Start giving yourself the same love that you would give to your loved ones. Love yourself fully and unconditionally.
What is unconditional self-love? You can love and accept yourself without putting any demands or conditions on yourself, to love yourself right at this moment, to love yourself for who you are.
Self-love is not dependent on the attainment of certain goals or wishes. It is already there inside you. It does not mean that you should not strive to get success or don't go after your dreams. You should work towards your goals and the first step in getting what you want from life is to start loving yourself unconditionally, only then you can face the vulnerability and fear of failure, you know that you will not abandon yourself even if you fail, you treat yourself with compassion when you are loving yourself. Self-love reduces the unnecessary stress of failure because you are accepting and loving yourself fully no matter how things unfold for you.
It is not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and make your happiness a priority. It's necessary.
....Mandy Hale
All living beings deserve love, it is vital for survival. You can not function well if you are lacking love in your life. No one can fill you with unconditional love more than yourself. Nothing outside you can make you feel lovable if you are insufficient in loving yourself.
Yes, we do appreciate someone's affection and love towards us but to receive love from others you have to feel that you are worthy of love by loving yourself. If you don't consider yourself lovable how do you expect others to consider you worthy of love? Always remember, people will treat you the way you treat yourself.
The quality of love you receive mirrors the value you place on yourself.
...Barbara
The excessive desire to be loved by others comes when you are not giving yourself well-deserved self-love, you are not self-sufficient in taking care of your needs, and you think you are not lovable or not good enough. You seek love from others, trying to get their approval to convince yourself that you deserve love. Your worth depends on people's validation and if they fail to give you the love you desperately want you become judgemental, believing you are not lovable.
The truth is you are worthy of love, care, and respect because you exist therefore you matter. We all need love and care to live a healthy balanced life. Why search for love from others when you are capable of loving yourself and taking care of your needs?
Nobody owes you anything, it's your job to fill yourself up with an ample amount of love so you don't have to mold your true self to get love from someone else. What you get, when you are trying to fit in someone else idea of who you should be, is not love, love is unconditional. If you find yourself trying to hide your authentic self, making efforts to be someone you are not, if you are striving hard to win someone's approval then you are abandoning yourself, this is due to the absence of self-love.
Now you understand that self-love is vital for living and growth, then why it is difficult to love oneself unconditionally? The main cause behind unloving behavior towards self is your false negative beliefs, you might develop those beliefs when you were a child. We all have the baggage of unpleasant memories from the past, none of us grew up unwounded, if our primary caregivers treated us in a non-loving way, kept high expectations from us, judged us if we failed to fulfill their expectations, or just projected their failure onto us, blamed us when we were not to be blamed, withheld love and care as a punishment then as a child we started believing that we are unlovable because they made us feel that way.
We believe that if we make mistakes, don't achieve our goals, having flaws then we are not deserving of love. It's impossible to get things done in the right way always, all our goals can't be achieved, and making errors is unavoidable. It's human to be imperfect.
Start giving yourself the love and compassion that was missing in your life as a child. I am not saying your caregivers didn't love you, mostly they failed to express their love, to make you feel loved, they failed to recognize your need at that time, or they were having a hard time loving themselves unconditionally so how could they love you unconditionally, maybe they were brought up in an unloving way.
I have seen patients in my clinic who were brought up in an unloving way, their parents were judgemental and highly critical. One thing common in these patients is a lack of self-love and self-worth. The first step towards unconditional self-love is to forgive your caregivers, clear your heart from resentment and anger, and let go of your false negative beliefs which you developed as a child. Own yourself fully, even your mistakes and weaknesses with compassion, and accept that you are lovable. We all are work in progress, self-love makes it easy to acknowledge your weaknesses and work on them.
Challenge your negative false beliefs. Ask yourself why you think you are unlovable. Just because you make mistakes, have weaknesses, or lack some qualities, whatever the reason just go deep and your wounds will be healed. Stop beating yourself up for not feeling loved as a child, and forgive your close relations for not taking care of your needs when you were dependent on them, they are imperfect too. We as a living being can feel and we all deserve to feel loved.
Let me give you an example if a mom disowns her child, withholding love and care just because a child is flawed, and imperfect then how do you see that mom? You may label her as mean or cruel. After all, she should own her child. What if a mother demands other people to love her child and only then she will love the child? Sounds strange! Right. Why would people love the child if the child's mother doesn't consider her child worthy of her love? In the same way, why would people love you if you are not loving yourself first?
To be of service to others you have to serve yourself first. Like tree can't give fruits if you don't water it regularly, put fertilizers, and make adequate sunlight available. The same goes with humans, to love others you need to love yourself, and to help others you need to help yourself. Even machines need care and maintenance, they can't function for long without proper care.
Self-love doesn't make you sit all day, ignoring your responsibilities and taking care of yourself only, it makes you selfless, it's a balance between giving love to yourself and sharing it with others. Only those who are filled with love can share love with others. Loving action towards others can be done by people abundant in self-love, it makes you feel good, and you are affectionate towards others because you know you are capable of loving others.
Don't confuse self-love with narcissism. Self-love makes you self-sufficient, you do not need to get love from others, you are capable of filling your love reserves. You don't mask your true self to get love, you don't put the responsibility on others to take care of your needs, and you know people don't owe you anything. Narcissism may look like self-love but it is the absence of self-love, narcissists can't take care of their needs, they are not self-sufficient, they demand love from others, they dislike their true selves so they keep hiding it, they are people pleasers, they try to get people's approval even at the cost of sabotaging their true self, they live on love from others. They don't have unconditional self-love so they can't give love to others. They are their own worst critic so they are having difficulty accepting others as flawed human beings.
Self-love opens your heart and makes you more susceptible to give and receive love. It is good for your well-being. It makes you comfortable in your skin, helps you to achieve more, takes more risks, and lets you live your life to the fullest.
