What does it mean to learn to love yourself. How to learn to love yourself. Reverse action

Where to start or how to learn to love yourself is the first thing a new happy life begins with.Increased self-esteem. At the end of the article there is something to keep in mind for yourself.

Welcome friends to the site, today is about self-love. Loving yourself turns out to be not so easy at all; this article only gives directions on where to look and what you should pay attention to. Self-love is where any person needs to start. This is the beginning of relationships with people and in life itself and within the family.

Success or failure in life largely depends directly on how much we love ourselves; our internal state cannot be harmonious without accepting ourselves as real, and it is impossible to have a full-fledged development person's personality, without love and respect for yourself.

A simple example: a person’s self-esteem changes throughout life, at some point, for some of his actions or having learned to value himself, a person somewhere consciously, somewhere not, begins to think about quitting smoking (and he smoked all his life). Growing self-esteem begins to influence him, push him and help him in his actions. The opposite option, quitting smoking in order to gain self-respect, often does not give results.

But you really need to learn this, especially if you understand that you are not satisfied with your life, and here, first of all, you need to start with self-love. Many reasons influence our respect and love for ourselves and the world around us. One of these
, this is criticism directed at oneself and self-examination. After all, many simply engage in self-flagellation, scolding them for every little thing, blaming them for trifles, but in order to praise themselves, a lot of problems arise with this.

It seems to a person that if he had achieved something else, then he could say to himself “well done” and rejoice at it. But why prohibit yourself from enjoying yourself already? Now?

Many people realize that their feelings of self-pleasure, joy and enjoyment of life are hampered by shortcomings on which all attention is concentrated and, as a consequence, a lack of self-love.

Think for yourself where love will come from if your entire inner space is filled with self-criticism and self-analysis of dissatisfaction with yourself and not only with yourself, but also with those around you. If you are determined to search within yourself, you will only look for the bad in other people. Where then does trust, positivity and love, which are so important in relationships, come from?

So how to learn to love yourself, where to start

It is very important, having answered the question, to understand for yourself and as early as possible what is more profitable - to praise and support yourself internally or to scold and engage in self-flagellation? Do you feel good when you look for and actively nurture your shortcomings? Does this help you in life?

Many people love to look back at their past, looking for negative thoughts about themselves, which were often formed in childhood or appeared in adulthood. This negative experience of the past certainly puts pressure on a person and affects his present and future.

So should you contact him if you want another, more happy life? By the way, you can read about this and other things in the article ““. You need to accept the experience in order to use it in the future to avoid similar mistakes, but you cannot blame yourself for it.

Right from today stop looking back, what happened was. Get started gradually fill yourself and your life with something new - positive views, self-confidence and love. Love first of all for YOURSELF. Eat simple words things you need to tell yourself every day:

Great, I can do this, I’m not bad at it
I don't look bad at all, I just look great no matter what
What a great time I had with my friends yesterday, we had a good chat
It's cold and rainy outside, and now I'm drinking hot delicious coffee, - you need to learn to enjoy any little things and feel them well.

Look for other words of encouragement and support for yourself, find the pleasant little things in life, they are in everything, you just need to look closely. And stop when you catch yourself thinking, “I’m doing something wrong,” “there’s something bad with me,” get used to a different way of thinking, tell yourself, “everything is fine with me, everything is fine.” At first, such a thought will calm you down, and after a while it will give you pleasant emotions, joy, and along with them, the necessary energy.

Some may say, this is all clear, but it’s much more difficult to do - Yes, it’s more difficult to do, but very often a person is mistaken only in what he is looking for difficult decisions, he is tuned in to obstacles, it seems to him that any achievement is necessarily associated with many difficulties and problems, this is a delusion.

As long as you think so, We are sure of this, your life will be accompanied by numerous obstacles. Often everything is much simpler than it seems, and a lot is achieved simple solutions and actions, do not complicate life for yourself, it is not easy anyway. You found out something, decided, and just do it without straining yourself. It is very important not to make extra efforts, not to try, you just need to take it and do it.

This is a simple example: These are our actions, the actions of adults, they are not like the actions of a child. When an adult does something, he pursues some specific goal, all his actions are accompanied by the thought of the goal.

The child does not just pursue the goal itself, the child is primarily interested in the process itself, his actions are not accompanied by the thought of doing something complete, he is interested in the very pleasure that he receives in the process - this is what he needs to start from, without thinking about the final goals. It will be achieved, but without unnecessary hassle and difficulties. Good luck!

And in order to begin to deeply understand ourselves and solve our internal problems that so prevent us from loving ourselves, I recommend this article. There will be very important points about your attitude towards yourself and life in general.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

A person in this life may face various problems and difficulties, and he will be able to cope with most of them if he shows perseverance, perseverance, self-confidence and other strong qualities that exist in each of us. However, in order to manifest them, a person must rely primarily on himself in everything, and this is only possible if he loves himself. Loving yourself means taking care of yourself, being willing to do a lot for yourself, and accepting yourself for who you are, no matter how satisfied you are with yourself and how well your life is going. And, it would seem, for a person who is naturally selfish and narcissistic, such self-love is quite natural and there should be no problems with it. But as life shows, many people have these very problems, and they do not love themselves as they should. And because of this, they are often disliked by those around them. To solve these problems, I suggest you, dear readers, read this article. She will tell you about how to love yourself correctly, why you can and should love yourself, and how not to allow other people to deprive you of this love.

Self acceptance

Speaking about love, we must understand one very important thing that this feeling does not come out of nowhere, there are always reasons why people love someone, both themselves and other people. You can talk as much as you like about the fact that they love not for anything, but simply because this feeling is beyond our control and rushes over us, but this is just a way not to delve into the essence and meaning of love. We just don’t love ourselves or others, we do it very selectively. And speaking about self-love, we must understand what it must be based on in order to exist at all. One of these foundations is a person’s acceptance of himself, that is, his recognition of the fact that no matter who and what he is, he is alone and cannot climb into any other body. This is already enough to value yourself. And this is also a very significant reason for the emergence of full-fledged self-love. You must be able to deal with what you have, even if it is somehow bad, has some weaknesses, shortcomings, flaws. And people who don’t love themselves usually concentrate on these shortcomings and flaws, believing that they shouldn’t exist. They cannot accept them as part of their unique personality, which is why they do not accept themselves. They want to be perfect, both in their own eyes and in the eyes of other people. But nothing is perfect.

Therefore, it doesn’t matter what kind of person you are, because the most important thing for you is that you exist at all, that you live. Your life itself is a great value that should be valued above all else. And your life is inseparable from you, from your personality, because you are your own guide into this world, and the very opportunity to be part of this world, to live in it, to influence it is a very strong basis not only for self-love, but also for love for everything that is in this world. How can you not accept yourself, understanding this? This is only possible if this is not understood.

Accepting yourself means doing the inevitable. You have no other choice if you want to live in this world. You will have to deal with yourself, no matter how you look at it. The alternative is to simply not think about yourself and not solve this issue at all. And he's not the best. You can concentrate on your shortcomings, weaknesses, complain about life, feel sorry for yourself and do other meaningless things, but why, for what, what is the point of this? It's like fighting windmills, no matter how much you scold yourself or feel sorry for yourself, you won't change. Change is possible only if a person fully accepts himself, with all his strengths and weaknesses, and begins to develop what he has in his person. That's why I say that one way or another, if a person wants to live with comfort in his soul, he will have to accept himself. You can't deny yourself all the time, it can drive you crazy. Accepting yourself means coming to terms with yourself, with who you are. But then you can mold yourself into whatever you want, like out of plasticine. While a person lives, he can change a lot.

By accepting oneself, a person gets a great opportunity to make himself better. I am who I am, but I want to become the best I can be. I’m not talking about the fact that life has deprived me, that I have an unhappy fate, that other people were luckier and other nonsense, this makes no sense. Therefore, I accept myself, with all my advantages and disadvantages, and I will work on myself, I will develop myself in the directions I need, in order to become better, in order to prove to myself and, if necessary, to others, that no matter who you were born, thanks to your With will and perseverance you can achieve a lot, you can surpass yourself and others. It sounds strong, you agree. And so life position meets both the material and idealistic interests of man.

It is possible to approach this issue without these goals. You don't have to prove anything to anyone. You don’t even need to strive for something significant. A person can simply enjoy life, being grateful for having it at all. In this case, he accepts himself because he values life, whatever it may be. This can be difficult because people are designed in such a way that no matter what they have, they always want more. This often prevents them from coming to terms with themselves; they want more, including from themselves. But this is a false feeling of dissatisfaction; it is a kind of game in which a person always needs to strive for something. You can play it or not, it's up to you to decide. There is no right option here, there are just options. You can puff along all your life, proving something to yourself and others, absorbing more and more new spaces and resources, or you can simply live, being satisfied with what is necessary. But there is one thing that prevents you from giving up this game, this desire for more and better, to the detriment of your mental comfort. We will talk about it below.

Comparing yourself with others

It is very difficult for a person to love himself if he constantly compares himself with others, even if this comparison is in his favor. Because in this case, he pays too much attention to other people, some of whom will always be worse in some ways, and others better than him in some ways. It is impossible to be the best at everything, no matter who you are. Therefore, it is more useful to focus on the characteristics of your personality in order to understand how best to use your abilities to improve the quality of your life. And by paying a lot of attention to other people, we automatically make them important to us, even if we are superior to them in some way. And since they are important, that means they are valuable and deserve attention, and we give it to them, to the detriment of attention to ourselves. This is a very subtle psychological moment. There is a difference between self-care and comparing yourself to others. By taking care of ourselves, we think only about ourselves, thus giving importance to our person. But comparing ourselves to others forces us to spend our attention on those others. Why on earth should we do this? To love yourself you need to think about yourself, and not about others.

Comparing oneself with others can be useful because it motivates a person to develop. After all, when we see that we are inferior to someone in something, then we have a desire to become better, more perfect, in order to surpass these people. But in order to spur yourself to develop like this, you need to have a fighting character, and not everyone has that kind of character. For it to be like this, it needs to be developed in this direction. In reality, the opposite is more often the case; many people have a weak, soft and compliant character. Therefore, when faced with something superior to them in some way, they begin to develop complexes and may become depressed, apathetic, and not motivated to develop. What kind of self-love, what kind of self-acceptance can there be? The other one is better, more perfect, more interesting, so you need to love him, and not yourself. This is what happens most often. Therefore, comparing yourself with someone is harmful. Instead, it is better to compare your current self with your future self and strive for a more perfect version of yourself.

In order to form such an attitude towards life, when you will come first in it, and not someone else who is worse or better than you, you must first understand why we generally tend to compare ourselves with someone. After all, willy-nilly, we all constantly make such a comparison, because, firstly, we want to be better than others, this is our innate need that meets the goals of evolution, which forces us to fight, compete, vie with each other for the right to have some then benefits, a high position in society, and for life itself. There is no such niche in the human world, and even in wildlife too, where there would be no struggle and competition. That is why we compare ourselves with others in order to understand in what ways we are inferior to them and in what ways we are superior to them. And having understood this, decide on your ambitions. After all, when laying claim to something, we must understand to what extent our capabilities allow us to fight other people for it.

Secondly, our comparison of ourselves with others is also important for us because we want to be accepted by the society in which we live. We want to have high value in the eyes of other people, we want them to need us, so that they need us. After all, this significantly increases our chances of survival, and we subconsciously understand this. If you are needed, you will be treated well, and if you are not needed, then no one will care about you. Therefore, we must be better, not worse, than others. People value those who are better than the majority, who stand out from the general gray mass, because this means that the person is special, more, let’s say, adapted to life, from whom you can learn something or some other benefit from him get. We are always drawn to people who are useful, valuable, and beneficial to us; this meets our selfish interests. And that’s why we ourselves want to be valuable and special in the eyes of others. And for this you need to be better than them, you need to surpass those around you in what is important to them. But it's not that easy to do. That is why we often cannot accept ourselves as we are, because we see that we are inferior to someone in some way. And if we are worse than someone else in something, then how can we put up with this, how can we accept and, even more so, love ourselves if we are bad in something? After all, you yourself don’t love those who are far from the best in some areas; you love winners, not losers. We humans want to love only the best and perfect. That is why those who are superior to us in some way can be more important to us than themselves. Absurd, of course, but many of us look at life this way.

Understanding all this, you will be able to understand what I wrote above when I invited you to think about yourself and compare your current self with your future self. This proposal does not contradict your desires to be needed, valuable, better for yourself and others, it also meets your desire to be accepted by society, a certain group or specific people. And at the same time, it helps you love yourself, accepting all your strengths and weaknesses. You are also working on the best version yourself, just not comparing yourself to others, but dreaming of yourself as better and striving for perfection. And other people, they are on their own, you don’t need to think about them as an irritant that encourages you to develop. Some of them will be inferior to you in something, temporarily or permanently, some will be superior to you in something, this is inevitable. This shouldn't bother you. You are who you are and if you want to become a better person, then accept who you are and work on what you have accepted.

In my practice, there were many young people who treated themselves poorly or even very badly, because they were inferior to someone in something and this did not give them peace. They considered someone smarter than themselves, someone more beautiful, someone more successful, and so on. But when I asked them about what is good about themselves, what is their advantage over others, they did not know what to answer. It seemed to them that there was nothing in them that they could consider their dignity, although each of them was interesting in some way and good at something. Even if a person is too young and doesn’t have much to boast about, he still has some promising qualities, and if he focuses on them, and not on his own shortcomings and the merits of other people, he will be able to achieve a lot in life.

Self-love is working with what you initially have, and not worrying about what you don’t have. Love is joy, peace, so in order for it to arise, you need to look for the good in yourself, forgetting about the bad. What a person concentrates on determines his attitude towards himself. Our shortcomings, of course, need to be corrected. But if this is difficult to do, if they suppress a person, then it is better to start by developing your strengths, focusing on them. Then a movement forward will begin, which will gradually increase, and then the person will be able to feel calmer about his shortcomings and correct them more confidently. And in an even greater perspective, he will be able to use comparison of himself with others as an incentive for development, acquiring the very fighting character that is necessary for this.

Criticism of others

The next thing that prevents a person from loving himself is the criticism of others. Other people can significantly worsen our opinion of ourselves by persistently proving to us that we are very bad at something. Actually, the comparison of ourselves with others described above may also be partly the result of someone’s influence on us. Many of us were compared to other children as children, even unfavorably, instead of pointing out our uniqueness and helping us develop our strengths. What uniqueness is there, what other strengths are there? It’s easier to build everyone along the same line and measure them with one ruler, and if you’re not what you should be, then something is wrong with you. A clumsy approach to working with people, especially children, but who thinks about it.

Therefore, if the same parents or teachers did not like us in some way, they will criticize us and compare us with others, saying that this other child is good, correct, but we are not. For a person, especially a child, this attitude of others towards him is certainly harmful, but these others may not be bothered by this fact at all. They pursue their own interests when they make claims against others, so they are ready to humiliate us in our own eyes without any regret. There is no question of constructive criticism in such cases. Neither in childhood nor in adulthood. Who needs objectivity when your interests are at stake, no matter what they are? Few are ready to stand in the way of their egoism for the sake of truth. Therefore, criticism in many cases is destructive and prevents people from loving themselves, especially those who rely too much on the opinions of others. A painful attitude towards it is formed in childhood, when a person is very susceptible to dissatisfaction with himself by the people around him, because due to his underdevelopment he is largely dependent on them. An adult who does not have similar childhood traumas or has successfully cured them takes criticism more calmly. He understands that some people will always be dissatisfied with something, there will always be something that doesn’t suit them, and he himself is not so perfect as not to make mistakes for which he can really be criticized. Criticism of others is an inevitable companion of any more or less active person living in a society of people. No matter what he does, there will always be a reason to criticize his activities. Yes, even if you are obscenely passive and do nothing at all, someone will still start criticizing you for this passivity, because someone will not like it. So you can avoid criticism only if you completely isolate yourself from people. But such isolation will hit your self-esteem much harder than any criticism.

We are social creatures, it is very difficult for us to live without people. We endure loneliness painfully, unless we are accustomed to it. And it’s difficult to get used to this. Therefore, we want to receive attention to ourselves, we want to be loved, respected, praised, appreciated, and not scolded and criticized, and even worse, rejected and ignored. Therefore, we strive to please people because we need them. And it’s better to be criticized than to be rejected and not noticed. But to love oneself, a person needs to have a philosophical attitude towards criticism, understanding the reasons for its occurrence.

There are few such reasons and all of them are in one way or another connected with the selfish interests of people for whom, as I have already said, what is important is not some kind of truth, truth, objectivity, but personal gain. Therefore, you need to understand that, firstly, it is impossible to please everyone, because people are too different and their interests are also individual. You meet someone's interests, but you are inconvenient for someone, you interfere with someone, so with their criticism they will try to somehow limit you, lead you astray from your chosen path, force you to abandon your goals, desires, ambitions. Well, it’s impossible to please everyone, and in everything, and always. This is what you need to understand first.

Secondly, to be respected and accepted by people, you don’t have to like them. People are selfish by nature and instinctively seek benefits in everything that surrounds them. Therefore, for some of them it is enough to simply be useful, necessary, even necessary, so that they accept you or, in some cases, tolerate you. We all have to tolerate those we need, even if there is something about them that doesn’t suit us. For example, you don’t like a certain doctor because he is rude, ugly, and may have a number of qualities that are negative from your point of view, but at the same time he good specialist, he treats you, he really helps you, and you need him. And you have to accept him as he is in order to get what you need from him. Your criticism of him [if you allow yourself to do so] will not bother him if he sees and understands that you need him. He knows his worth. That’s how people need you, even if they don’t like you and they criticize you. And since they need you, since they value you, communicate with you, cannot refuse you, then for them there is more good in you than bad. Well, then why worry about their criticism, you know that no one is perfect, including you, and that some people will always be unhappy with everything. People simply haven’t learned to accept the imperfections of this world, haven’t learned to put up with it, and that’s why they express their dissatisfaction. Try to be useful to people, if possible, make them dependent on yourself in some way, then they will value you, will be forced to tolerate some of your shortcomings and may even, for fear of losing your favorable attitude towards them, refuse to criticize you. address. A person's value to others is determined by his usefulness. Valuable people can be forgiven a lot. You don't have to become like this to love yourself, just be aware of the possibility that someone will try to belittle you in your eyes with their criticism.

Thirdly, criticism is not constant, even if it comes from the same person. Today he criticizes you, and tomorrow he may begin to praise you, and the day after tomorrow he will criticize you again. Is it clear why? Because at one time you suit it, and at another you don’t. Roughly speaking, today you did something good for him, he received some benefit thanks to you and therefore he is happy with you, he is interested in you, so why shouldn’t he praise you. And tomorrow, having not received what he wants from you, he will begin to criticize you. What kind of objectivity, what kind of consistency can there be here? One should proceed from an understanding of this pattern in people’s behavior when pursuing their own interests. You don't have to please everyone all the time. You need to achieve your goals by trying to please to the right people at the right time and ignoring criticism that is useless to you. And for such a calculation you will definitely love yourself. Self-love is closer to selfishness rather than altruism. Be practical when responding to people's criticism, paying attention to it only when it makes sense.

As for constructive criticism, one must learn to accept it calmly, for which a person must set himself up for constant growth and development, accepting, as said above, his imperfection. Only by wanting to become better can you calmly and with interest look for flaws in yourself, including with the help of other people’s eyes. Without this desire, even the most useful criticism will be barbed. You see, friends, human psychology is a very delicate instrument that can be easily damaged. Many people try very hard to succeed at something, they work tirelessly, work hard on their shortcomings and expect that others will appreciate it. But they will inevitably make mistakes, big and small, because in this world they cannot be avoided. And if you poke your nose at these people, you can dampen their enthusiasm, knock them out of a creative mood, and clip their wings. Yes, such criticism will be constructive and justified in form, but destructive in its consequences and therefore meaningless. It’s easy to criticize, but it’s much more difficult to repeat what the person you criticize does, at least repeat it, not to mention surpass him in this matter. Criticism is necessary, but you need to grow into it, both the critic, so as not to ruin people’s enthusiasm with his painful comments, and the criticized, in order to grow with the help of criticism, both constructive and destructive.

People, if you have noticed, constantly criticize each other, for a variety of reasons, I don’t even want to name them, so as not to deviate from the main idea. Another thing to remember is that criticism cannot be avoided. She'll get you somewhere anyway. Whether you are right or wrong, whether you did something well or badly, someone will still criticize you. So if you find it difficult to accept, don't accept it. Give her a reasonable explanation that shows the selfish position of the critic in order to understand his main motives. There is nothing special about them, they simply reflect the eternal dissatisfaction of people with everyone and everything. And then any criticism will no longer be so traumatic for you that it will prevent you from loving yourself.

Unmet needs

Unmet needs are the main reason a person doesn’t love himself. The reasons mentioned above are always related to it in one way or another. And accepting oneself, and comparing oneself with other people and attitude to criticism from others, all these things have to do with our needs and ways of satisfying them. Our needs are the force that drives us. Without them, we would not live at all, at least as people who do something and strive for something. Therefore, there is something in this world that we all, without exception, need in order to live and feel good. For example, we all need to eat, have some kind of roof over our heads, rest, have a partner, and so on. When a person succeeds in obtaining all this, he will inevitably have a good opinion of himself. His self-esteem will be high and he will have good reasons to love himself. Well, how can a winner not love himself? And a person who regularly achieves success, and not just in anything, but in what is really important to him and his life, is a real winner. He knows how to take care of himself and loves himself for it. And by loving himself, he takes care of himself even more and better. This is the relationship.

Let's now think about who wins most often and when in our world? Who is best able to satisfy their needs, both basic and sublime? These are definitely strong people. What is their strength? Naturally, in intelligence. The power of the intellect is the most powerful force in the world. The smarter a creature is, the better adapted it is to this world, and therefore more often succeeds in matters related to satisfying its needs. Therefore, in order to successfully satisfy your needs and love yourself for it, you need to study everything that gives strength, that is, develop your intellect in the best direction. And what gives us strength, the study of what things? If you look at what the most powerful people know, who have a lot of power, have a lot of resources and great opportunities, then I would say that their most important knowledge is the knowledge of how to manage people. You can master different crafts in order to skillfully handle matter, or you can learn to influence people who will transform matter in the way we need. The second one is much more profitable. Because power over people, in whatever form, is often more rewarding than any other skill. The various artisans are not as powerful as the various managers. It is in this direction, as I believe, that you need to develop your intellect in order to become stronger and have good opportunities to satisfy all your needs.

Elite education [not to be confused with elite], that is, not just quality education, and education for the elite, inaccessible to everyone, is precisely aimed at developing primarily the skills of managing people. It can also be people skills, communication skills. With their help you can achieve a lot in this life. You may be illiterate in some other matters, for example, have poor knowledge of the language, have absolutely no knowledge of various exact sciences, but if you know how to manage people, influence them in the right way, communicate effectively with them, encourage them to take the actions you need, then you will have power over them, not they over you. And even without this power, you can get a lot from them, knowing how to behave with them, what to tell them, how to speak so that they listen to you and obey you. People are the most valuable resource that you need to know how to manage. And a real leader, and a leader is definitely strong man, this is not the one who knows everything and can do everything, this is the one who knows how to manage those who know a lot and can do a lot. If we dig deeper, we can say that in order to gain power over other people, a person must first gain power over himself in order to learn to control himself and direct himself in the right direction. But we don’t need such depth now; it’s enough that you already know in which direction you need to move in order to become someone you can and want to love.

Understanding human needs and the ability to manage them is the simplest key to them. When I work with people I teach to love themselves, I always focus on their needs and help them develop the skills necessary to meet those needs. Each person has a different situation, both in terms of what they currently need and in terms of what they can do to get it. For example, if in front of me there is a young man with low self-esteem, and I have had many such clients, who is very unsure of himself and perhaps he has even attempted suicide, then I look at what he lacks in his life, what he is currently the moment is most needed, from what he should receive, and not what he wants. This may be the need for relationships with the opposite sex, or the need for recognition and respect from loved ones, or the need for parental love and understanding, or the need for friends and some other needs that are not properly satisfied. Some of them should be the most important, satisfying which he will feel much better. Until he has what he needs at the moment, he will not love himself. He is weak and sees it, so he feels bad. He is not adapted to life in the right way, so he cannot take from it what he needs. He needs the first successful steps, with the help of which he can win his first victories, achieve success, albeit not great, but important for his self-esteem, and feel his strength, for which he can respect and love himself. For each person, it is necessary to create an individual recipe for development. But you now know the general direction in which you need to move.

I have long noticed that the ability to interact competently and profitably with others is most often the first and main thing you need to learn in order to become stronger and receive great satisfaction from life. Without competent interaction with other people, a person will not be able to satisfy many of his needs, including the very need for communication. At the same time, it is not necessary to have any obvious power over people or influence them so that they do everything for you, as if you had hypnotized them. It is enough just to receive useful feedback from them, in most cases also giving them something in return. Success in relationships with people is the key to success in many other matters that allow a person to satisfy many of his needs.

As you can see, in order to love himself, a person needs to solve a number of problems related to his attitude towards himself and his relationships with other people. It’s just that, as I said at the very beginning, we don’t love anyone, not even ourselves. We need reasons that will prove to us that we deserve this love. Although it is enough for you to love yourself that you simply exist, this is already a great joy. Having life, we have the minimum necessary to feel happiness. This minimum only seems to be a minimum, but in fact it is a great gift - life. But few people are satisfied with this gift; we need more, not only life, but also a lot from life in order to treat ourselves well and, even more so, to love ourselves. We need victories, successes, achievements, and in those matters that are really important to us. Without these victories, a person will not be satisfied with himself and will not see sufficient grounds for the emergence of such a great feeling as love. We may not understand it and, in some cases, not admit it, but we constantly think about whether we are worthy of our love or not. We want to earn this feeling so that it is real in our eyes. Therefore, we try to get the return we need from outside world, in the form of various achievements and opinions of other people. This is probably right, it makes sense. When you grow, become better, stronger, you receive a reward in the form of this very love. This motivates you to even greater achievements. So develop, become stronger, achieve success in matters that are important to you, and you will have something to love yourself for. Prove to yourself that you are worthy of this feeling, that you are capable of experiencing and accepting it. Love should not be blind, it should be given to those who deserve it in order to have the status of the most valuable feeling in this world. Loving an unworthy person, even if that person is you, means devaluing love, turning it into a disease rather than a cure. Therefore, it is useful to achieve your love by working on yourself, developing yourself, so that later you know that you have loved yourself with real, honest and sincere love, which is worth cherishing.

And by loving himself, a person will learn to achieve his goals even better, because he will receive good motivation in the form of a powerful and great feeling that can work miracles. Love gives strength, with its help a person can do things that require great dedication and energy. And most importantly, people who love themselves can give fabulous love to those around them. After all, when a person loves himself, he feels happy, he is satisfied with everything and it is easier for him to love others, because he is strong enough to share love with others. And the more healthy, sincere love a person gives, the happier he becomes.

Hi all! Do you want to be happy? What is included in this concept, how is it to live harmoniously? A person has basic needs, without which he will experience emotional emptiness. The need for love and recognition is the third basic need that is important for a person. When a person accepts himself, others take him into account. But what if a person has low self-esteem and cannot position himself on an equal footing with those around him? In this article we will find secrets on how to love yourself and begin to respect yourself, and we will also see practical recommendations on how to live in harmony with yourself.

There are extremes in the development of personal self-esteem, when a person “stars” and engages in “self-criticism.” Both options are bad, since inadequately high and low self-esteem becomes the cause of difficulties in communication and building long-term interpersonal relationships. So be sure to learn from our last article and apply these tips.

Women and men have “weak spots” where they do not always feel confident. For the female half, the “weak point” is her appearance, for the man - his achievements in life. In these and some other areas, people are most vulnerable. If a person does not value himself, does not respect and does not set boundaries, it is difficult for others to appreciate him.

When experiencing insecurity, it is common for a person to blame other people for the emotional pain that he experiences. As a result of such internal experiences, he becomes depressed, angry, and withdraws from communication with others. But all this may not happen if he begins to change his attitude towards himself in time.

What does it mean to love yourself? Many psychologists have studied this issue and determined that loving yourself means accepting yourself. Accept who you are, forgive yourself for the mistakes you have made, treat yourself positively. There is a lot of literature that talks about self-acceptance. Even the Bible says that a person should love his neighbors as himself. That is, the basis of good relationships with others is self-acceptance.

It is important to understand that self-love is not selfishness, it is acceptance of all one’s strengths and weaknesses, right attitude to them. If a person uses others for his own interests, violates their rights and manipulates, this is selfishness. A person with adequate self-esteem and normal values will not do this.

The consequences of not loving yourself

When a person does not accept himself and his appearance, he develops complexes. This could be fear of people, an inferiority complex, guilt, negativism and other bad psychological phenomena. As a result, he suffers internally, the people around him and the areas of his life suffer.

The consequences of such an attitude towards oneself can be the following problems:

Bitchiness - in constant nervous tension, a person begins to defend himself, this quality is especially manifested in women. Trying to hide their weakness, women “attack”: they begin to manipulate men, satisfying only their needs. This is a utopia, since they will not be able to build close and long-term relationships by playing the role of a bitch.
Victim is another defensive position. When they are afraid to express themselves, people sacrifice themselves in order to be noticed and loved. The danger of such behavior is dependence on another person. The result is a feeling of rejection, loss and despair. Relationships on this basis can reach hysterics when problems arise.
Relationship breakdowns and failures. Those who have not accepted and forgiven themselves will experience problems in building relationships and difficulties in their work.

Unfortunately, an insecure person who does not accept himself will not be able to.

Tests

Let's say you realized that something is wrong with your self-esteem. What to do next?

In psychology, there are many methods that allow you to determine the level of self-esteem and self-acceptance. These are scientific, experimentally proven, and popular science methods for determining the basic inclinations of a person.

“How much do I love myself” - by answering 36 questions, you will see your attitude towards yourself;
“Self-love: what is your level of self-esteem” - shows how much you value yourself;
“Self-love” is an indicative test for determining your attitude towards yourself;
The “Do I Love Myself” test is an informative popular scientific method for displaying self-acceptance;
“How do you rate yourself?” – a professional test showing the depths of your subconscious;
The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale is a professional technique that shows how a person feels and imagines himself.

After passing one or more tests, you have identified your problem. But tests do not provide an opportunity to improve and increase self-esteem. They are like an indicator that allows you to observe yourself from the outside, to pay attention to your behavior or character traits.

Accepting yourself means adequately perceiving your internal and external qualities. Changing a personality is a long and laborious process, provided that she herself desires it. Below is a selection of rules that will help you change on your own, love yourself and your body (if, in your opinion, the problem is physical disabilities).

We struggle with dependence on other people's assessments

The vast majority perceive themselves as dictated by others. This attitude begins from the school bench, where the teacher’s assessment is unshakable and indestructible: whatever level of knowledge the teacher sees is what it is. Such value judgments continue to influence us as adults.

Dependence on the assessments of others constantly feeds a person; he always strives for approval; if it is not there, the level of self-esteem decreases.

Try to fight this addiction: speak your opinion, even if it is wrong, do not believe what is said about you in a negative way if you do not agree.

Try to laugh at yourself more often

Humor helps you survive in the most difficult situations. By translating everything into humor, you change the perception of the world. The ability to laugh at your own mistakes is an art that not everyone can do. Scientists have proven that 5 minutes of sincere laughter prolongs life by 1 minute. If you laugh more often, life becomes brighter and longer, according to research and the minds of our contemporaries.

Be positive. Positive thinking. Try to turn even the most unpleasant situations into a joke. There is a story in which a girl “played for joy” - she found something to be happy about even in the most absurd situations, when she broke her leg or was rejected by relatives. This game really works! Look for reasons to rejoice in everything!

Don't talk bad about yourself in front of others

Every person has the right to make mistakes, but if you tell others mainly your shortcomings, they will believe that these are your main qualities. But along with the disadvantages, each has a huge number of advantages. Every person deserves respect and love. When you find it difficult, convince yourself of this. Notice yours positive traits not for the purpose of boasting, but with the aim of using them for good.

Stop others from dictating how to live your life.

To live in harmony with yourself and the world around you, it is important to set your boundaries. What is acceptable for others may be impossible or disgusting for you. What is bad for others may be great for you. We are all different, so don't let others dictate how to live, what to be, what to do.

The constant desire to please someone, to adapt to someone’s values robs you of your golden time of self-realization. When you adapt to the demands of others, you are not living your life. We need to listen to advice and reject directives.

Control over emotions

If you don't, they will get the best of you. At one point, unrestrained anger, resentment, and malice can greatly compromise you. Intemperate behavior entails loss of self-esteem and respect from others.

Take responsibility for your actions and life

Self-esteem is made up of many components, but it's never too late to take responsibility for your life. If you take small steps towards your dreams, you will see that you have achieved a lot. Start small: take responsibility for going to bed early and waking up early, take responsibility for drinking more water, no overeating and so on.

Engage in self-development

It's always useful. Trainings, motivational programs, motivational books will benefit you for a long time. Communication with smart people who can teach you something will enrich you spiritually. If a person does not develop, he degrades.

Trainings and courses, for example “Brain Detoxification,” will help you “rewire” your brain and tune in to self-esteem and normal self-esteem. After completing this course, you will learn to get rid of excessive stress, manage emotions and attention, notice new things and concentrate on what is important.

Exercises

To learn to love yourself and live in harmony with yourself and others, take small steps towards positivity. Here are the exercises for every day:

Write on a piece of paper what positive character traits or abilities you have. Then analyze which positive aspects you are strongest in, which ones still need to be developed, and what sets you apart from others.
Write on a piece of paper what the biggest difficulties you faced and how you managed to overcome them. Think about these situations, remember your emotions. You should respect yourself for this!
Think about all the goals you have achieved.
Think, write down the shortcomings and weaknesses that you have overcome.
If you have a choice: buy several things or one good one, buy one good one. You will feel more confident in this thing.
Try to devote time to your health every day. Start exercising, drink more water, eat right.
When you see yourself in the mirror in the morning, smile and wish you a good day.
Be kinder. As you know, kindness will save the world. Don't judge others, you don't know what they went through. Throughout the day, try to drive away judgmental thoughts from yourself.
Write down the phrase “if I loved myself, I ...” on a piece of paper and continue with 10 points.
Write down 10 disadvantages and rephrase them into advantages, for example: “I am a spender” to “I am generous.” You need to choose only those qualities or features of appearance that interfere with your life. If we are talking about physical disabilities, it can look like this: “I have big ears” to “I have beautiful medium-sized ears that allow me to be special and hear well.”
Allow yourself to relax sometimes. Having a cake once a week, a relaxing bath with candles, and wearing your favorite dress for no occasion help relieve stress and feel like a living, confident person.
Think positively, because these are healing emotions that help you learn to enjoy every day. Someone said: if today I stood on two legs, slept under a roof on a bed, had one change of clothes and was not hungry, then I am one of the few rich people on earth.
You need to get used to enjoying the little things: noticing the movements of beautiful leaves on the branches, listening to birds singing, enjoying your successes, getting up after failures and moving on. Take responsibility for enjoying life. And stop comparing yourself to others. It is known that there are no completely identical people on earth; we are all different. Even twins are different.
Comparison with others destroys joy and contentment in life, depresses confidence and self-acceptance. A person tends to compare himself not with those who live or look worse, but with people who are more successful in social status or achievements. This is what prevents you from rejoicing.
Shift the focus: if you are comparing yourself, take as a basis people with disabilities - those who, by a terrible accident, have lost everything, lost their loved ones, and live in worse conditions. Appreciate what you have. You only have one life to live, and there is no time for grumbling. Spend your time doing something worthwhile. The best remedy enjoy life - help those in need.

Conclusion

So, how to love yourself, begin to respect and live in harmony with yourself? The recipes are simple:

Take responsibility for your thoughts, actions and life.
Try to think positively, look for a reason to laugh even where it’s not funny.
From the very morning, tune in to positive emotions, emphasize your strengths for yourself, and paraphrase your shortcomings.
Learn to respect yourself, do not allow yourself to be humiliated, ridiculed, build personal boundaries.
Don't pay attention to the opinions of others.

Psychological tests to determine your level of self-esteem will help you understand yourself. If necessary, seek help from a professional to help you accept yourself. I wish you success!

Sincerely, Lyudmila Redkina

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Hello! In this article we will talk about how to love yourself. Advice from our psychologists will help you accept yourself as you are and increase your self-esteem.

We can try to please others, look good in the eyes of others, do good deeds, do charity work, remain calm, and handle difficult situations well. And many other useful things in life... But we can become truly happy and successful only when we begin to like ourselves and are satisfied with ourselves. Self-doubt, low self-esteem, anxiety, suspiciousness, and susceptibility to depression are consequences of self-dislike, which clearly interfere with living a full life. If you are asking yourself the main question of today’s topic, then you are already taking the first step in this direction, and the recommendations below will help you.

It turns out that learning to live in harmony with oneself is not such a rare problem. Unfortunately, it is complicated by the fact that self-dislike may not be realized; sometimes this requires effort. In most cases, the roots of this phenomenon go back to deep childhood and from then on influence our worldview and behavior. There are, of course, other reasons.

Reasons for not loving yourself

Education based on orders and suppression of initiative.

If a child is regularly exposed to excessive criticism and reproaches, and at the same time he receives little affection and warmth from his parents, then an image of himself is formed in his mind as unworthy of love, attention and success.

The other extreme of parenting - overprotection - also does not have the best effect on instilling self-love. When a child is overprotected and is not allowed to act independently, then, growing up, he understands that he does not have enough skills, abilities, and courage. And this inevitably leads to self-doubt and decreased self-esteem.

Committing actions that caused criticism from others, or for which you condemn yourself.

It happens that we do something contrary to our ideals and beliefs, “out of stupidity,” without thinking. Or a reassessment of values may occur, and we begin to repent of what we have done. Not everyone copes easily with this depressing state. Some even stop loving themselves altogether.

Inconsistency with the ideal self-image.

If we strive for the ideal we have created, but do not achieve it (in appearance, personal qualities, behavior), then we feel dissatisfied with ourselves. The reason may also be a discrepancy with the expectations of others or the image imposed by means mass media. As a result, we do not accept ourselves as we are, and all the time we set ourselves an unattainable bar.

Facing failure.

Unpleasant events in our personal and professional lives can affect our perception of ourselves. Parting with a loved one, feelings of guilt, relationships with friends and colleagues, and lack of career success often affect self-esteem. Especially if we are used to treating ourselves through the prism of achievements.

Self-love: its features and origins

It is worth understanding the essence of the concept and how self-love is formed.

Self-love is, first of all, understanding and accepting yourself I:

We know what we want in life, we know how to dream and make plans.
We have goals to which we are faithful and from which we try not to deviate.
We are aware of our strengths and weak sides, we accept ourselves as we are.
If we understand that certain qualities interfere with life, then we work on ourselves and try to change them (without fanaticism, of course).

But even if we change something undesirable in our personality, we still continue to respect ourselves and praise ourselves for the slightest changes in our personality. positive side. After all, we have a core, a foundation, many strong qualities for which we are worth loving ourselves!

Love is born in actions and manifests itself in actions.

Self-love is born through the actions of parents. They take care of the baby, communicate with him, smile, play, give their warmth and love, guide him and set life guidelines in order to form a mature personality in him. The child perceives these signals, feels love and support from the parents, develops self-confidence and the attitude: “I can”, “I can handle it”, “I am worthy”, etc. Without being afraid to act, we learn to accept more effectively decisions, take responsibility, follow the goal. And this is always an additional reason to respect yourself.

When we love ourselves, we act.

We don’t waste time worrying about “what’s wrong with me?” or “I can’t achieve this.” Of course, this does not mean that people who love and respect themselves do not have moments of blues and anxiety. We are all alive and have the right to experience different emotions. But there are 3 key differences.

Firstly, when we love ourselves, we always remember our main goals and will follow them, despite life’s difficulties.
Secondly, we will not allow ourselves to be drawn into these melancholic moments and will find a way to get ourselves into shape.
Thirdly, our habit of action will not take long to take place, and we will begin to look for a way out of the current situation. And we will definitely find him!

The difference between self-love and selfishness, narcissism, narcissism

Self-love is internal self-satisfaction, self-respect, understanding and acceptance of oneself. The one who loves himself treats other people with respect, does not consider them higher or lower than himself, and communicates as equals.

Self-love is not selfishness. The main difference is that a person who loves himself (not an egoist) is able to equally take care of himself and those around him, while an egoist puts his own interests above others and considers his own person to be extremely important. He often does not take people's needs into account at all.

Narcissism and narcissism are usually used interchangeably and mean an extreme degree of selfishness. These qualities are possessed by people with high self-esteem, who believe that only they deserve true attention and attract it to themselves by any means. Narcissistic individuals consider everyone else inferior to themselves. They are not sensitive or responsive to other people's problems.

Others are drawn to people who love themselves (and show interest in others). And self-deprecation, selfishness and narcissism in most cases are repulsive.

Why is it important to love yourself?

Dislike for oneself leads to the accumulation of various negative feelings, the most destructive of which are... We envy those who are better than us (we think), who have achieved something more than us, and this is very depressing. We are jealous of someone close to those they like (more than we are, as it seems again). We suffer because we are not as good as we would like. And unfortunately, these negative experiences most often remain at the level of emotions and thoughts and do not turn into actions to change the situation.
A person who does not love himself (and, therefore, does not understand and does not accept), is turned to his inner world, he always wants to understand, study, discover something about himself. He is constantly searching for himself. Therefore, he has no time for others. Such people close themselves off from the outside world and from communication with others. And when we love and understand ourselves, we are more open to contacts with the world, other people are interesting to us, we study them.
Loving ourselves and others makes us kinder. When we like ourselves, we are generally more satisfied with life and experience positive emotions. We feel the strength and desire to help others.
To be liked by others, you must accept and love yourself. If we do not learn to do this, we will not be able to attract the attention of other people, communicate successfully and make new acquaintances.

When we don't love ourselves, we don't allow others to love themselves.

Our self-confidence and self-confidence directly depend on self-love. Self-esteem promotes an adequate assessment of oneself and one's own capabilities.
When we love ourselves, we take better care of ourselves: we take care of our appearance, allocate enough time for relaxation and hobbies, and try to protect ourselves from stress, emotional and physical overload. Of course, this attitude towards yourself helps to maintain health.
Self-love makes us braver. This makes it easier for us to stand up for ourselves and others, declare our interests, not allow anyone to “sit on our necks,” take risks for the sake of a worthwhile cause (after all, we are confident in ourselves!)
Self-love makes us stronger. We cope better with difficult situations and overcome stress, gain experience and become wiser.
In the family, we are also more successful if we like ourselves. For example, if a woman is satisfied with herself and values herself, then she looks good, shines, creates comfort and good mood for her loved ones, and takes care of them. Thus, she attracts the attention of her husband and is in good contact with the children. Even just this should make you love yourself.
Self-love protects us from various “stupidities” and bad deeds. And the more it is, the less prone we are to unjustified risk to life, addictions, self-harm, etc.
By loving and understanding ourselves, we know what we want in life, realize our needs and make plans for the future.
Self-respect and adequate self-esteem always contribute to the fact that we can praise ourselves for our achievements and demonstrated strong qualities and are not afraid to admit to ourselves our own weaknesses. And this is very important for personal development.

The psychologist's advice below will help you think and act in the right direction and solve the question of how to love yourself and increase self-esteem.

How to please yourself: let's start taking action

To start, just smile! Right now. Let's! Do this without a mirror (this will make your smile more sincere). Feel which muscles tense slightly, imagine what your eyes look like. Sincere joy always manifests itself in them. You need to learn to smile with your eyes. This way, both yourself and others will like you more. Subsequently, you can practice in front of the mirror, choosing the most attractive smile in your opinion. Do this regularly. After all, by smiling, we activate the centers in the brain that are responsible for the feeling of happiness. And if we begin to feel something, it means that it is already present in our life.
Take 10 seconds to remember one of your positive traits that helped you achieve success.. Most likely, at that moment you felt good and were pleased with yourself. Reconnect with those emotions and feel the joy. If it worked then, it means it will work in the future, because this is your quality, and it is always with you! And there are probably other traits that make up your inner core and make you a strong person. You just need to remember them and apply them in life.
Study yourself properly! Just without unnecessary soul-searching and focusing on shortcomings. For example, devote a whole day to this. Write down on paper your strengths and weaknesses, your goals and values, dreams and plans for the future. Which of your main goals have you already achieved? Which ones don’t exist yet? Perhaps there is something you want but are afraid to do? Be sure to summarize, highlight your key qualities, which is important to rely on, and the main goals that you will strive for.
Read:
Get rid of things you don't like. If, for example, you wear clothes that look completely unattractive and irritate you, then you direct the same emotions towards yourself. Take a quick look at your wardrobe and outdoor space. Surround yourself with pleasant things. Let these be a few items of clothing in which you feel confident and comfortable; a painting, a souvenir or some kind of accessory that pleases the eye and lifts your spirits, etc. The color scheme around should also be pleasant for you. It's better to keep your desk tidy.
Your external personal space and the things around you are a reflection of your inner world. By managing one, you change the other.
Force yourself to take some decisive steps. For example, bring something you once started to completion. Or do what you have been wanting to do for a long time, but are hesitant or afraid for some reason (naturally, within the limits of what is permitted by law). Try to behave unconventionally, to go beyond your usual fixated actions. For example, choose a new route to return home (even if it’s not entirely logical), organize some interesting event for relatives and friends, visit an unusual exhibition or performance, spend the weekend in a new way, etc.
Learn to tell yourself: “STOP”, as soon as you begin to engage in self-flagellation and regret some of the actions you have taken. ACCEPT YOURSELF with all your weaknesses and failures (and at the same time - with strength and resilience) - now task number one! Everyone makes mistakes and has the right to do so. Moreover, the majority do not stop loving themselves because of this. And any failures are an invaluable experience that helped you achieve what you have now, which makes you stronger and wiser.
Regularly monitor changes in yourself. You can even keep a comparison diary. But you need to compare yourself not with other people, but with your former self, who you were before you began to change your attitude towards yourself. Celebrate all your positive actions, the emergence of new useful traits and habits, praise yourself even for small achievements.

Comparing yourself to others is pointless, unhelpful and ineffective. We are all unique in our own way, and everyone has their own development path..

Take care of your body and health

Make sure you like your appearance. Just little tricks and wisdom can change your image. A new hairstyle or eyebrow shape, a different color of lipstick or eye shadow can sometimes work wonders and can help a woman fall in love with herself and increase her self-esteem. Sometimes, of course, more drastic changes may be required, for example, correcting your figure by joining a gym. Everything is in your hands, and you yourself determine the extent of the desired changes.
Read:
You are the creator of your image. Only you!
Watch your posture. It is this that often reveals confidence or uncertainty in a person. The same principle applies here as with a smile. Raise your head and look forward, straighten your shoulders and straighten your back - you will feel that you are becoming taller, more significant, more confident. Come on, do it right now! First, you will need to constantly monitor this body position, then you will develop a good habit of maintaining your posture. Remember, everyone. What is this compared to a whole life?!
It's time to start highlighting. It could be just relaxing or doing your favorite things. And no objections in style: “Well, there’s absolutely no time!” or “Yes, I don’t think I need it”- not accepted. You have the right to rest and personal time. And the more you highlight it, the more you will become convinced that you really deserve it. Enjoy happy moments!
Treat yourself and your body with pleasant treatments: massage, SPA, aromatic baths, etc. Do not forget that even after 50 years this issue is very relevant.
Do the following exercises:
— Love your body!- Walk around the house naked for one day. Practice this once a week. This will help you accept yourself for who you are. This will relieve you from the embarrassment of being on the beach during the swimming season. Remember, the main rule: if you love yourself, others will love you.
— Start the day with compliments!- We woke up. Let's go wash up. Smiled at yourself in the mirror. While brushing your teeth, say 3-5 compliments to yourself in your head!
— Find the one!- ... the very phrase that would inspire you and give you strength and confidence. Perhaps you already have it in your arsenal, but you forget to repeat it to yourself. Print it out (you can use a color printer, in a beautiful font) and place it in a small frame near your bed. When you wake up in the morning, don’t forget to look at it and your day will start completely differently.
— Feel free to receive compliments and gifts. Remember, you deserve the best! Accept it! Surely you have met people who, perhaps, do not have the appearance of a model, and do not shine with great intelligence, but who have all the blessings in this life. So, their self-esteem is fine and they know for sure that they deserve everything they have.

How to love yourself: be positive

Get involved and interested. A person who is “on fire” with something is always in a good mood and charged with positive energy. He has no time to be sad and worry about his shortcomings. Such people are enthusiastic and inspire others. They are satisfied with themselves, because they do what they like and get meaningful results. Therefore, it is important that you always have something you like.

Read more (mainly books), watch interesting programs and films, accumulate useful information, share it with others. This always promotes self-development.

Create more! The combination of reason and feelings allows us to realize an interesting task - to create. Some build, others draw, write books, design, and master culinary skills. The more we create, the more we value ourselves. And the more often we do this, the higher our level of skill, and this is always a reason to praise ourselves.
Do the following exercise. Write the same phrase several times on a piece of paper in a column: “I love...” (at least 20 times) and continue it. You can write whatever you want:
- "I like ice cream",
- “I like to smile at people”
- “I love it when my baby laughs”
- “I love to cook delicious food,” etc.
Don't think too long about it. The more phrases you want to write, the better. Love always reflects powerful vital energy. The more we love everything and everyone around us, the more we are charged with this energy. We feel happier and respect ourselves.
Watch what you say. Your speech should be positive. Avoid phrases: “I don’t like myself,” “I don’t like myself,” “I’m not capable of...” and the like. On the contrary, constantly remind and inspire yourself: “I love myself”, “I respect myself”, “I am worthy of this”, “I can handle it”, etc. Thought is material, and any words affect your mood and state. Think of phrases like these as commands for action and sources of self-support. They have a scientific name - affirmations. Here are some examples:
“I am full of energy and constantly developing”
“There is peace and harmony in my soul,”
"I like to do something nice for myself"
“I know how to find an approach to any person.”

Start a Notepad Have a good mood"and write down all the phrases that you like, that make you feel an influx of energy and force you to act.

How to love yourself while interacting with others

Communicate more. With your loved ones, friends, colleagues, and also with strangers. make new acquaintances, be the first to take the initiative! Communication develops speech, oratory skills, courage, and the ability to find an approach to different people and interest them.
Give joy to others and do good deeds. Small gifts for loved ones and friends, compliments and words of support, providing assistance in various situations - all this will help strengthen relationships with others and increase your self-esteem. And, of course, the feeling that we can make the world a kinder place adds to our self-love.
If you yourself experienced, as a child, a lack of love for yourself from loved ones, do not repeat this with your children.. It is important to realize this and forgive your parents, because they could have committed some actions due to lack of experience and the presence of various fears. Accept this and do not transfer your hidden negative feelings to your children. Agree that you are no longer that child, but a mature person who herself chooses the most favorable path for raising her descendants. What you instill in them and what feelings you give them will affect their development, attitude towards themselves and success in the future.

In addition to your decisive actions, you can read interesting and useful books on developing self-love by the following authors: “Reconciling body and spirit: 40 simple exercises”, Albin Michel, 2007, Louise L. Hay “Album of healing affirmations”, L. Breuning “Happiness Hormones”, M.E. Litvak “If you want to be happy”, E. Muir “Self-confidence”, E. Lamott “Small victories”, N. Rein “How to love yourself, or Mom for the Inner Child”.

Especially for you, we have selected videos for you that will help you love yourself, accept yourself and forget words like “I don’t like myself.”

Louise Hay

Simple steps to love yourself and increase your self-esteem.

We are a mirror of relationships with our world. By accepting ourselves, we accept others. By loving ourselves, we love those around us. By establishing relationships with ourselves, we improve communication and mutual understanding with them, become kinder and attract positive energy into our lives.

The following articles will also help you accept yourself, learn something more about yourself and deal with the most common problems of every girl.

How to learn to love yourself in our modern world, because it is very important to have self-esteem, but, unfortunately, a considerable number of people have an underestimated assessment of their place among others.

What is self love

Love is acceptance without conditions and reservations, with all the pros and cons. A person who wants love should not prove to others that he is better. To love yourself, you need to be confident in yourself and know your strengths.

So what do you need to do to love yourself?

Forgive yourself for your wrongdoings. The feeling of guilt negatively affects a person if it is no longer relevant and has no boundaries. It is worth letting go of all the bad things that have been done. Mistakes are normal. Even if it is no longer possible to fix something, it is still worth letting go and forgiving yourself. This does not mean that you can immediately relax and repeat everything again. With the help of mistakes, you can gain experience and some knowledge so that you don’t do everything exactly the same later.
Accept yourself. It is necessary to fully accept yourself with what nature has created, to realize your own individuality. All people are unique. At first it’s not easy to do this, but after this stage it becomes easier to truly love yourself. You need to respect yourself even with all your shortcomings. They are also part of the personality. Every person has good and bad, but you can’t love only the good and the good. This is not true love.
Stop depending on the opinions of others. Very often, the opinions of others prevent you from accepting yourself. Yes, the love of others can help in this difficult journey, but the most important thing is own opinion about yourself, not someone else's. Love is in the person himself, and not in his relatives, spouse or friends. Stop criticizing yourself. Self-criticism leads to self-destruction. It’s one thing to soberly assess your shortcomings, and another to tear yourself to smithereens because of them. The result will be the opposite of what was expected.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Oddly enough, self-pity also only brings negativity. Turning yourself into a “victim” is the wrong approach. It is important to look at yourself correctly and not exaggerate.
Try to become better. Despite accepting yourself, it is still worth continuing to improve yourself. Correcting deficiencies will bring good results. From the realization that he is capable of change in better side, and from new virtues a person begins to truly love himself. The most important thing is not to “get sick” of narcissism.
Stop comparing yourself to others. This tactic will not lead to anything good, quite the contrary. As mentioned above, all people are different. At the same time, everyone is equal, there are no those who could be better only by definition. It’s one thing to look up to strong personalities, and another thing to constantly compare yourself with them and find new shortcomings in yourself.
Stop judging others. Even if they really don't seem that good, you still shouldn't criticize them. This activity only accumulates negativity and prevents the emergence of love; rather, it provokes narcissism - “everyone is bad, but I am beautiful.” Avoid sloppiness in appearance. Appearance matters too. You need to not only love your body, but also start taking care of it. Appearance can say a lot about a person. As they say, you meet someone by their clothes.
Start and achieve them. Let them be small, for example, doing exercises in the morning or learning how to cook a dish according to a new recipe. This will help over time to increase “demands” and become more persistent; it will instill in a person willpower, self-confidence and fighting spirit. And this is a reason to be proud of yourself.
Start looking for reasons to be proud of yourself. You can’t compare yourself with others, but you can (and should!) compare with yourself. With yourself from yesterday or the day before yesterday. And most importantly, you need to find at least one thing that distinguishes the current version of yourself from the past for the better. This is a reason to be proud of yourself.

Advice one. Lists. You need to make two lists. In the first, a person writes what he likes about himself. These could be some moral qualities or external signs, or maybe victories and achievements. In the second, on the contrary, everything is negative. The second list is then torn into small pieces or burned. The “positive” list is memorized. Every three days you need to add a new word there.
Tip two. New and good. Every evening you need to write down on a piece of paper at least a few small victories that happened to a person during the day. It could be a successfully caught cup flying off a shelf. Or beautifully done makeup, which was noted by one of my friends. Or maybe some new positive sense of self or personal achievement. Such lists will help you become confident in your own strengths and capabilities.
Tip three. Find advantages. This advice is about appearance. A man stands in front of a mirror and simply looks at himself, naming the advantages in his appearance. It could be silky hair, beautiful eye color or a pleasant lip line. Even skin color. Accepting your appearance is also very important.
Tip four. "My!". A man examines his body, from his toes to the ends of his hair, and repeats only one word: “Mine.” It should sound joyful, absolutely without negativity, with a feeling of satisfaction that this body is truly “his.” Even some shortcomings and ordinary phenomena - everything should be perceived joyfully. It may be hard at first, but then this exercise helps you treat yourself with sincere love.

Bye everyone.
Best regards, Vyacheslav.