Cultivate Selflove in Three Easy Steps

ever since i was a little girl i grew up

seeing my mom

selflessly caring loving and

compromising her needs

to the benefit of everyone around her

being the only daughter and having my

mom as my role model

i grew up thinking that that was the

norm

you have to give and give and give your

time your energy your efforts

to everyone around you made sure

everyone was happy and satisfied

and if at the end of the day you had

some energy left

you would attend to your needs at last

does that sound familiar now

the snowball grew even bigger when i got

two gorgeous healthy kids of my own

and the urge to keep on giving kept on

expanding

without my permission i remember

one day i took those one of those

quick tests on facebook to know who i am

and to my utmost happiness i got the

result of being

a selflessly caring individual

i felt pride fill up my heart

as if i was just awarded that olympic

medal for being selfless

i took a screenshot of that saved it in

my phone and i was like yes

i am selfless i’m not selfish

as you can imagine selfish was a scary

word that grew

up with me and i decided to wear that

badge of honor of being selfless every

single day

and little did i know what will happen

next

so the more selfless i became the more

drained

i got and that ticked me off like

why am i getting drained how can i be

a good mom if i’m not selfless

i was so selfless that i wasn’t giving

myself permission

to be human to make mistakes i wasn’t

giving myself permission to look

after myself or to love myself

and that’s the first lesson i learned in

my journey

which was to give myself permission to

be human

yes human before being a mom i’m human

and we all humans make mistakes

we are perfectly imperfect human beings

and i deserve to love myself

so i started reading and researching

more about self-love

what is self-love self-love

unfortunately

has been linked to the negative meanings

and effects

since the ancient greeks in the story of

narcissus

who when he looked at the water and saw

his reflection

he fell in love with himself this built

the phenomenon of narcissism

which has been proven to be damaging to

the person

and everyone around them so this

conditioning

of having self-love as selfish

has been built way before my mom was

born

way before we’re saying ancient greeks

thus i am in no shape or form

blaming my mom for raising me this way

or

having any grudges against her on the

contrary

i fully believe that she did the best

she can with what she knew

and by the way tomorrow 21st of march

it’s mother’s day in lebanon so happy

mother’s day mama i love you

thank you so what is self-love

self-love in my opinion is loving your

authentic self

and knowing deep down and wholeheartedly

that you are enough just like that as i

i mean

as i am i am enough self-love doesn’t

mean loving yourself

more than others or loving yourself

after you finish loving others

others are not there it’s as simple as

loving

your authentic self with all your flows

and imperfections

we’ve always heard that to love

others you have to start by loving

yourself we never did that

or maybe it got mixed up with

self-love and self-care let me tell you

this

self-care is taking care of your body

so for example eating a healthy meal or

going to the gym to exercise

or maybe making yourself a spa

treatment or a ticket to a dream

destination all of that you’re taking

care of your body

and guess what you owe it to yourself

we were given our bodies to take care of

them

so i owe it to myself to eat healthy and

to exercise

and i don’t expect to be congratulated

for that

just like i’m not congratulated every

time i stop at the red traffic light

right we have to stop at red traffic

lights

and the same time we owe it to ourselves

to take care of

ourselves self-love on the other hand

is taking care of your inner you

it’s giving yourself permission to be

human and to make mistakes

and to be kind to yourself when you make

mistakes

it’s saying no when you want to say no

it’s setting healthy boundaries and

it’s respecting and honoring yourself

and that flows beautifully to my next

lesson

which is treat yourself as you would

treat

others and how many times

have you championed your friend when he

or she fell down

how many times you made them feel better

about themselves

and when it came to you and you failed

in a certain project or you didn’t feel

good about yourself or you fell down

you were your strongest critic

does that sound familiar so how about

today

you take a conscious decision to treat

yourself

as you would treat your best friend

how about today you look at yourself in

the mirror

in your reflection and you would say

i feel you and it is going to be okay

lots of research has suggested

the positive link between

self-compassion and psychological

well-being

so individuals with self-compassionate

qualities has been proven to be

less likely to be affected with

mental health issues so they are more

likely to cope

with symptoms of stress they are

have more emotional resilience they are

less afraid of failure

and at the same time they’re less likely

to burn out

we are the person we talk to the most

irrespective of how many friends and

families we have

we are the person we talk to the most

so our tongue has the power to either

build us up or tear us down

so when we are criticizing ourselves

and we do that usually non-stop we get

negative emotions

negative emotions as shame blame

guilt sadness anger you name it and this

all usually stems from fear

free fear of being our authentic self

so when we when we criticize ourselves

we our life gets negative

and i want you to look or imagine

that negative emotions are like boiling

water

or a hot stove so the more i stay

in this negative emotion the more

painful my life becomes it’s just

as if i’m putting my hand in boiling

water

for hours days or even weeks

so this means that

the key is with you

you can choose to remove your hand from

the water from the boiling water

every time you choose to stop

criticizing yourself and on the other

hand

loving yourself and you can only do that

by talking positively to yourself

they say words create worlds

and our words create our realities

so if i want to feel good about myself

i’ll have to talk positively to myself

so is stopping to criticize yourself

selfish is stopping to criticize and

love yourself selfish

is that selfish and the third lesson i

learned

is this one i’m not for everyone

and not everyone is for me and you

cannot

imagine the peace and happiness that

realization gave me

it actually made me love myself even

more

because i’m more authentic i don’t want

to add

any additional layer to be loved by

everyone

and i’ll be honest with you here i don’t

get along

with people with a closed mindset versus

those with a growth mindset

i can’t get along with negative people

who find a problem to every solution

i just can’t so how on earth

was i expecting that everyone will get

along with me

if i’m in the first place not being able

to get along with everyone

so that made me true to her to who i am

and i know now

deep down that whatever i will be doing

i will be attracting the right people

not

all the people the right ones and that’s

what

what is important i knew that i

practiced self-compassion and self-love

when preparing for this talk

i gave myself permission to be human and

make mistakes

we all make mistakes second

i was kind to myself because we all know

public speaking is not easy

and third i knew that not everyone will

get this message and that’s okay

so i want to confirm that self-love is

not selfish

it’s loving your authentic self and

knowing that you are enough

and remembering to put your oxygen mask

first

if you really want to love and support

others

so we know that awareness precedes any

change

no one would ever change a behavior if

they weren’t self-aware on how to change

perspective

i know today i planted some seeds

and i know that the harvest will be

really fruitful

if you loved yourself and one

gave yourself permission to be human two

treated yourself as you treat others or

your best friend

and three if you knew that you are not

for everyone

and not everyone is for you thank you

you