During my early days, I was not aware of self-love, and when I did hear it, I thought that it meant selfish love for my image. Self-love is to fully accept yourself as you are while not feeling the need to be higher or above others in any way. Another word is unconditional love, inner unity compassion and mercy for myself and others. This means a person is completely comfortable with who they are, and external validation is not necessary. This is saying that even though I may have physical or personality flaws, and weaknesses, and I make mistakes, I only focus on my positive qualities. This way I feel good and comfortable being myself regardless of what I do or do not have yet. I can also love and accept others as they are, even if I do not agree with them or if I do not like them personally. I was able to take time to understand negative people or simply distantance myself from them if they were too harsh. I was not worried about not being liked and accepted anymore, or what others thought of me. When I started to love myself unconditionally, I stopped spending time judging and criticizing myself harshly. I was no longer putting myself down with self-ridicule and self-persecution. I no longer felt the need to be attached to self-hate, so regrets, guilt, and shame slowly began to fade. I had to do a lot of inner work and soul-searching to reconcile with myself. Before I became aware of the beauty within, spiritual being, I was once out of touch with myself. I did not know who I was and why I was here. I just followed what most were doing, I remember being a little insecure so I did what the majority did to avoid embarrassment. This meant that I was living for image or ego, I was once obsessed with wondering how I looked when I was walking with a female, I needed to be seen especially when coming out of my car, who sees me? I am no longer insecure, I approved myself and feel proud of being me now, I don't care who notices me. Self-love is not, because I fit the image of a good-looking person, I like myself and I am somehow confident with women because I am used to being approved as good-looking or cool. But how would I genuinely feel about myself inside if that wasn't the case? When I was not loving myself I was easily moved by others and outside influences. I dealt with others only by conditional means, meaning I would only like and approve of them If they did things to my liking. I couldn't love and accept others as they were if I did not approve of them. I reacted to everything instead of responding. I was once easily moved by peer pressure. I once needed so much attention, admiration, and acknowledgment. I Once needed others to like or love me first to feel good about myself. Envy kept me in a competitive state, so I kept causing arguments. Loving myself and others based on conditions was toxic. If someone did not like me I had a problem with them. If someone did not love or approve of me, I had a problem. If I did not get a particular reaction to look and feel cool, I felt dissatisfied with myself. I once had a problem with feeling whole and complete within. I used to get jealous because I did not think highly positive about myself, if I had self-love then there would not be a need to feel jealous. I used to be envious, because I couldn't accept all of who I am with confidence, instead I compared myself to others. This meant that I felt like I was lacking something. Instead, I can accept all of who I am, improve myself and go for what I want. With self-love, we get to be the authority on how we should feel about ourselves, not the superficial world out there. Many wait to fall in love with with someone outside of them for those good feelings, to recieve it back to feel loved, we must be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and get the same feelings of being in love, smile at ourselves too. Self-love allowed me to experience mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical independence. This does not mean that I did it all alone. Self love allowed me to stop trying to please and appease others. Self-love made me stop having to chase others, being desperate for love, or needing to be in a relationship. Because I already feel loved, and I do not feel lonely anymore. I can wait to meet the right person. I also stopped being too nice and stopped always putting others first before my needs. Instead, I am kind, thoughtful, compassionate, generous, and respectful. There was a time when I thought that I couldn't do better, self love changed that for me. I started to see my self-value and self-worth grow as I got to know myself better. We are all unique and have different things to share with the world. Practice being compassionate to yourself and others every day. Love yourself and others unconditionally, and you will become so strong spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. Others will not be able to move you with their negativity, you will stay grounded and be balanced.
If each individual develops self love, inner unity, the illusion of saparation will desolve, race, creed, rich, middle, and poor class will not longer be an issue, because it will be easier to unite as a collective.
Most importantly others will naturally look up to you without you even trying. When we carry ourselves with self-love, confidence, and good self-esteem, we naturally end up being a motivator and an inspiration for the world around us.
