How to love yourself?

“Love yourself first, before you can think of loving anybody else” – we all have heard this line sometime in our life. When I came across this idea for the first time, I went blank. It made no sense to me. The immediate thought was, does anyone do that? and why? Now after understanding this concept I can say that living life in the true sense starts with loving yourself.
Loving yourself is not a habit or a virtue , but a basic necessity like breathing and eating. We come into this world and and leave it all alone. There is no particular companion in this journey; it’s just me and myself. So the question is – How can one survive without ignoring this inner friend? Loving yourself, like any other friendship starts with knowing and understanding yourself first. Watch yourself closely and understand what it likes and dislikes, what are its strengths and weaknesses, what causes excitement and pain, the values that it carries.
First, you experience all the emotions and feelings within and then you accept and respect these qualities that make you a unique human being. This is the process of loving yourself.

So if you are convinced with this beautiful idea of loving yourself and are stuck with how to go about doing that, please find below the easy steps on how to love yourself:-

1.Give yourself a chance – You have learnt to let go and forgive mistakes committed by others, but when it comes to your own mistakes, you are a bit hard on yourself. You must learn to find out what went wrong and correct it, rather than passing critical judgments.

2. You are the source – Recognize that the values of love, compassion, honestly, integrity, friendship, etc that you want to experience in this life will not be passed on to you from someone or something outside. You create it within yourself first by loving, encouraging and nurturing yourself. You will be surprised with the sense of abundance it gives you.

3.Have conversations with self – Words are very powerful, even when not audible. Express how you feel about yourself every day. Have a detailed description about what qualities you admire in yourself and why. It is a very powerful technique but if you feel uncomfortable doing this then you you must keep a journal instead and write those things out, that will boost your self esteem.

4. Do what you really want to do – We often say ‘listen to your heart’. It is nothing but your inner voice, voice of yourself. This voice very often expresses itself by pushing a thought again and again before you. It signals you about the choice that you must make in order to be happy. When you listen to yourself it creates immense confidence within. You feel empowered and loved.