Self-Love

To be perfect is what mostly people aspire to be and forget that self-love is more
important. When we say self-love, it is easy to picture someone doing her make-ups to be
pretty, reading self-help books or eating nicely; but self-love is much more than that. Based
on my research, self-love is the key to mental wellbeing and it keeps depression and anxiety
at bay. Loving yourself is the key to happy life. When you accept your imperfections,
unconditionally, your life will reflect that back to you. Life will be wonderful when you learn
to love yourself, you will be able to create a happy and loving environment to flourish in.
Society is shaped in such a way that we are sort of bound to constantly compete against
each other, or even ourselves. We are always trying to reach our short-term goals and trying
to better ourselves to match expectations set upon us by the society. We discouraged easily
when we cannot reach the expectations, and we blame ourselves because we cannot reach
it. That is the reason why we are working longer hours and getting not enough of sleep each
night because we don't want to fail again. We forgot ourselves, all we are thinking is the
expectations of the people surround us. We grind in and out every week; even during the
weekend 'relaxing' and 'having a good time' seems like a chore. As a consequence, we
ended up being too hard for ourselves all too often without even realizing. All of us are
more or less stuck up and consumed by our work, social interactions, life goals, weekend
plans and so on.

Studies have shown that perfectionists are at a higher risk of several illnesses, both
physical and mental, and that self-compassion might free us from its grip. Therefore,
perfectionism and self-compassion are inextricably linked. Love is the only thing that makes
us feel the pure happiness and makes us less robotic in a world require us to work. Everyone
needs love and we spend most of our time and energy on loving others, like our family,
friends, or special someone. We like to be with them and shower them all of our love but
we forgot to produce enough for our own selves. We do not have to rely on others just to
have the love that we want. A person who practices self-love will never need to depend on
others to be happy and it is an empowering feeling to be happy on the inside. Pure love is
the core who you innately are. It is very important to practice loving yourself because it will
bring you everlasting happiness, inner peace and will improve your health and wellness.
According to Buscaglia, love yourself--accept yourself--forgive yourself--and be good to
yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.
Self-love is not being selfish; it is just putting yourself first before others and not being too
strict on yourself. So do not pressure yourself because no one is perfect and we make
mistakes because that is life. I observed that if our loved ones make a mistake we just easily
forgive them, but when we make mistake we are often too hard on ourselves. We have to
stop that and embrace our self lovingly. Embrace yourself and reassure that you will always
cherished and valued all the things that you have and made.
 All we need to do is to love ourselves and let the negative things pass through;
eventually things will change and bad times will pass. Loving ourselves has many benefits as
it instantly changes our perspective of the world and give us a more positive attitude
towards life. Self-love means loving your body, soul and mind. Therefore, people who love
themselves is the people have self-confidence and often retrain from doing things that will
have an impact on their tranquility. If you start loving your body and mind more than
others, you will make yourself have some break at school or work and do some activities
that relaxes your mind. Self-love is better mental health because people who love
themselves are less likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. Learning to love yourself
also reduces stress, lessen procrastination and makes you more focus for the things that you
wanted to do. Put yourself a little higher on your priority list; think highly of yourself as the
world takes you at your own estimate. If you had a long day at school or work, come home
and relax yourself. Happiness and self-love are interconnected; and we deserve to be happy.
Self-love is the key to happiness and a person who is happy is in a far better position to
achieve success in every aspect of life.

In addition, release limiting beliefs of the past that causes yourself and your adult-self
heartache. The past is over, let it go, forgive and forget. Allow the power of God heal your
heart and soul by trusting in him and feeling his pure love for you. You are a cherished of a
loving heavenly father who only wants the very best for you. Love yourself just like how God
loves you; Protect yourself just like how God protects you; And accept yourself as what God
accept your imperfections. Forgive yourself for not being perfect and you have to accept
your flaws. I remembered what my mom says about how important self-love is. She said
that in this world full of perfectionist and insecurities, I have to love myself because if you
love yourself you can feel the pure happiness even though you have flaws and
imperfections. When I started loving myself all I could feel is that I am beautiful in my own
way and my imperfections will not going to destroy my self-esteem. My self is the person
who will always there for me through thick and thin; My self is the longest relationship that I
will ever have for the rest of my life. Therefore, I should protect, care and love myself every
day of my life.