Here Is How You Deserve To Love Yourself

Lulu Loverling
Lulu Loverling

We’ve always been busy looking for love, fighting for it or savoring it. Sometimes it gets too cloudy and we get so caught up in our own pursuits that we forget that the one person who helps us in making it all possible needs love as well and that’s no other than ourselves. We exert so much effort, attention and love for other people that sometimes we neglect ourselves, that we overlook the fact that as much as others need our love and our affection, we need it as well.

It’s not selfish to think that you need to love yourself. Because yes, there are wrong ways to love yourself, but there are a few ways to do it right. And I do believe that we all need to take time to love ourselves, to find contentment in the love we had for it, so that even though people would find it hard to love us, we know we’re loved, by our own and this is how we do it.

Love yourself with kindness. Positive kindness. Be kind to your heart, soul and body. To your heart, allow it to hurt once in a while but please don’t go to the extent of permanently damaging it. Let go of the things or people who continuously destroy it. Your heart is too delicate to experience that kind of suffering. To your soul, let it find inner peace. Let it free itself from all the worry and the troubles life causes. Fondle it with compassion. To your body, be good to it. Let everyone you let in love you for more than just your physical attributes. Preserve it for the right person. Loving yourself with kindness means you will be gentle with it, you will understand its needs and you will be always be there as your own friend.

Love yourself with patience. Life is not a time lapse. You have all the time in the world. Learn to be patient with yourself. It takes time to be where you want to be. Love yourself in a way that you will learn how to wait for its defining moment. In a way that you will allow delays, stopovers, and breaks. The kind of love that knows when you’re ready to fight or to quit. Love yourself in a way that you will understand that there will be times in your life where you’ll be good for nothing, times of victory, times of failure, times of struggle, times of breakthroughs – loving yourself with patience means knowing that you have your own timeline. You understand that you have your moments, your downfalls and you know that you should stay with yourself through all of it. That if you want that career, that house, that relationship, then it will surely take a lot of time and through that, you will be there, steadily supporting yourself. Loving yourself with patience means you’ll be there at those hopeless periods and also on those triumphant ones.

Love yourself with acceptance. True acceptance that you are not perfect and you’ll never be. Acceptance that you will never be someone else. That you might never have the prettiest face, sexiest body, or the most gorgeous hair. That you might never be richer than your college friend, that you’ll never have that better car or a bigger house than your office mate. Acceptance that there will always be those people who you think is “better” the way they are than you are. Acceptance that you have flaws, edges and imperfections. That you have shortcomings and that you’ll either be less or enough for someone. Loving yourself with acceptance means knowing that the most valuable thing is that you love every portion of yourself. You love your bad parts together with the good parts. You understand that you are a work in progress. You accept that in time, you might never be who you thought you would be, that you might only live a simple life and not have everything you ever wanted but have the things you needed. You accept that this is who you are, this is your life, that your flaws are perfectly crafted to make you who you’re meant to be. You accept the things you can and can’t do. You accept that whoever you are, you are beautiful. You are okay. You are fine.

Love yourself with trust. Trust on your skills, talents and abilities. Trust that you have the ample amount of resilience and capability to conquer each day, each battle that life has for you. Trust that eventually you’ll master the art of overcoming. Trust that you can and you will. Trust that you are so much stronger than you think. Trust that in time, you will be able to tell stories of victory over all the things you have won over. Trust that no matter how many waves shall come in an attempt to drown you; you will always elevate. You will always find yourself on the shore, still breathing, still soaring. Trust that you are firmer than what you feel, that the power in your hands is something you cannot even comprehend. Love yourself with trust, the kind of trust that you will not even doubt yourself because you know you can, you believe you can.

And most of all, love yourself with honesty. Be true to who you are, you owe yourself some decent amount of honesty. If you hate your course, shift. If you no longer prosper in your job, quit. If you don’t like a certain person, don’t lead them further, tell them you’re not interested. If you love someone, be honest, no matter how scary it is to admit you love them, be brave enough to make your love known. If you no longer like to be friends with someone, let them go. If you hate mocha frappe, stop drinking it. If you want to travel, book that flight now. If you want to write, draft something. If you like red velvet cakes, eat some. If you want some answers, ask for it, search for it. If you want a clean, peaceful life, you need to award yourself some honesty. There’s nothing wrong with being truthful. The truth will really set you free. You cannot imagine the change honesty can do with your life. Honesty can trigger a growth in your life, relationship, career and in your entire being. All you have to do is be honest, speak your heart. That’s how you love yourself with honesty.

Loving yourself is never easy, but you owe it to yourself to at least try. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Dian is the author of Catastrophes, a prose and poetry collection exploring living and loving, breaking and mending, falling and rising, losing and surviving. Get in touch with her on Instagram and Twitter.

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