An essential practice to develop in life, self love is an extremely crucial aspect in relationships as well. Although we understand that a relationship exists between more than one individual, learning to love yourself is an essential step towards developing a healthy relationship. A practice that only helps you grow as a person and become the best version of yourself, self love is a way in which you allow others to love yourself. A practice that defines how you feel about yourself and treat yourself, self love is a way you learn to accept and appreciate yourself for the person that you are. Before being a partner, a friend or a professional, you are an individual first, who has their own set of qualities and uniqueness, self love is how you celebrate being yourself. A practice that can actually bring a lot of joy and love in your relationships, here are some ways in which you can practise developing self love in a relationship.
What is self love?
Self love essentially does not restrict itself to any particular definition, it is a process by which I can say that I have understood and accepted the ways to love myself. A practice that involves daily rituals or little aspects that you incorporate in order to make progress in your journey towards self growth, because growth is something that is nurtured through love. The process of learning to love yourself, be compassionate towards oneself, and accept yourself with love and compassion is precisely what self love stands for. Self love is a lifelong experience and is essential towards establishing healthy and fulfilling relationships in life.
Here are some ways in which you can incorporate self love for better relationships
Try not to overthink
A very crucial step towards learning to love yourself is to try and stop thinking too much about things. When you indulge in the habit of overthinking, you tend to always question yourself which can come in the way of self love and relationships. Second guessing and questioning everything that happens in a relationship or what your partner says about you can create serious trust and communication issues that will eventually affect your relationship. It is important to start having positive thoughts about yourself because only then will you also be able to accept what others think and feel about you.
Accept your flaws
It is important to understand that no individual is perfect, and to understand that the moment I begin to accept my flaws is the way to love myself is something that goes a long way in your self love journey. When you are trying to build self love in relationships you have to understand that your partner loves you for a reason, and once you yourself start to believe that you are beautiful inside out despite your flaws is when you truly develop self love.
Celebrate yourself
Never wait for someone else to pamper you or celebrate your successes. No matter how small your victories might be, it is important to reward yourself and genuinely indulge in celebrating the person that you are. If you really want to find happiness in a relationship, you first have to find happiness within yourself, which is why pampering yourself and celebrating oneself is the best way towards self love.
Here are ways in which indulging in self love can actually benefit your relationships
Self-confidence
Our lives are centred around interaction with others, and having low self confidence hampers our position while we are interacting with those around us. Being nervous, uncertain and always being overly critical about ourselves can largely affect our relationships, more often in a negative way. Once we learn to love ourselves, and appreciate our value and what we are worth is what makes the difference in relationships. Interacting and developing relationships from a place of self confidence helps us feel secure in a relationship and be our authentic selves.
Setting boundaries
Developing self love in a relationship, valuing oneself and having self confidence makes us aware of what we actually want out of a relationship, and in turn helps us set healthy boundaries. Self love and relationships is something that should go hand in hand, and we should never feel obliged towards doing something or accepting certain things that we don't believe in. Practising self love helps us prioritise our well being and what we desire out of a relationship, while being able to set strong boundaries.
You don't have to rely on others to make you happy
When we do not know the ways of self love, we often tend to rely on others for our own happiness. Developing self love in relationships makes us understand that our happiness lies in our own hands. Once you start learning to love yourself, you are able to invest towards your own wellbeing, and do not burden your partner with the responsibility of making you happy.
Self worth
Once you have developed the practice of self love, you indulge towards spending time with people being aware of your own self worth. As a result, you are aware of what you want to accept in life. Once you are aware of your standards, you begin to spend time with people who treat you the way you ought to be treated, and settle for nothing less.