Summary
It’s not your typical Valentine’s message, but you’ll never love others well if you don’t — or won’t — start with loving yourself first. When you love yourself first, you won’t need validation as much from others, you boost your emotional intelligence, and you exercise independence. All of these lead to health, and the healthier you are, the healthier your relationships will be!
Loving yourself first… It’s not your typical message here around Valentine’s Day, when the focus shifts to showing others how much you care about them with flowers, chocolates, teddy bears and romantic dates. But I’d like to propose that you’ll never love others well if you don’t — or won’t — love yourself first.
Now, before you misunderstand, let me caveat this to say I don’t mean you should put your wants ahead of others’ needs. Nor am I advocating a narcissistic self-glorification that elevates oneself above others or, if you are a person of faith, God. I’m talking about the “put your oxygen mask on first” approach when it comes to love, which operates under the logical premise that you are no good to anyone else if you suffocate before you can assist.
You Can’t Pour from an Empty Cup
Too many of us are trying to pour from the proverbial cup, and my friends, we’re running on empty. We give what we don’t have, emotionally and spiritually speaking. We overplan, overpromise and overcommit ourselves without considering the effect it will have on our mental health. We offer others encouragement that we deny ourselves. We compliment the varied beauty of others while criticizing our own images every time we glimpse into the mirror. And we extend grace that we’d never offer ourselves. And herein is the problem: loving others well starts with modeling, and we must live out the self-love we preach.
Love in the Right Order
Logically speaking, order fosters harmony and stability within systems, whether we’re talking politically, socially, economically, scientifically, etc. Order provides a framework within which entities can operate effectively. This same order applies when we speak of love.
When we talk about loving in the right order, we’re talking about a sequence of events that must happen in succession if we want to be effective. Order applies to mathematics in that we can’t possibly understand calculus without first understanding basic arithmetic. It applies to baking a cake in how we mix ingredients or in traffic as we transition through stop lights. Order can be protective not only of ourselves, but of others.
So, What Does Loving Yourself First Look Like?
1. CONSIDERATION:
Loving ourselves first means we treat ourselves with consideration, which in turn allows us to love others in a way that doesn’t compromise our own stability. Case in point: How many of us have told a friend we’d help them with a task without even considering our own needs or limitations, only to end up resentful or bitter when the time came to fulfill the request? If we only commit to things after we’ve considered our own constraints and needs, we will be able to fulfill these commitments with a sincere heart that is well-loved.
2. KINDNESS:
If we are kind to ourselves first, it will overflow into kindness toward others. I try to see beauty in every person I behold. I marvel at the unique differences in people’s hair, facial structures, skin tones, styles… But there’s one person I struggle to compliment on the regular — me. How can we claim to see beauty all around us but neglect to see it in the image we see every single day? My children see this. Friends, we can’t in the same breath tell our sons and daughters how wonderful they are and put ourselves down.
When someone compliments you, rather than negating it, accept it with gratitude. When we see those wabi-sabi imperfections in the mirror, smile and be amazed at the creativity and uniqueness that went into making you. It doesn’t have to be a boastful conversation you have with the whole world, but it does need to be said — and repeated often — in those quiet moments when you are alone with yourself.
3. BOUNDARIES:
If we respect our own boundaries first, we will learn to better respect those of others. You’ve heard me talk a LOT about boundaries in these blog posts, and that’s because healthy boundaries protect us. They are a form of self-love that we often compromise in an effort to “make people love us” or to avoid rejection. But when we fail to self-protect, we truly have no one to blame but ourselves.
Yes, there will be times people cross our boundaries and wound us, but we always have a choice about our response. We can — in fear of losing them or in avoidance of conflict — over or under respond in a way that doesn’t follow through on appropriate consequences. We can survive the abandonment of loved ones, but we cannot emotionally survive the abandonment of ourselves. Choose to stand up for yourself by placing healthy boundaries within your relationships and following through on the natural consequences of either respecting or disrespecting them.
4. SELF-CARE:
If we take care of ourselves first, we will be better prepared to care for others. This looks less like the “treat yourself” movement in terms of buying yourself gifts and eating whatever you want and more like considering the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of yourself before tending to those of others. I see this often in friends who make their children the center of their world, often to the neglect of their own health, marriages or friendships. (I’ve been guilty of this more often than not.) We teach our children how to care for themselves well by modeling it for them.
Consider the logic of stopping your own bleeding wound before offering triage to another. It does them no good if you bleed all over them and infect their own wounds or if you pass out before you can truly be of assistance. Weigh what your needs are in terms of rest, support and stability, then you will be able to care for others in a way that truly helps them!
5. TRUST:
When we are loving ourselves first, we trust our instincts and believe what our bodies are telling us. If your body is telling you you’re uncomfortable, pay attention to it. Get curious and be patient with yourself. I always hated being told as a child to “be a good girl and give so and so a hug.” That kind of rhetoric is damaging, untrue and needs to stop.
Trust is something we must earn, both with one another and ourselves. No one has earned the right to tell you how to feel more than yourself. Only you have experienced the things you’ve experienced, and rather than rejecting our feelings of mistrust, we have a right to explore them, to test them for truth and to take our time in doing so. When we ourselves become trustworthy, we will become more patient with others as they do the same.
6. FORGIVENESS:
You can’t claim to love yourself and withhold forgiveness. I’m saying this from the position of someone who has experienced more hurt at the hands of others than most could imagine. Let me clarify two things though as we talk about forgiveness: it doesn’t mean they earned it, and it doesn’t mean you’ll forget it. Unforgiveness is a prison, not for the one who deserves it, but for yourself. It’s one of the most misunderstood feelings I’ve ever had to sort through (am STILL sorting through), and everyone seems to have an opinion on it.
What I’ve found to be true though, is when we choose to hold onto someone’s “debt” to us, awaiting an apology that will probably never come, or allowing anger or bitterness toward someone to occupy our minds… we extend our own suffering. We think we’re punishing the ones who wronged us, but in reality, the same selfishness that allowed them to hurt us allows them to move on without remorse or reconciliatory behavior. Unforgiveness steals from us. It occupies our minds and hearts and affects what we’re able to give to those we truly love, who are kind and good to us. When we choose to forgive, we free our hearts to love not only ourselves but those who deserve it.
A couple excellent books on this topic that I’ve personally read are Forgiving What You Can’t Forget by Lysa Terkeurst and Bold Love by Dr. Dan B. Allender & Dr. Tremper Longman III.
7. CELEBRATION:
Lastly, love requires us to celebrate ourselves, too. How easy is it to honor others but disregard our own wins in life? I know for me, I’ll applaud a friend for their new job or take them out for a celebratory dinner well before I ever consider doing so for myself. Parents, when we plan grand birthday parties for our children but fail to even acknowledge the joy of our own existence each year, what are we truly modeling? That the older we get the less valued we are? That our children in turn should overflow in celebration of others while dreading any celebration of themselves?
Many of us avoid self-celebration in an attempt toward modesty and selflessness. But I’d like to posit that celebrating the beautiful life you have, the hard work you do and the excellent things that happen to you aren’t truly selfish… they’re demonstrating gratefulness. And we can all afford more gratitude in our lives.
Why Does Loving Yourself Matter?
When you love yourself first, you won’t need validation as much from others, you boost your emotional intelligence, and you exercise independence. All of these lead to health, and the healthier you are, the healthier your relationships will be! So as we round out this month of love, be sure to work on loving the person who’s been by your side all along, the one who is desperate for protection and celebration and kindness, too. Love the uniquely created you.
