As we discussed in my last blog post about empowering yourself spiritually, self-love is basically the key to happiness and success. That’s why it’s so important to not only learn how to love yourself, but to practice it regularly and know how to show unconditional love to yourself.
When you have this mastered, you can show up in the world confidently and lovingly, which attracts respect and love from others, ultimately leading to other parts of your life flourishing. Learning how to show unconditional love to yourself can feel strange at first if you’re not used to it, but we’ll get you through it! Here are some ways to make sure you’re practicing healthy unconditional self-love.
Unconditional Love to Yourself 101:
Give Yourself a Break When Things Don’t Go Your Way, Nobody’s Perfect!
So what does loving yourself unconditionally mean? It’s much like unconditional love of others, where it doesn’t mean letting people (or yourself) get away with anything, but also not being too hard on them when they occasionally mess up. Unconditional self-love is always maintaining a certain level of self-respect and well, love for yourself, even when you may make mistakes or don’t accomplish everything you set out to.
It’s loving yourself no matter what happens, even when you fall short sometimes. This happens to all of us at one point in our lives, we’re all human after all. And that’s what self-love is about, self-compassion and understanding you aren’t perfect and that’s ok! You still deserve to be loved and to love yourself. It’s knowing that your value comes from who you are not what you do, accomplish, or have.
Respect and Believe In Yourself Enough to Know That You Can Always Be The Best You!
At the same time, unconditional self-love is caring about yourself enough to work on improving your flaws or short comings, so that you know you’re always the best version of you that you can be. Like I said, we’re all human and we all have things that we can improve and work on, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
And without beating yourself up about anything or moaning about your challenges, face them head on and put in the time and effort to change them! The best that you can be doesn’t have to be #1 in the world either, so relax. As long as you’re trying your hardest you shouldn’t internalize your failures as a reflection of your own self worth. Take yourself seriously, but not too seriously.
Balance and Humility.
The way to weather any storm, and even just live a wholesome life, generally revolves around balance and humility. The same applies to how to show unconditional love to yourself and others.
It’s knowing when to give yourself a break, and also knowing when to push yourself and give yourself some tough love to accomplish challenging things within your potential. Veer too much in either direction and you’re no longer loving yourself, but harming yourself, whether you realize it or not.
When we talk about unconditional self-love, we also don’t mean vanity and arrogance. We don’t want you to run around town telling everyone how great you are and that you can do no wrong. I think we all know that person, and as the saying goes “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.” Not to mention, it’s just a major turn off.
Humility and self-awareness are key checks and balances when it comes to self-love. You should love yourself quietly, it’s a spiritual relationship with yourself. You need to be aware of when you are going overboard and being egotistical versus exhibiting a healthy confidence. Know your great self worth, but keep it to yourself and let others be the ones to praise your accomplishments and character.
Ironically, it is the self-centered and arrogant people that are usually the most insecure and overcompensate by being outwardly arrogant and loud about how great they are. These kinds of people are trying to fill a hole and lack of self-love inside them with attention from others. They try to convince others to love them because they haven’t yet convinced themselves of their own value. Don’t seek love from others, because you have all the tools and qualities within you to love yourself already.
How to Show Unconditional Love To Yourself Without Taking It Away From Others.
You should also be aware of when loving yourself might take away from loving others. You must strike a balance and not let loving yourself negatively affect others or make them feel unloved. In conclusion, loving yourself is merely appreciating everything about yourself—your mind, body, soul, talents, dreams and personality—while not advertising them.
Remember, for the most part, how to show unconditional love to yourself has little to do with others, it’s something private and internal. It’s caring about what you think as much or more than you care about what other people think.
Loving yourself unconditionally means you accept yourself wholly, strengths and weaknesses. There should be a healthy balance between practicing your unconditional self-love and practicing your unconditional love for others, and neither should suffer at the expense of the other.
So now that you have an idea of what unconditional self-love should look and feel like, let’s give some quick examples of how to show unconditional love to yourself.
How To Show Unconditional Love To Yourself:
1. Remove Toxic Relationships From Your Life
Toxic relationships in which others put you down or make you feel “less than” so they can boost their own egos are huge red flags that nobody needs. Let those go immediately.
This may be easier said than done, because those relationships may be life-long friends, even family, which are integral parts of your life. But, loving yourself unconditionally means putting yourself first when those relationships are toxic and damaging to your own self-love.
If you can express to these toxic people why they are hurting you and affecting your own self-esteem and self-worth, and they still don’t change, the best thing is to distance yourself. When it comes to your self-worth and happiness over their hurt feelings, your self-love and self-preservation need to come first.
This is a very healthy and productive way to practice unconditional love for yourself. After all, if they don’t change and clearly don’t care about their negative effects on you, they probably don’t love you unconditionally anyway and aren’t worth your time.
2. Forgive Yourself For Past Mistakes
We touched on this topic slightly earlier, but when we say don’t be too hard on yourself for your shortcomings and mistakes, this is what we mean. We’re human, we all make mistakes, and there’s no turning back time. So, instead of dwelling on and internalizing mistakes you’ve made in the past, the healthy and self-loving thing to do is to accept that the past is the past, and turn that guilt into motivation to make yourself better, learn from those mistakes, and make sure they don’t happen in the future.
We may be ashamed of things we’ve done, but there’s no sense in beating yourself up about it now because you can’t change them. Just be a better person today, and tomorrow, and improve what it is that caused those mistakes so they don’t happen again. Have the courage to right any wrongs in your past with people you may have hurt and work on being a better person. That alone makes you a better person already.
There’s no sense in carrying guilt all your life for something you’ve wholeheartedly changed and tried to fix. Doing better in the future is vindication and repentance enough for you to move on in a healthy manner and begin to love yourself again despite your mistakes.
Unless you scalped your neighbor’s dog or murdered someone, everything is forgivable and there isn’t a human on the planet who has lived their entire life not making a single mistake they regret. All you can do is ask for genuine forgiveness, if applicable, and be better moving forward, and that should allow you to forgive yourself. Leave the past in the past, you can only work on today and tomorrow.
3. Show Love to Others
This step can even help with the last step because it can make you feel vindicated in that you are now making up for any past mistakes by being a useful member of society and showing kindness. Helping others and knowing you make a positive impact on the lives of others, giving back to a friend, your community, even just being nice and greeting a stranger who looks like he’s having a bad day, can do more than you even know.
It’s proven that helping others gives one a heightened sense of value, worth, and ultimately gives you more reason to love yourself unconditionally. Not only that, but in and of itself, being selfless in loving and being kind to others is, in fact, a practice of showing unconditional love to yourself.
When you love yourself unconditionally, it’s easy to show others the same love without expecting anything in return. Generosity and selfless acts of kindness are invaluable food for the soul. Feeling needed, and useful to others always contributes to your own self-worth and unconditional self-love.
4. Remember That No Matter How Hard Things Get In Life, You Love Yourself and That’s All You Need.
The beauty of unconditional self-love is that you no longer need to rely on the love of others to value your own self-worth. It’s a long road for some to reach this ultimate state of unconditional self-love, but once you have, your potential is boundless and you are able to share the same powerful love you have for yourself to everyone around you.
And thus the cycle continues, where love is paid forward and you end up spreading love to people you may not even know, like a ripple effect. Your gleaming self-love becomes contagious and you spark love in everyone you encounter, who then spread that same love to someone else and it becomes a never ending love chain. And what a great contribution to this world that desperately needs unconditional and selfless love.
And don’t let fleeting moments, or temporary problems affect your self-love, because if you possess true unconditional self-love, nothing can get you down. The things that nobody can every take from you are your own unconditional self-love, your value, dignity, and your faith, and everything else in life is insignificant and can be fixed or replaced.
Failed a test? Big deal, you can retake it and you know you’re smart because you love yourself. Having money problems? No problem, money comes and goes, but you have the self-respect and dedication to make it back. Break up? Loving yourself unconditionally means you don’t need someone else’s love to validate you, you’re whole and you’ll survive. Lost your job? That’s ok, with your self-esteem, confidence, and determination you can get another one.
Between trusting the universe, and practicing self-love, there is nothing that can break you down. The world is your oyster and you can conquer anything you put your mind to. You aren’t perfect, but life is beautiful and you love yourself unconditionally, you are grateful for yourself, you circumstances whatever they may be, and to be a part of this beautiful world.
Learning to love yourself unconditionally is the most important tool in this journey we call life, and with it you can navigate any ups and downs, you can create your desired and beautiful reality, and you attract love and success.
“Love yourself first and everything else falls in line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world” — Lucille Ball
Want to learn more about how to show unconditional love to yourself and others? Check out our other blog posts here.