Do you Love yourself?

I bet you do but are mum about it for fear of appearing self-centered, vain, egotistical, or narcissistic.

Loving oneself, or self-love is none of that.  It is isn’t about impressing others of your virtues or blowing your own horn. If taken in its undiluted form, it is something people cannot go without. After all, if you don’t love yourself, how can you expect others to?

Self-love, in its deeper context, is the linchpin upon which your happiness and overall well-being rest.

To get a better understanding, read on…

What is self-love

Self-love is a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support physical, psychological and spiritual growth. – Psychology Today.

Loving oneself means accepting your weaknesses and your strengths without being defensive about them. It’s being honest with your current situation and thought patterns and develop practices that reflect self-worth.

And developing self-love is a process, not a single shot in the arm.

Here is what famous people say about it:

1.  Self-love is the source of all other loves. – Pierre Corneille

2.  Our first and last love is self-love. – Christian Nestell Bovee

3.  Well-ordered self-love is right and natural – Thomas Aquinas

4.  I’ve learned to ignore the negative people and just be a living example of confidence and self-love. – Khoudia Diop

5.  Forgiveness isn’t just the absence of anger. I think it’s also the presence of self-love when you actually begin to value yourself. – Tara Westover

6.  Self-love has very little to do with how you value your outer self. It’s accepting all of yourself. – Tyra Banks

7.  Self-love is not something you get in one day or two days. It’s an ongoing process, and I go through it every day. – Khoudia Diop

8.  Self-love is really a foundation of everything, and however, you practice or express that is so, so important. – Solange Knowles

9.  If we give our children sound self-love, they will be able to deal with whatever life puts before them. – Bell Hooks

10.  People need to work on what self-love is and redefining self-love … it comes from within; who you are and how you carry yourself in this world. – Ashley Neil Tipton

11.  If you’re not happy with how you look, you have to question how much self-love you have. – Tyrese Gibson

12.  The deepest gift you can learn in life is about self-love, and it is not going to happen overnight. – Rumer Willis

13.  Had we not loved ourselves at all, we could never have been obliged to love anything. So that self-love is the basis of all love. – Thomas Traheme

14.  Self-love, it is obvious, remains always positive and active in our nature. – Gordon W. Allport

15.  Allowing myself to love God completely has obviously shed light on my self-love because he loves me more than I could ever love myself. – Angie Stone

16.  Well, I think everyone struggles with self-love. – Philip Seymour Hoffman

17.  Our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults. – Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

18.  I wish that more people, especially young people, were taught about self-love at a younger age. – Jamila Woods

19.  We often fancy that we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love. – Walter Savage Landor

20.  If you have the ability to love, love yourself first. – Charles Bukowski

Hidden benefits of self-love

We all want to love and be loved. It makes us feel good, either way. But unless you love yourself first, both are nothing but mirages in a desert. You cannot give what you don’t have.

Besides being a prerequisite of loving and being loved, self-love also gives the following benefits:

1.  Better physical health

Self-love motivates you to take good care of your physical health. It makes you adopt healthy lifestyles like proper nutrition, plenty of exercises and enough sleep.

It makes you avoid things and situations that pose risks to your health and well-being.

2.  Better mental health

About 3 to 14% of American elderly people suffer from anxiety disorder. They are those whose minds are so messed up with uncontrollable things on the outside, rather than ease the turmoil going on inside.

They have self-love problems.

Self-love promotes better mental health because it removes the negative thoughts and feelings which are the major sources of anxiety.

It stills the mind, making it focus on the more important things that matter to your day-to-day affairs.

3.  Promotes better stress management

Stress is a part of life. Young and old face stressful situations in any given day. Though the body has natural defenses against it, these defenses begin to deteriorate at the onset of old age.

Not only that. Old age brings other factors like financial problems, shrinking social circle, health problems, living alone, etc., that increase an elderly’s risk to the ravages of stress.

Self-love equalizes the situation by making you accept and embrace your new realities, rather than bitching about it.

Acceptance brings peace of mind.

4.  Allows you to sway with the punches

Self-love allows you to meet adversities better than those who meet life’s difficulties head-on. And even if you run smack into it, you can recover faster from the shock because you know how to deal with it.

You don’t wallow on self-loathing or self-pity because you have accepted that life is like that – once in a while it throws a haymaker at you. You can’t dodge it or evade it, but self-love allows you to sway to minimize its impact.

4.  More satisfied with life

“If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are,” Mother Teresa.

That is the essence of self-love – knowing what you are and who you are and accepting it without reservations. Doing so raises your optimism and, according to Buddha, “…What you think, you become.”

I love myself. Not because my life’s balance sheet is showing surpluses, but because I have everything I need and are grateful for them. I have long learned to keep away from things outside my control and enjoy those I can. Above all, I can pursue my passions for writing and traveling without impediment.

And I hope I can encourage you to spread self-love by sharing this article with other seniors.

~oOo~

//www.mentalhealthamerica.net/anxiety-older-adults

. Which did me a lot of

//www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/nurturing-self-compassion/201703/8-steps-improving-your-self-esteem

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