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