I am currently reading a book called Living, Learning, and Loving by Leo F. Buscaglia. I recommend you read this wonderful book, because he talks about learning to love and accept yourself. I think it is very important for one to love themselves, and not just parts of themselves, but to fully love one self. He talks about learning to celebrate your craziness, loneliness, and inadequacies. I really like that he mentioned parts of us we don’t like to embrace, and we see them as negatives, or things we hate about ourselves. But those parts are what makes us who we are as well. We must learn to accept our flaws. I don’t think one should focus too much on it though. When we focus too much on our flaws. It cultivates negative feelings towards oneself, instead try to focus on your strengths. We all have something that we like about ourselves, something we bring to the table. Put your energy into what you are good at, and be proud of the strengths you have. Don’t get too down about your weakness. All humans have weakness. No one is perfect, and honestly how boring would it be if we were all perfect. There would be no room to improve or grow, nothing to overcome. I just think we should take some time to look at the qualities of ourselves that we do like. I think this could cultivate a more positive self-image, and would give you a chance to see yourself in a more positive light, which can bring about self-love and acceptance. Accepting that you have flaws is also helpful, but the focus should be on what you think is beautiful and special about you. We all have it in us. You just have to look, so try looking into the qualities that make you awesome.
Tag: #self-love
Self-Love/Self-Acceptance
This is a tough concept for many people. We tend to be very critical and negative towards ourselves. The important thing is, if you don’t love yourself, how can you fully love others.
I believe there are some things that create our lack of self-love. One being, we allow others to dictate how we think and feel about ourselves. He/She doesn’t like me, so I must be an awful person?, or he/she doesn’t think I am attractive, so I must be ugly? We must remember that what others think of us is a reflection of them, not you.
Another thing to remember is not everyone will like you, or think you are beautiful, because those things are subjective. Just like you will not like everyone, and think everyone is attractive. This is something people don’t comprehend, which causes distress and self-hatred. This is why you can’t look to others to discover self-love. You must look from within yourself. You may ask, how do I do that, how do I love myself?
It starts with accepting your flaws, and weaknesses. We all try and want to be perfect, but perfection doesn’t exist. We also want to try to find a perfect partner, and that is a mistake as well. That will only leave you disappointed. No one is perfect. What we can do is learn to accept our flaws, and instead of over-blowing our flaws and seeing them as negative traits. We can see them as flaws that help us grow and evolve.
Life is a learning experience. You can’t learn from perfection. You can’t evolve from perfection. I think perfection is overrated. Yes it is easier just to have good qualities, but nothing will change, and isn’t that boring? I also think that we should learn to focus on our good qualities. We overrate our bad qualities, and underrate our good qualities. That is also the problem.
What are your good qualities? Lets put that to the forefront. Be proud of those qualities, embrace them. Then look at your weaknesses, embrace them as well, and find ways to learn from them as well. You can always get better with practice, but if you don’t accept them. You can’t learn from them. You’ll just let those bad qualities define you, and destroy your self-worth.
Self-love is so important, and honestly the concept should be taught in schools, because so many lack self-love, and this lack of self-love can destroy relationships and families. It also cultivates hatred, jealousy, envy, violence and many other negative concepts.
Self-love cultivates compassion, love and happiness. Who doesn’t want that? All you got to do is accept yourself fully-the good and the bad. We are all beautiful in our own way. Find that way.