Monologue Monday: Why Loving Yourself Matters

Recently, I wrote a post here asking ‘Do YOU Love Yourself?’ In the post I asked you all to join me in telling yourself one thing that you love about yourself everyday for the entire month of February. (You can check out the details here if you want to know more, but today I just want to focus on the why of it all).

So what’s the big deal anyway? What does it even matter if we love ourselves or not?

Loving yourself is a very big deal. How you feel about yourself impacts every other facet of your life. It influences your choices, how you allow others to treat you, whether or not you are willing to settle or to go after what you believe you deserve, and basically just every other thing about your life.

If you don’t care about and love yourself, then no amount of someone else loving and trying to validate you is going to fill the void that you are feeling. Therefore, try not to get sucked into the mentality of there being a need for something or someone else having to define you. When you know and love yourself, you define you.

The reality of life is that everyone is going to have an opinion of you. Even if their opinion is one of indifference or nonchalance, people are going to form an opinion of you based off of their own conceptions (or misconceptions).

If you don’t love yourself, or you value the approval of others more than the esteem of your own worth, then you are going to be easily swayed and disheartened as you journey through life.

Stop seeking the approval of seasonal people who have no control over your life or your well being because you feel the need to be confirmed or accepted by them. While valuable, other people’s opinion of you can’t and shouldn’t control your life. You have to love you for you.

How you think and feel about yourself matters most because you can’t escape yourself. You have to live with you forever.

Again, some of us fill the void that we feel about ourselves by seeking the attention, approval, and acceptance of others or in things.

You don’t have to continue living like this though. Even if at the moment you don’t think very highly of yourself, determine in your heart that today is a new day. You may have struggled in the past with low self-esteem or not feeling worthy, but this is a new season in your life! You are not going to spend the rest of your life living in someone else’s shadow or under the unjust opinions of others.

Learn and love yourself for who you are, flaws and all, and embrace your identity. You are going to have your days where you fall short and mess up, but guess what: you are human.

For those people who just don’t “get you”, give them a mirror and tell them to do some self-reflecting, realize that everybody is not going to like you and that’s ok. As long as you love yourself and you can lay down at night in good conscious knowing that you gave your all, then don’t worry about the opinions of others.

Here are some tips to help you love yourself even more:

©       Ignore Others- As I said earlier, everybody is not going to like you. In fact, some people don’t even have a reason for their dislike, they just don’t like you. It doesn’t make much sense, but nevertheless you can’t get caught up in the mindsets and reasoning of other people. Just because someone else doesn’t like you doesn’t mean that you can’t love yourself. If people are against you, don’t loose focus… keep doing you to the best of your ability and use their dislike as fuel to becoming a better you.

©       Learn Who You Are- If you don’t know who you are then you are going to believe what others are telling you about yourself and that’s not cool. Nobody knows you better than you do. You see the stuff that you do when no one is looking or is around, so unless someone truly knows you then don’t believe the opinions of others who catch a glimpse of your life and feel the need to label you. Don’t allow yourself to get caught up in the drama. Be you and your character will speak for itself.

©       Hone In On Your Strengths- We all have weaknesses. I don’t care how awesome someone else seems or how much it seems as though they have it all together, we all have our flaws and shortcomings. Instead of focusing on your weaknesses, start focusing on your strengths and try to enhance those aspects of yourself.

©       Speak Positive- Your words have life. Whoever came up with the saying ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’, probably had very little encounters with real human beings. People’s words hurt. Since you can’t control what others will say, you can control how you will allow it to make you feel and how you will respond to it. I personally would respond by speaking life into my being. Everyday I try to think of something that I love about myself or something that I did well for that day, and my life has become so much better because of this mindset. (AND I strongly encourage you to join me for “LoveYourself” February).

©       Forgive- Let go of all of your past pains and disappointments and start living your life to the fullest. Forgive yourself. You have walked around carrying that heavy load for far too long. Its time to release it and to become the amazing person that you were destined to be. You can’t move forward as long as you keep reminiscing about the past. Talk about it, get it all out, and move on. If someone has hurt you, forgive them. It may not be easy (and this doesn’t mean that you have to let them back into your life), but it’s vital that you do so. You are worth it!

-Virgin Monologuez