Why self-love is important for healthy relationships

“We accept the love we think we deserve.” —Stephen Chbosky

Self-love is, quite simply, is the practice of loving ourselves. This includes being compassionate, accepting, and caring for ourselves. With self-love we learn to be kind to ourselves, we can focus on our growth and prioritise ourselves – many of us find this difficult to do. Human beings have a need to feel loved and belong and the first place we should feel we belong is within our own body, mind and soul.

Self-love does not mean narcissism nor is it selfish; it is a practice of getting to know ourselves better while treating ourselves with love and kindness. For instance, finding out that the reason I was procrastinating was a fear of failure and kindly reminding myself that it is important to do my best and failure is an opportunity to learn. Before learning to love myself, any shortcoming I had was invariably treated with scorn by me – “I’m so stupid, at this rate I will keep failing, I will always be a failure….” With self-love, we will create a healthy relationship with ourselves and maintain the same with others.

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When we think about relationships it is almost always with other people – partners, children, parents, friends and at times colleagues. Our relationship with ourselves is almost always forgotten or set as the last priority. Self-love is one of the main ingredients of a healthy relationship because we will look for people for love, acceptance, value, and respect while not treating believing ourselves to deserve either love or acceptance or respect.

Start your self-love journey by signing up for my free 11-day Self-Love Challenge.

Why does it matter if I look for external validation and love?

Almost always, people will treat us the way we treat ourselves and this is especially true for romantic partners. This is because we show people how we expect to be treated by our own actions and words. Have you ever thought, “No one will ever love me” and then had this proclamation made true by partners leaving you or family and friends taking you for granted?

Most often, we look for these instances and make them true in our minds. When you think your partner does not love you, you’ll look for ways to make it true – they’re spending more time with friends, always at work, don’t talk to you enough – your partner might just be busy or have something important to do but you’d either question them about it or become distant yourself. Invariably, this will lead to friction in the relationship which will then confirm your belief that no one will love you.

If you do find a partner that loves and accepts you and assuages your worst fears about yourself, you become dependent on them for validation. With this dependency, we tend to let a lot of bad behaviours slide because our self-image is so deeply entwined with the relationship. If and when the relationship does end, we end up feeling worse than ever because we’ve lost the person who believed in us and the relationship.

The first step is to love yourself

Most of us do not know how to love ourselves. This is not our fault; we live in a society that places high emphasis on competition and the greater good and not enough on individuals. However, this is changing. Self-love is a common phrase now even if we aren’t always aware of what it means.

Before you can begin to love yourself, you should learn more about yourself.

Who are you?

What are your values?

What defines you?

How would you describe yourself?

What makes you feel good and bad?

What are you passionate about?

What do you love doing?

How do you feel about your body?

How do you feel about your behaviours, thoughts and feelings?

Do you know how you are feeling and what thoughts are behind them?

Do you know why you behave in certain ways and what thoughts are behind it?

How do you talk to yourself?

Do you love yourself?

There is a multitude of questions you can ask yourself. Take a couple of hours to yourself and get to know more about yourself – as though you’re on a first date with yourself. Remember, the objective is to be kind and learn more, there is no need to judge or be critical about anything.

Tell yourself about all your accomplishments, from as far as you can remember – I learned to read, write and speak Malayalam when I was 6; I got a certificate for my art project in school…

Thank each part of your body for keeping you alive and say “I love you” especially to parts you want to change.

Take time out to do things you love (irrespective of how you perform at them).

Thank your emotions (all of them) for making you feel and try to understand what they’re trying to make you understand.

Sign up for my free 11-day Self-Love Challenge to begin your journey.

You can also book a monthly package to work with me one-on-one.

At the end of the day remember this, you are always going to be with yourself, through thick and thin, through hardships and victories, through happiness and sorrow – wouldn’t it be better if you were your own cheerleader and loving companion?