got nothing–at least at first.
As I kept asking myself what I needed to better care for my exhausted, depressed, and anxious self, slowly my emotions began to surface and gently guide me toward better self-care and authentic living. My heart was like an abused child, beaten into silence, who was slowly learning how to talk again, but who still feared being punished for expressing himself. As time went on, my emotions cautiously began to tell me what I needed to take better care of myself, and eventually, they began to reveal to me more of who I was. I began to realize that I didn’t even know who I was. As I mentioned earlier, in my childhood I had been conditioned to repress my true self, my emotions, my wants, my needs and replace them with a false self–a shell meant for the survival of my childhood. Now, for the first time, I was beginning to discover my true self, something that should have happened in my childhood, but never did.
In this journey of emotional awakening and self-discovery, I eventually realized that my self-doubt was trained into me by my narcissistic parents. I was taught both by their christian religion and their irresponsible, insecure selves that I was always the problem and that my judgement was always wrong whenever it conflicted with theirs. Much to their chagrin, I started to realize that my intuition about them and their narcissistic toxicity had always been right. It finally dawned on me that–contrary to my parent’s conditional love, gaslighting, and disrespect for me–my true self was lovable, good enough, and worthy of being respected. I now understood that I had been manipulated into doubting myself entirely through their gaslighting and perpetual undermining of my confidence. For those who don’t know, gaslighting is an act of personal irresponsibility where a guilty person blames an innocent person for their mistakes. I woke up to this irresponsibility of theirs and saw how I had been the dumping ground for their mistakes my entire life. Being the narcissists that they are, they were unable to acknowledge their faults because they had to maintain the delusion that they were flawless to protect their insecure egos. The only problem with this is that the blame for their mistakes had to go somewhere. So, instead of being mature, healthy adults and taking responsibility for their actions, they chose to shift the blame onto me, choosing to destroy the developing self-trust of their child instead of looking into the mirror and facing themselves for who they really are.
My narcissistic parents chose to ruin me to protect themselves from seeing their own faults. I suffered decades of mental illness because of this. But now I know why I have doubted myself so much. Now I know why I have felt unworthy of love for so long. Now I know why I used to hate myself so much: I was convinced by my parent’s actions that I was an unlovable, untrustable, and unrespectable person.
I was never the problem. I was a victim of narcissistic abuse. And now, I choose to trust myself.