What is Love? Self-Love That Is
Self-love is the ability to love oneself unconditionally. That means no matter what you do or don’t do, you are your number one fan. But how often do you show love to yourself? Especially as a perfectionist, it is often very difficult to show ourselves love in the form of compassion in any capacity. Why is that? Because perfectionists tend to believe that they are not good enough and often struggle with anxiety and stress because of fear of making mistakes. We believe making mistakes means there is something very bad about us. The reality is, part of living is making mistakes. There is no way around it. Literally. It is nearly impossible to go about life without making mistakes. And when you’re a perfectionist and strongly believe that it is not ok to make mistakes, you put yourself up to being your harshest critic because mistakes inevitably do happen.
What to know about perfectionism: Perfectionism can show up at school, work, relationships, etc. which means you’re constantly being harsh on yourself when you expect yourself to never make a mistake. Buuut, this doesn’t have to be your story any longer. You can in fact learn to love yourself once you can give yourself permission to be human and make mistakes. Learn to love who you are at your core, not based on what you do or accomplish. Remind yourself that you are worthy of love and deserve unconditional love just for existing. I know this can be hard to believe or practice at first when you’ve spent nearly a lifetime believing otherwise, but I promise it’s true. It’s just a matter of practice to start thinking differently and unlearning some of the unhelpful patterns we developed growing up.
Here are some ways you can practice self-love on a daily basis:
Use positive self-affirmations such as: “I am worthy of love;” “I can learn from my mistakes;” “Practice over perfection;”
Give yourself breaks in between tasks/duties
Allow yourself to rest (resting does not mean you’re lazy or wasting time). This means taking a mental health day from work (See my blog post on this)
Set healthy boundaries: “Say no” to unreasonable requests or requests you are uncomfortable with
I hope this post helps you get started on your journey to self-love.
Cheers,
Dr. Jessica
