The main engine of progress is the desire for love. But the pursuit of universal recognition is questionable: you won’t get all the applause, and are they worth the time spent? Life goes on, faces change. Sometimes it happens that only we are left with us - a “family of one”, but the closest one. As you can see, things that have no real relation to it are often mistaken for self-love: the pursuit of beauty standards, the acquisition of expensive things, the desire for fame. All this is rather a desire to impress. Perhaps, when a person accepts his weaknesses, does not forget to take care of himself and protects personal boundaries without violating others’ – this is self-love. We know ourselves better than others, and often our own help is the most valuable. I used to really miss true self-love. Now she is. I'll tell you how to manifest it.
Pay attention to health – physical and mental
Whatever you decide to do, first think: how will this affect your health and well-being? If there is even a chance of harming yourself, don’t make the mistake. Imagine that health is your priceless child, whose well-being is inviolable. And only you are responsible for it. Give up bad habits like lack of sleep. The active peak of production of the beneficial hormone melatonin is from 20:00 to 4:00 in the morning. Unconstructive self-criticism is also destructive, as it deprives you of energy and inspiration. Health is where self-love begins.
Make peace with those you have offended
Suppose you offended a person and regret it. Use the tactics of “reasonable selfishness”: so that internal discomfort does not prevent you from moving on, try to ask for forgiveness. Pride will not suffer - good deeds only strengthen the sense of dignity. Even if you are not forgiven right away, your soul will still feel better.
How to change yourself?
Paths can be in two directions:
- Working on self-love. The more a person is confident that he is smart and beautiful, the more confident he shows himself. His attitudes are transformed and, accordingly, his behavior changes.
- Change of behavior. A person imitates confident personalities, adopts their gestures and movements, expressions, trains in front of a mirror, and goes to trainings. As a result, attitudes regarding intelligence, appearance and other aspects change.
Conscious reasonable egoism calls our soul to self-knowledge and self-love. The problem lies in the fact that it is difficult for an accomplished adult to hear the voice of his correct egoism. Pride, narcissism of a pathological kind, which arises due to long-term suppression of impulses of natural egoism, reaches his consciousness.
A healthy egoist approaches holiness even more than a righteous person by conviction. He deceives himself less. The righteous man believes that he can cope with selfishness by straining his will. He believes that by suppressing impulses he gets closer to God and holiness. But in fact, he only warms up the internal conflict and only moves away from God.
The more a person is inclined to believe in the selflessness of his actions and thoughts, the more unhappy he feels. He may show mercy, but his life will remain tasteless and empty. Such self-deception is like death.
There is another situation. A person does not pay attention to anyone, spits on everyone, lives only for his own pleasure. But the problem lies in the same thing, it is just turned inside out. Rebellion against morality or submission is the same thing.
Proud people also have an internal conflict regarding their own selfishness. They rebel and do not accept the ban on narcissism. But at the same time, they blame themselves for their behavior, which causes a rebellion against this guilt, then a new attempt to prove that they are right and independent, and again a feeling of guilt.
Everyone, without exception, is selfish. If you say you know a person who did something without any personal gain, he was not a person...
You can notice the difference between people when we talk about selfishness. It is determined not by the size of egoism, but by the level of self-deception. The most unhealthy egoism is manifested in rebels and righteous people. They are constantly at war with their own nature, proving their anger or kindness to everyone around them.
They strive to resolve the internal conflict in external manifestations, so this fails. From the outside, such people look painfully meek or, conversely, painfully narcissistic.
There is such a trick. If a person is honest with his own motivation, his actions look less selfish, his reasonable selfishness seems sober, justified, and does not cause rejection.
Let's look at an example.
There are two people. One of them is a healthy egoist, the second is an unhealthy one. Both of these people commit a certain act, for example, giving a gift to a loved one. A healthy egoist understands that he is giving a gift to himself, that he likes to give surprises, and he likes gratitude. Such a game is beneficial to him; he does not hide self-interest from anyone, neither from himself nor from the recipient.
It turns out he doesn't have a stone in his bosom. A healthy egoist is self-interested, but at the same time he is honest.
An unhealthy egoist will act differently. He does not understand that he is realizing his personal interest; he thinks that he is giving a gift completely disinterestedly, without harboring any ulterior motives.
But on a deeper level, he is driven by self-interest. He wants to receive something in return, but so that it is secret. If he gets a return, then everything is fine. But if a situation arises that a person did not like his gift, the self-interest of an unhealthy egoist will immediately come out. He will begin to freak out, get offended, demand justice and curse the other person’s selfishness. He wants his selfless gift to pay off his bills.
An unhealthy egoist is self-interested, but pretends that there is no benefit in his actions; he is proud of his contrived self-denial. Only the selfish “I want” is concentrated in a person.
If a person sees this clearly, his life will be natural and simple, just like in relationships with people.
Selfishness is a completely healthy feeling; there is no need to be ashamed of it. The more we hide from this selfishness, the more it tends to break out in the form of attempts to control people or unreasonable grievances.
If this feeling is recognized and understood, then this same egoism will force a person to respect the interests and freedom of others. Reasonable selfishness leads to constructive and healthy relationships.
If you can allow yourself to be an honest egoist, then this will be your greatest achievement. But that is not all. If the problem of insignificance and pride is not resolved, then egoism will come to their defense and forget that you need to be led along the road of natural self-realization.
For the lack of pride to become the advantage of conscious egoism, you must strive for this. This way you will solve up to 70 percent of your own problems that lie in wait in the future. They will go aside on their own and will not create an obstacle. You can develop exactly the way you want.
Love yourself and others
Like children who feel “just like that,” develop sympathy for whoever you want: a charming actor, a running animal... Scientists have proven that the love hormone is useful. And according to spiritual practices, the more you broadcast this feeling to the Universe, the more it returns.
Sign up for a course on minimalism:
“Simple Truths”A course that will help you get rid of junk in your home and head, get to know your true self and find your way to happiness and balance.
Find your ideal partner
TV series and books convince us that everyone is destined for a soul mate, and if you haven’t found one yet, urgently go looking for one. We have already said that having an affair with yourself seems to be a more attractive activity, but the search for a “soulmate” can also become more interesting if you approach it rationally. We tell you how to do this:
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Mike and Sarah Bennett
Forget about love!
"Guide to choosing a partner rationally"
Marriage is the riskiest undertaking in your life, say psychologist Michael Bennett and his daughter, comedy writer Sarah Bennett. And if so, then in such a matter you cannot rely on feelings. Only a rational approach will help you choose a partner! Authors of the bestseller “Forget it!” show how to use headhunting and business analytics techniques to manage romantic relationships.
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Ilse Sand
Fear of intimacy
“How to stop defending yourself and start loving”
This little book was written by Danish psychotherapist Ilse Sand. Why is someone unlucky in love? The author argues that this is often due to self-defense strategies that prevent us from truly getting close to another person. In the book, she talks about these strategies, how to spot them and stop defending yourself from real feelings.
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Carol Dayhouse
Man of dreams
“How mass culture created the image of the ideal man”
What kind of men make women's hearts beat faster? What can mass hysteria about sex symbols from different eras tell us about women themselves and about changes in society? Historian Carol Dyhouse charts the evolution of women's desires, from Byron to Rudolph Valentino, Mark Darcy to Justin Bieber. You will learn all about how and why the image of the dream man changes throughout history, and maybe choose the type to suit your taste.
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Naomi Wolf
The myth of beauty
"Stereotypes against women"
The author talks about where stereotypical ideas about female beauty come from and why they limit women’s freedom no less than patriarchal “domestic slavery.” Even having achieved the ideal, a woman still loses, because she sacrifices her natural beauty, health, energy, sexuality, and sometimes even life to the generally accepted standard of appearance. The book may also be useful for men, because in the process of its transformation, the myth increasingly draws them into the sphere of its influence, imposing on them sometimes harsh and meaningless rules.
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Philip Zimbardo, Nikita Colombe
Man in isolation
"Games, Porn and Loss of Identity"
Just some 100 years ago, everything was clear: women had children, kitchen, church, men had work, war, power. Now, roles that were previously traditionally played only by men are rapidly moving to women, and that’s not a bad thing. But as a result of such a radical change of roles, many men cannot find their place in society, family, or team. Many people get lost, break down, and withdraw into themselves. The authors talk about these problems and their solutions.
Hug yourself more often
This is very pleasant and even better if you are the one hugging yourself, since “not all hugs are equally useful.” The body feels warm and safe. Pat yourself on the head more often, praise even the smallest things and do not spare kind words!
If you don’t know how to start treating yourself with love, imagine that you are another person. And he really needs you!
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What is self-love?
Self-love is the natural and joyful care of yourself: your body, mind, soul and spirit.
Self-love is not selfishness. Self-love may or may not be selfish. Love is a reflection of our personality, and if a person is selfish, then his love for himself will be selfish. Strictly speaking, it is more correct to talk here not about self-love, but about falling in love with oneself. Fascination with oneself, self-absorption, exaggeration of one's merits are signs of falling in love with oneself, and such falling in love is indeed quite selfish.
If a person thinks about those around him and cares about them, then his love for himself has nothing to do with selfishness; it is easy and natural for him to love both himself and those around him. There is enough strength for this. Anyone who has loved himself for a long time and naturally does not devote too much time to this, just like a good gardener, a well-groomed garden does not require too much trouble. Taking care of yourself as a healthy and vigorous person is not difficult.
Did you wake up? I lifted myself up with pleasure, washed my beautiful self, rejoiced at how cheerful I was - and there was no longer any great need to do anything else for myself. Everything is already great, I already want to do something or someone else: prepare a delicious breakfast for myself and my family, kiss everyone and help them get ready.
Film "How women can take care of themselves"
Online program by Dmitry Sorok “A Woman Through the Eyes of a Man.” Issue No. 1. Visiting Dmitry Prof. N.I. Kozlov and his wife, psychologist Marina Smirnova.
The reality, however, is that those who are concerned with self-love, at least at first, become more selfish - simply because the main attention in this case begins to be paid to their loved one. Your beloved. Supplementing self-love with attention and care for others may not be difficult, but it is a completely separate area of work. Love for others in itself does not in any way follow or follow from love for oneself.
What is this, self-love? Self-love is taking care of yourself. But true love is not just caring, but joyful caring, when you want to care, when there is joy in the soul from the very process of caring. If this is not the case, there is self-care, but there is no self-love, there is simply self-care. So, some people seem to take care of themselves: they wash themselves, develop themselves, feed themselves, treat themselves - they seem to care. But look at this guy: no, he doesn’t look like a loving person! Someone smart and healthy seems to do everything for himself, but they won’t call him loving. What is he missing? Light and joy in the soul. He takes care of himself - without joy, and when there is no joy, there is no love.
One of the secrets of self-love is in this inner joy and in its simple formula, namely: warmth, light and energy. When there is warmth in your soul, when there is light and sun in your soul, when you have energy in your soul and body, you feel love in your soul, you live with love. This is wonderful! But sometimes your soul is cold, and when you feel cold in your soul, you do not have love. Sometimes the inner world is dark, and when the inner light goes out, love goes out. And if you run out of strength to live, your energy is gone, and love goes away along with it. If a person describes the picture of his inner world as - grey, well, some winter, some evening, maybe the lights have gone out, and there is no joy or energy in his voice - such a person lives without love.
How to give birth and maintain light and warmth in your soul? What should you do for this?
People often think that self-love consists of satisfying your simplest needs with pleasure, forgetting about responsibilities and other people.
Allow yourself to do what you want, allow yourself to shop, surround yourself with romance and give yourself gifts - an exciting program for a child-like person who does not want to grow up. Can this be called love? It is possible, but the level of this love is the same as the love of a mother whose child feeds mainly on candies and Coca-Cola, spending time mainly playing computer games and other entertainment. Does a mother love her child?
Strictly speaking, these can hardly even be called needs. These are the desires and whims that spoiled children insist on. And the most important thing is that they do not give joy for long, only while it is new and while others envy it. After some time, everything becomes boring, the joy goes away. Sometimes a girl seems to have given herself everything: she got enough sleep, gave herself something to drink and feed, went on a shopping spree - but inside everything is bad. Sad. The world is gray, and the girl is still biting herself for something. Does she love herself? No. It happens that a woman gets carried away with shopping precisely because she feels bad about herself. And if a woman is somehow offended by life, she can go shopping for herself, and then she looks at these things, but there is no joy. Satisfaction of needs in itself is not self-love, and this does not always end in inner joy, light and warmth. You can't really fill yourself up with any purchases, it's just some kind of deception. As a temporary measure, as a substitute for self-love, this is possible, but you should not trust TV, this is not the joy of life and this is not self-love. This is a low-quality life, this is a life that is not taken seriously, and an intelligent man with such a woman will not talk for a long time about something good, good, real.
Satisfying your needs is not self-love. Some people begin to love themselves after this, but others don’t. Satisfying one's needs is sometimes just a substitute for self-love, when a person seems to be paying off with gifts for the fact that he does not love himself. Of course, needs and needs are different. If you have a need to move forward, develop, a need to take care of other people, a need to be needed, or a need to master any task with dignity and quality, then by satisfying such needs, you will have more reasons to love yourself. You will have something to be proud of. If all your needs come down to eating and entertaining yourself with shopping or watching TV, then such self-love is unlikely to last, and the one who turns into a pig ceases to be a person.
The following recipes are often recommended as help and tips on “How to love yourself”: “Accept yourself”, “Don’t bite yourself”, “Forgive yourself and others”, “Don’t envy”, “Be here and now”. These are good recommendations, they just don’t directly relate to the topic of self-love. They are not about how to love yourself, but about how not to beat or torment yourself. If your boss stops swearing at you, does that mean he loves you now? If you have forgiven someone, this does not mean that this person has even become your friend. If you have risen from minus to zero in relation to yourself, you have not yet risen to plus. This is normal psychotherapy, but it has nothing to do with the state of love, just as a traumatologist has nothing to do with the work of a cosmetologist. A traumatologist treats an injury, a cosmetologist brings beauty to a healthy body. If a person comes with a sick soul, he needs to have his soul repaired, but a soul without pain is not the same as a soul with love. These recommendations are not about love, but about repairs.
Film “Personal life: the joy of close relationships. The lesson is conducted by Prof. N.I. Kozlov and psychologist Marina Smirnova"
Leadership exit. I am joy, I am beauty!
On the other hand, if the soul hurts, then first you really need to heal it. If your soul is completely dark, if your soul is a problematic swamp, then you cannot build a palace on such a swamp. Yes, you need to remove the Victim position, deal with the inner saboteur, remove limiting beliefs and body negativity, give up sweet idealizations, wean yourself from bad habits - there is a lot of work. Some people here will benefit from treatment and psychotherapy, others – the path of study characteristic of the synton approach. It is important to understand that when you have done all this difficult but extremely important work, self-love will not automatically appear in you. A simply renovated house is not yet a holiday space; the holiday needs to be arranged separately. A repaired soul simply works smoothly, but filling it with love is another, separate job.
Is this a difficult job? The most amazing, most amazing answer is that it is simple. This is simply not for everyone, but only for mentally healthy people, but for a mentally healthy person there really is nothing difficult here. How long does it take to love yourself? How long does it take to turn on the lights in the apartment? A good owner has one second to simply press the switch.
Suppose you come to visit friends, or want to congratulate a bright person on his birthday... Remember what happens to you: immediately, the very second you see the birthday person, you charge yourself with joy, you charge yourself with light and warmth, and tell this good person everything you want to tell him. Or, if your baby woke up and cried at night: you need to get up, and also rock him, and even with love, because otherwise he will not fall asleep. What are you doing? You jump up at that very second and turn to him with love, because this is necessary. Where do you get this love from? Out of thin air, out of nowhere. This is simply the ability to love, an ordinary skill, and those who know how to turn on light and joy in their souls do it easily. It's no more difficult than feeding yourself and your children three times a day with something tasty (and healthy). If you can handle cooking breakfast, you can handle this. Start loving yourself, you will love it, and after that you will do it for the rest of your life. Yes? Don’t believe books that tell you how hard it is to love yourself, that it requires years of psychotherapy. It’s not true, healthy people don’t need psychotherapy, mentally healthy people, like just normal healthy children, know how to rejoice and know how to love themselves. Just do it!
However, we will not always do everything that is easy for us, even if it is in our interests. The fact is that we have many different interests, and the game of melancholy and boredom also has its own internal benefits. Dear, beautiful girls know how to burst into joy once in a while, but they won’t do it just like that. They do not want to warm themselves with light and warmth, they do not want to turn on the energy until they pamper themselves in satisfying their needs. The consumer society and all those who are used to making money from women inspire women that a woman who loves herself will definitely please herself with purchases. They suggest that shopping is an integral part of a woman’s self-love. Studies have already been conducted that have shown that for modern women shopping is a more psychotherapeutic procedure than visiting a psychologist.
There is also some truth in this: in modern Sales Atriums it is light, warm, colorful, people with lively eyes walk there, good music plays there, and a woman, plunging into this world of light and colors, more easily includes a state of joy. Joy is embraced by the woman herself, but at the same time she learns the formula that shopping, doping, spas and sleep are the formula for women’s self-love. But this is not true, this is not true.
Joy in the soul is triggered not by shopping, but by the woman herself. When a woman has satisfied her needs, she, as if for this, includes warmth, light and other joy. So a child cries to himself until someone buys him a toy, and stops crying when he has achieved his goal. Was it the toy that calmed him down or did he do it himself?
Women know how beneficial massage is for health, how massage is a source of joy. All magazines tell women that massage is an absolutely miraculous procedure, and that only these secret oriental techniques will restore your health. It's true, massage is really beneficial. What women don’t know is that the massage therapist has nothing to do with it, that the woman herself creates joy and health for herself. The massage therapist only needs to take part in the holiday that you create for yourself, just stroke you in all the places you like , you will do the rest yourself. For three hours he did good to you, and for three hours you regained your health. Massage is good for health, but the beauty of it is that when a woman feels good, she makes herself joyful and turns on her health.
So, be careful: self-love begins not when you satisfy your needs, but after that, when you like yourself and you decide to love yourself, that is, you turn on the light, warmth and living energy within yourself. Accordingly, you can start loving yourself right away, without expecting anything from yourself.
Have you started? Yes, only after this you should pay attention to the quality of your self-love. The fact is that self-love can be both correct and crooked. Crooked self-love is short-sighted; it is a love in which concern for today's desires overshadows the needs of tomorrow. The girl decided to love herself more and began to eat delicious cakes without restrictions. Having ruined her figure, she is now forced to eat her loneliness with cakes. Mistake, right?
Love is a reflection of our personality. What personality is like is love. Self-love can be narrow-minded, it can be selfish, and it can be dangerous. And if we are not wise, then our love is not wise, and if you do not love yourself wisely, your joy and self-satisfaction will not last very long. The one who loves himself is satisfied with himself, lives with himself in joy and harmony, but only the one who loves himself wisely will delight himself for a long time. Joy accompanies the whole life only of those who love themselves wisely, who are demanding and critical of themselves.
A pig's love for himself consists of eating his fill and lying down in a cozy puddle. You are probably attracted to other prospects. Your self-love shouldn't be short-sighted, and it's not healthy if it's selfish. Not everything that pleases you does not always please those around you, and, apparently, it is worth learning to love yourself so that your love pleases and warms not only you, but also the people close to you. By focusing your self-love only on yourself, you ultimately complicate and impoverish your own life. Self-love is honed and refined through the experience of loving other people. We can say more definitely: only by learning to really love other people - your husband or wife, your children, parents - only in this case does a person begin to love himself not blindly and crookedly, but carefully and intelligently.
When talking about love, we need to take into account the peculiarities of male and female language. Men and women are different. For women, self-love is usually natural, coming from the heart, joyful care for oneself, for one’s body. When a woman takes care of everything she has, feels and appreciates the best that is in her, takes care of herself with joy, and lives with inner light, then we can say about such a woman that she loves herself. Love for a woman is a feeling, her love is a warm attitude, and at the center of her love is joy and a feeling of comfort.
So, men have a different understanding of self-love, and I understand that it’s also worth listening to. Men talk about love less often, but if one day it can be said that this man loves himself, then behind this in a man’s life there will always be responsible actions, his actions. He will wash himself, educate himself, play sports, work with his character, that is, for a man, self-love is actions. What to do with yourself to be cheerful, smart and healthy all your life. Love for a man is action, his love is demanding, and the focus of his attention is his strength and capabilities.
If we take from men the tendency to clearly define everything, then the essence of self-love can be formulated as follows. There are four important areas in self-love: internal well-being (inner light, warmth and energy), taking care of your health (healthy lifestyle and sports), developing your culture (education and good manners) and taking care of your appearance, which should please you too , and those who are dear to you.
And all this needs to be done. Indeed, to love is a verb, and to love oneself is to do something for oneself. What?
If you love yourself, you will give yourself the power and the right to control your life, you will choose to become the Author of your life. Start by never complaining. Asking for help is okay, but complaining is not. Complaining is experiencing your helplessness, which you yourself have created. It's empty. If you love yourself, you will give up being offended: being offended is just a childish habit. We plunge ourselves into resentment, make ourselves feel bad so that they will pay attention to us and give us what we want. And when they don’t give it to us, we get offended again, but it doesn’t work anymore, because it worked in childhood, and in the adult world you make yourself feel bad for nothing. Anyone who loves himself is not offended.
Anyone who loves himself knows well and remembers his strengths, his virtues. Many people need to learn this too, and sometimes it’s easier to start by noticing the goodness in the people around you. Take it upon yourself to write every day ten new advantages of yourself and ten advantages of someone close to you, acquaintances or work colleagues. When you know at any moment that you are a worthy person living among worthy people, it becomes easier to love yourself.
If you love yourself, you will make your inner world bright, and then the outer world, sanctified by the light of your soul, will become beautiful for you. If you love yourself very much, you will turn on the warmth in your soul, and you will feel comfortable... How to do this? Make a list of the things that make you happy and cross out the bad ones. On Psychologos, find huge lists of what people please themselves with, which evokes surprisingly bright feelings in their souls. Choose the best for yourself and after that just don’t be lazy to please yourself! As a background to life, master the “Good, and you will feel good” exercise, and then you will consolidate your success with the “Sunshine” exercise. The sun is an expression of the inner Good outside, to people. The sun is a must, the morning starts with a smile. Dear women, when you go out to people, you do your makeup and hairstyle beautifully, but where is the glowing face, why do we walk around gloomy? If you live with a smile, you will like yourself and other people more. When you go to people, shine, it will be better for you!
To have enough strength for this, start going to bed on time, that is, today, always only before 12 o’clock at night. During the day, pay attention to your rest, do not work sadly and exhaustively: either give yourself rest, or work vigorously. This is what everyone who loves themselves does.
If you love yourself, you will begin to live in an organized manner, begin to write down your daily tasks and weekly plan, and later, your goals for the year. Anyone who loves himself makes sure that his life does not go stupidly, not by chance, but in the direction that attracts you, in the direction where you see prospects.
If you love yourself, you will believe in yourself and set big goals for yourself, according to your growth. Anyone who loves himself myopically sets small goals for himself so as not to stress now - and is forced to strain later, when he is no longer satisfied with what he has. By putting off going to the doctor, you are only accumulating problems, and if you love yourself, you will get ready and go to the doctor, even if it is now troublesome and uncomfortable. The one who loves himself is not the one who sits in a comfortable chair and feels how he loves himself, but the one who lifts himself out of the chair, teaches himself, makes himself a person. If you love yourself, you will always learn. Imagine - you believe in yourself, you believe in your future, you believe that you can pass on the best to your children. You have enough intelligence, culture, soul, light, love, sunshine, joy, and good manners. This is the result of always learning. You will have your Maximum Life and a plan to achieve it, and you will be proud of yourself, knowing that you are worth it! Then you have something to pass on to your children, something to give to men. And the man who will live with you will definitely be happy. And if you don’t know how to do something, you will learn.
There are four important areas in self-love: internal well-being (inner light, warmth and energy), taking care of your health (healthy lifestyle and sports), developing your culture (education and good manners) and taking care of your appearance, which should please you too , and your loved one.
Joy to us, energy, and quickly! And to do all this faster and more organized, go to Distance: this is a system that will definitely help you along the way. Calmly, understandably, step by step - you will do everything, cope with everything, and live with love. With love for yourself and for other people who will definitely reciprocate your love.
