Self-Love is Self-Care

"Self-love" refers to a deep acceptance and appreciation of oneself, including flaws and imperfections, while "self-care" refers to the active practices and actions you take to maintain your physical, mental, and emotional well-being, essentially putting that self-love into action; essentially, self-love is the foundation, and self-care is the way you nurture and maintain that foundation.

We don’t love big portions of ourselves. We beat ourselves up, all day long. We stress out about uncertainty because we don’t think we’re good enough to deal with it. We don’t trust ourselves to stick to something, because we’ve formed a really bad picture of ourselves over the years. We get angry at ourselves for eating too much, drinking too much alcohol, messing up in a social situation, getting distracted and watching videos or playing video games, and so on and so on. We are harsh on ourselves, and don’t like how we look or who we are, in many ways.

​This affects everything in our lives. It makes us more stressed, less happy, anxious, depressed, stuck, procrastinating, less happy in relationships, less focused, more likely to reach for comfort foods or distraction or shopping to comfort ourselves from the stress and pain of being who we are. But if we could give ourselves love, it would start to heal all of this. Everything could shift. We could deal with uncertainty and chaos and difficulty in a much more resilient way. Giving ourselves love is such an important act of self-care and yet is rarely ever done.

How do we put this into action? One idea is, set reminders for yourself, everywhere you go. Put reminders on your fridge, on your computer, on your phone, on your bathroom mirror, in your car, at your desk, near your TV. The reminders only need to be two words: “Love yourself.” Elevating self-love and nurturing the crucial relationship with oneself can be a profound gift, shaping a path towards personal growth and well-being.

We should do it throughout the day!  Like trying to drink 8 glasses of water, we should give ourselves at least 8 doses of loving ourselves every day.
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