It is important for people to love and respect themselves. This is not about narcissism or selfishness. Loving yourself means believing in the power of your spirit. A person who is satisfied with himself knows that he has a goal and tries in every possible way to achieve it. Accepting all your pros and cons and making friends with yourself is not as easy as it seems at first glance. To do this you need to achieve harmony. It is she who will fill human life with happiness. Find out a psychologist's advice on how to start loving and respecting yourself. If you are ready to work on yourself and change, then go ahead!
Signs of self-dislike
Sometimes it is quite difficult to determine the degree of self-esteem. Often a shy and quiet person values himself much more than a bright and attention-loving person. Natalya Priymachenko identifies 5 hidden signs of self-dislike.
- You eat without feeling hungry. It doesn't matter in what situations it manifests itself. You can have lunch with friends for company, finish a sandwich with your child, or comfort yourself with cakes. However, at the root of all these actions is neglect of one's own true needs. After all, you are ignoring your body and mind by doing things that you really don’t want to do. Self-respecting people eat only when they are hungry.
- You buy a lot of cheap things. People who love themselves try not to make reckless purchases and never skimp on themselves, because they know the golden rule - the stingy pays twice. They do not regret spending money on themselves, but they strive to purchase only high-quality goods. Moreover, this does not depend on their level of income.
- You take a seat in the last row. Have you noticed that some people strive to be the center of attention, while others avoid it in every possible way? Such behavior is rarely conscious. Most often, people with low self-esteem take seats in the last rows, although they can sit closer. Because they don’t consider themselves worthy of being in the first positions. They also cannot bring themselves to take part in an argument, because they are confident in advance that their opponent will be more savvy and intelligent.
- You cannot deny yourself small joys. Although everyone vying with each other advises to pamper yourself more often, indulging yourself will not lead to anything good. When you treat your body and mind as precious, well-being becomes more valuable than immediate pleasures. You begin to consciously choose what to fill your life with. Self-love gives freedom and independence from harmful weaknesses.
- You are creating too strict boundaries. Many healthy eating fans have psychological problems. Why? Because they try to follow the rules, not their own opinions. However, in reality, self-love and respect are built on a different principle. A person understands what is harmful to him and what will benefit his health. Too zealous adherence to restrictions indicates the presence of self-dislike.
Have you found examples of your own behavior in these points? But how can you love yourself and start respecting yourself? Let's discuss further.
Monroe syndrome
Further more. In an attempt to please a man who, in general, is not very interested in you, you begin to adapt more and more to him, bend over, impose yourself - you finally fall in his eyes, and in the end everything ends very badly.
This is the saddest scenario - to make it clearer.
A lack of self-love drives you into neurotic, unhealthy relationships: if for a normal person the refusal of another person or his obvious indifference is a signal to peacefully pass by and look further, for a neurotic this is only the beginning of “big and bright love.”
To suffer is to love. Psychologists also call this “Marilyn Monroe syndrome.”
While you expect that your lack of love and respect for yourself will be covered by someone else, you can only count on manipulators, pick-up artists, married men, gigolos, tyrants and other lovers of “profit.”
The consequences of not loving yourself
They are detrimental to both health and personality. The problem of lack of confidence and self-dislike is now very relevant for almost every woman. Most often it comes from childhood. My parents didn’t like me, didn’t praise me, didn’t understand me. They often make a huge mistake with their children: comparing them to others. As a result, already at an early stage of personality formation, the child develops self-doubt and self-dislike.
In women, low self-esteem causes several types of behavior. As a result, we see several options for the development of events:
- The woman becomes a bitch. She really only satisfies her needs, indulges her desires. She seeks to manipulate men and uses them for her own purposes. The downside is that such a woman cannot find happiness in her personal life. There is no harmony and understanding in the couple, there is only a consumer attitude.
- Takes the position of a victim. She never puts herself first and does not strive for partnerships. She finds a man who can partially replace her father. He will protect her, tell her what to do and how to think. As a result, she will not be able to grow morally, because she will forever remain in the position of a little defenseless girl. And he will satisfy his own male ego thanks to her defenselessness and weakness. In addition, female victims are dependent on their partners. And this leaves an imprint on their entire life.
We’ll talk a little later about how a woman can learn to love herself. What about the representatives of the stronger sex?
Men often strive to climb the career ladder to earn the respect of others. But at the same time, they continue to be biased towards themselves and demand too much from themselves. Each of them constantly feels that he is not good enough, that he needs to rise higher, to reach the top of Everest. However, no amount of success will allow him to achieve self-respect. If self-love has a reason, it is not love.
If a person respects and loves himself, those around him will experience the same feelings towards him. He will be able to develop spiritually and emotionally. So how can you learn to respect yourself? And how to fall in love? And we will discuss this issue further.
Learn to love and respect yourself. How to do it?
William Shakespeare once wrote:
Self-love is not as deserving of condemnation as lack of self-respect.
Psychologists say that the main mistake most people make when trying to increase their self-esteem is loving themselves for some reason. In fact, you don't have to look for it to learn to respect yourself. Love yourself simply because you are you and there is no one else like you.
Dawson McAlister argues that healthy self-esteem is based on treating yourself in a positive way. He offers several principles to help you feel better about yourself.
Books “How to start loving yourself?”
There are a lot of books that will help you do auto-training and feel happy. Many were guided by Dale Carnegie's great book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. It helps to increase self-esteem and self-confidence, fight shyness and indecisiveness. The main postulate of this book: “love yourself - and life will love you”!
Many people are familiar with the books of the famous doctor Kurpatov. One of them is called “12 non-trivial solutions. Find peace in your soul." She gives a lot of practical and useful advice on how to accept yourself with all your shortcomings.
Louise Hay devoted more than 30 books to psychology. One of them is “Love yourself. Trust your life." The author formulated 10 ways to become happy.
Many have heard about family psychologist Mikhail Labkovsky, who is the most expensive and sought-after specialist in Moscow. He has a book “Love yourself no matter what you look like.” The author gives a lot of advice on increasing self-esteem. All these works are united by one important piece of advice - you must feel your importance!
Dawson McAllister's Principles
The level of self-esteem cannot depend on the opinions of others. Many of us cannot form an opinion about ourselves without someone else's assessments. This dependence on other people's opinions is formed in childhood. As a result, a person begins to feel insignificant and unloved if others do not communicate this to him every second.
The whole point is that in our society there is a clear division into lucky and unlucky people, into “normal” and strange. However, the thing is that the concepts of “normal” and “loser” are very relative. Are there any normal people among us? We are all a little crazy, a little different from each other. There's nothing to be ashamed of. The patterns set by society should not really have power over you. In the future, will you be satisfied that you followed conventional standards, sacrificing your own happiness for the approval of others? Hardly. Every time you encounter internal limitations, remember that you have one life. And it's quite short. Therefore, you need to learn to live, not exist.
Pay attention to whether you listen to the whispers of your colleagues behind your back, the opinions of relatives and friends? No, constructive criticism never hurt anyone, but you must forget the question: “What will people say?” Experience shows that the less you pay attention to the opinions of others, the less they notice you. Here's how to respect and love yourself. And you won't need any therapists.
Don't talk bad about yourself. Think about your strengths and focus less on your weaknesses. If you constantly tell yourself that you don't deserve to be happy, you are unlikely to become a happy person. Never talk about yourself in a negative way when talking to other people.
Take responsibility for your own life. She is only yours. You can't blame anyone for your own mistakes. Dawson advises starting with proper nutrition: avoiding unhealthy foods and drinking plenty of water. It guarantees that it will significantly improve your self-esteem levels.
What is the difference between self-love and selfishness?
Selfishness, egocentrism, narcissism, hedonism, narcissism, selfishness are not self-love. These states are from lack. Out of weakness. And love comes from excess. From strength.
Loving yourself does not mean taking the easy way out. Eating buns is much more pleasant and easier than sweating in the gym, watching TV series is easier than learning a language, and so on.
But an indicator of self-love is precisely the ability to make an effort on yourself for the sake of results.
True self-love will prevent you from harming yourself with harmful foods, habits, or unhealthy dependence on someone or something.
How can a woman learn to respect and love herself?
Stop comparing yourself to others and looking for flaws in yourself. Women especially often criticize their own appearance. But it is very important for them to know how to learn to respect and value themselves. But they compare themselves with others and sadly realize that they are not ideal. But you must learn to love your own body. Be grateful to the Universe that you have arms and legs, you can see and hear - believe me, this is a real miracle. However, we are accustomed to disdaining what we got for nothing.
Of course, if you are not satisfied with your own appearance, you can (and even should) make efforts to correct these imperfections. However, it should be taken into account that you cannot reproach yourself for those features of your appearance that you cannot change. For example, small breasts or a hump nose. However, you can change your attitude towards them. Stop considering them as flaws, and treat them as cute features of your appearance.
Make a list of your best qualities and review it daily. It will help if it becomes difficult to maintain self-esteem at the proper level.
Be yourself. You should not try on masks. Think about the fact that for some reason you came into this world with exactly this set of personal qualities. You may need to improve them or adjust them slightly. However, under no circumstances should you refuse them. A woman who pretends to be someone else cannot feel happy.
Respect your time. You shouldn’t spend it on activities you don’t like or helping other people to the detriment of yourself. Treat yourself, your time and your body with respect and people will respect you.
Learn to forgive
Start by forgiving yourself. Forgive yourself for all the mistakes, all the wrong decisions and all the wrong questions asked. Forgive yourself everything, because you had and have the right to make a mistake. Here's how to start loving and respecting yourself - allowing yourself to make mistakes.
You shouldn't judge other people's mistakes. Of course, this doesn't mean you should encourage someone's bad behavior. However, you should not carry a burden of resentment and hatred in your soul. They destroy you from the inside, but do not bring any harm to your offenders. Think about the fact that people who have offended you in some way are also imperfect. Try to put yourself in their place and find the strength in your soul to forgive them and let them go in peace. You should not reconnect with them because you will never be able to relate to them with the same sympathy. But forgiveness will set you free and cleanse you spiritually.
Engage in self-development
A person who does not strive to develop intellectually and spiritually cannot develop self-respect. Answering the question of how to love yourself and respect a woman, psychology experts give a clear answer: do not forget about self-development.
A person certainly cannot know everything. However, he has the opportunity to learn something new. Especially now, when all the information you need can be found on the Internet. The more you learn, the stronger your thirst for new knowledge will become. At the same time, you shouldn’t be afraid to show that you don’t know something. Feel free to ask questions that interest you.
So, we discussed how a woman can learn to love and appreciate herself. However, most women are interested in the question of how to gain respect from men. Well, everything is connected. Once you improve your self-esteem, potential partners will also learn to treat you accordingly.
Loving yourself: where to start?
This is not a minute process: it’s so easy to take and replace the dislike that has been accumulated over the years with true self-love on all levels. This is a long process of self-improvement. And it starts small.
Getting to know yourself
Write down on a separate piece of paper or in a notepad the following points:
- What do you expect from your parents?
- What do you expect from your man?
- How would you like them to show care and love for you?
Now take it and start giving it to yourself! Love, care, reverent attitude, attention.
Make time for yourself to be alone with yourself for at least an hour a day - without a phone, without the Internet, without TV - just with yourself.
Listen to yourself. What do you want? What do you like? What can you please yourself with right now? Do it!
Make men respect themselves
Lyubov Kozyr once wrote:
Pick yourself up like a boulder from the bottom of the sea, learn by heart, maintaining the posture of a lady: There are many men in the world, but you are alone.
Men “feel” a woman who loves and respects herself right away. She does not allow herself to be imposed on already at the first stage of acquaintance. If a woman writes and calls first (and regularly), her potential companion is already sure: the hunt is over, the object is completely in his power. He loses the passion of a hunter.
A self-respecting woman will not allow her companion to make vulgar jokes or tactless questions about her. She will not cancel her business at his first call in order to meet with him. All these nuances will very quickly let a man understand that his beloved is a person, and not a girl with an attractive face. Respect for a partner is formed at the dating stage. If it does not arise immediately, there is no point in trying to achieve it later. Therefore, the question of how to love and respect yourself should begin to worry a woman as early as possible.
Material side
Women should learn one simple truth: you should not expect respect from men if you have not succeeded as a person. A companion who has an independent character evokes respect from a man on a subconscious level. He must feel: she will live without him.
Many women are ready to depend on their men financially. It seems to them that life is good if they have the opportunity not to work and take care of home and family. On the one hand, a man likes it when his woman is at home and can spend all his free time with him. But on the other hand, he feels that she is completely in his power. And this in no way contributes to the growth of respect. Moreover, being in the house in a whirlwind of everyday worries, women often degrade. As a result, they lose the respect of their spouses, who remain socially active.
Exercises
And now some exercises to increase self-esteem.
I offer you two exercises that are used as auxiliary exercises to change your internal state.
First exercise:
You need to allocate 20 minutes for this exercise and there is a certain condition - do not peek at the end, and everything should happen quickly, without thinking.
On a large sheet of paper you need to divide it vertically into three columns.
In the first column you need to write 10 names of different personalities, real or unreal. These can be heroes of books, films, historical heroes, etc. The ones you admire.
Now that you have written them down, move on to the second column. Opposite each character from the first column you need to write down 2-3 qualities that you admire in him.
In the third column you need to count those qualities that are repeated from the first column and write them in descending order.
As a result, re
