Don’t jeopardise it. Self-love is one of those matters that is, unfortunately, overlooked time and time again — because self-love is not merely functioning. Self-love is not just getting up every day and getting on with it. It is not floating in a kind of bitter reluctance. It is not shrugging at yourself in the mirror or struggling to describe yourself. It is not working yourself to death or practising unhealthy routines to feel a sense of worth. Maybe you don’t despise yourself, but maybe you don’t spend enough time loving yourself either. Self-love is not simply existing. 

 And we fall into this trap – the anti-self-love trap – of conforming to external expectations of what everyday life should look like, in tune with societal expectations. It’s difficult to 

practice self-love when you’re constantly seeing success stories at one click, or social media influencers telling us how we should look or what we should be doing. Self-love may feel impossible when comparing yourself to the people around you — friends, family members, peers, even people around the world when you open an app. They should advertise this anti-self-love trap with red horns. Comparison is the architect of unhealthy habits, so challenge it. 

I’m always tied down by the thought that, maybe if I was louder, I’d learn more in seminars, or I’d have more friends. But that anti-self-love trap certainly isn’t doing me any favours. I imagine myself, sometimes, to be falling into a cave with pitiful light shining through the cracks of a trapdoor, where acceptance is a million miles from my reach. I heard that stress is a massive contributing factor to an increased risk of heart attacks. I try to calm myself down in seminars now. I spend too much time worrying that I sound stupid, or my points aren’t valid or I don’t have anything to say — but struggles with self-worth and self-love aren’t worth my life. 

Start with the simple things. Listen to your body. Look out for the signs. Sometimes self-love is breaking out of the comfort zone but listening to yourself if you really need to stay in it. Practice whatever self-love means to you. Having a warm bath or learning an instrument. Eating a doughnut or curling up under the covers and watch your favourite show. Or simply going for a run because you love the release of endorphins it grants you. Writing every emotion down in a journal because you’re strong for feeling all of them. Speaking to others if you’re feeling down. When you’re feeling a myriad of things at once, don’t contain them; don’t wait for the explosion. 

Perhaps you could write a word, a single word, at the end of each day to summarise it. Or a sentence about how you felt, or a description of what happened during it. We’re on this Earth for an unknown amount of time — don’t condemn yourself to the outcome of one day. 

It’s easy to fall into a Valentine’s Day self-pity, but don’t undermine the concept of self-love in the face of romantic love. Admittedly, romantic love can be magical. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. It can be gentle, passionate or a mix of both. After all, being loved and adored by another can be very good for self-esteem, and even practising the way you love other people could be considered fulfilling, platonically or romantically. But it can also, at times, be clouded by a kind of interdependency and reliance that self-love transcends. You could spend so much time worrying about how your partner is doing, or feeling, that you begin to neglect yourself. 

So, forgive yourself. Forgive yourself if you haven’t crossed everything from your to-do-list. Forgive yourself if you rested. I try to forgive myself if I feel I haven’t written enough, read enough, exercised, or forced myself into social interactions. It’s not worth it to burn out. Burning out isn’t self-love.

Credits: Unisplash