At first consideration self-care and self-love are similar concepts. They are both about caring for yourself first. The reality is there are some significant differences. Though both are important and necessary, self-love is a fundamental necessity that is the foundation for self-care. Humans are not inherently taught how to love themselves, quite the opposite. Most of us our socialization is about seeking out other people to love, validate and accept us. As empathetic creatures, we get our first cues in socialization and behavior from our adult caregivers. We learn how to engage with other people by mirroring what behaviors are around us. The concept of self-care is movement to do more things to make ourselves feel better and to help manage stress. Self-care focuses on actions we can take to care for ourselves in a better way. Though necessary, it stems from a lack of being able to validate and love ourselves. The action of taking care of our needs often can be pushed to background in our day to day lives. Take care of our own needs then should be something we prioritize for on our own.
Self-love can be a nebulous concept that most people haven’t the faintest idea how to begin. There are so many memes and affirmations on social media touting the benefits of loving yourself. Sometimes it can feel daunting to consider what loving yourself even means. There is an ego centric idea that loving oneself can be considered selfish and consequently a negative thing. So many of us our taught within our culture that we should put the needs of others before our own. There for, loving ourselves is seen as counter to the expectations of how we are supposed to function within society. In some faith-based organizations it is considered sinful or negative to be focused solely on yourself. We are supposed to find favor in a higher power or the community at large. In doing so, we are then viewed as worthy and obedient. The idea of being selfish is often frowned upon. I challenge that being selfish or taking care of yourself first is necessary to build a relationship with valuing yourself.
The foundation of Codependency is being reliant on external validation to justify your place on the planet. Within households and families where your worth is based in how you show up for others, you don’t learn how to appreciate who you are just for the sake of being. Your worth and value is transactional. We learn how to take care of our own needs not from a place of love but from a survival place because our needs are not being addressed by anyone else. I know that for me, I was inundated with inconsistent messages about my worth and value by my family of origin. I did not receive the validation or even encouragement to love myself for who I was. I didn’t start to create the foundation of self-love until well into my 30’s when I began to work on feeling good about how I showed up in the world through my intellectual or professional achievements.
I have spoken before about how our importance from a societal perspective is largely based on either how we are service to others or how liked we are by others. I often think about interactions on the playground of schools all over the world and how kids interact with one another. There will always be popular crowds and kids that are left out. I think about teachers talking about how to have friends is by being a friend. Somewhere that message gets distorted from the classroom to the playground. The challenges increase if, at home, the adults are struggling with loving themselves and not modeling healthy validation. In working with clients and in my own journey it takes a significant amount of unlearning old messages about self from childhood.
Since doing my own healing I have noticed how differently I have been able to see myself. I have had to start from the outside looking at the parts of myself that other people see and then internalize those feelings. I have had to unlearn what my value was based on when I didn’t like myself. I would look to others to validate me. I needed approval for my existence to feel worthy. It took a while to create that approval within myself. Part of how I worked on doing so was to change how I was talking about the things I didn’t like about myself. I have struggled with weight for most of my life. I didn’t like my body and how it was put together. I started to see my body parts for the good things they did for me. I would say things like I give great hugs with my big arms. I can walk for miles with my strong legs. I started to get tattoos and show off my beautifully decorated skin. I started to see the parts of my face that other people would comment on like the color of my eyes. I shifted the way I was looking at myself and I started to talk about my body as something I was proud of.
I also worked to clean up how I was talking to myself about myself. I used to make comments about how dumb I was or how irresponsible I was. I used to say things like “I am so stupid or worthless”. It took a while to reframe what I was saying to myself to something more neutral like I made a bad choice in that moment rather than I make bad choices. I started to check facts about what I do well. I would use things like, I got good grades in school. I finished my degree. Other people trust my decisions. I keep our home running really well. I am doing my best with the skills and tools I have. It got easier after changing the language consistently. I started to believe it more easily. It wasn’t so hard to think of things I do well. I recognized that I have been really good at being a grown up and have gotten through really challenging things before now. When we can shift the perspective from that negative mindset, we can start to see things in a more loving way. What I look like and how I conduct myself in the world are now validated from within me.
There are still hard days. The old negative messages I held onto are still inside me. They don’t come up as often as they once did. When they do, I can look at the facts, new facts, new evidence and it is easier to get back to a neutral place if not a positive place in how I see myself. One of the harder things in loving myself has been feeling worthy of good things. The old messages and beliefs about what I deserved was harder to break. I had thought for so long that I wasn’t deserving of having a good life or a happy life. I was stuck in comparing my life and my struggles to other people. Other people in my life, like friends and coworkers, seemed to have an easier time or better luck at getting the things I wanted. I felt like I wasn’t ever going to have those things. I remember thinking I could not get married or have love because I had my daughter when I was really young. I thought I was somehow ruined by not following the “right” path. I would push myself so hard to finish school because I had to make up for destroying my chances at being a good partner or parent with my poor choices.
It took time to see the path I was on as the right one. As I continued to accomplish the small goals, I set for myself like finishing a semester of college successfully or getting a higher paying job, I could see that I was, in fact, doing things right. It was many years later, after completing the degree and securing a good job, that I could see that I was capable of changing my life. I refused to be stuck in the circumstances I “put” myself in. I started to have compassion for the younger versions of myself that struggled to feel worthy of having good things. I kept working at setting goals and completing them. It started to get easier to set higher and harder ambitions. I could see the path of things I didn’t think I could do, that I had done. I added to the list of things I was able to complete, however challenging. I can see and have seen how people get caught up in the narrative that they don’t deserve positive things in their lives. I have seen people give up completely and stay in their circumstances because finding a path out is too hard. They feel defeated and unworthy of a good outcome. Changing just one thing can feel insurmountable. The thing is, when you can start with how to you talk to yourself about yourself, there is a possibility of changing things. When you can complete just one thing and stick to it, you will see change.
I have asked clients often to think of a time they felt good about themselves. I would challenge them to consider what was happening at that time. When they could attach to that feeling, they could start to see how it was once possible. The idea of it created hope. With consistency and action, it is possible to change from the current situation to a new perspective. The idea of something happening once, can create the potential for it to happen again. Now that doesn’t mean we have to recreate the exact situation. We just have to remind ourselves that it has happened before now. Rather than focusing on what created that situation, I ask clients to focus on the feelings, then talk about those feelings to themselves. I would have them say things like “I feel good when I am kind to other people” or “I feel accomplished when I get this thing done”. I encourage them I say out loud “I like my eyes when I wear this sweater” or “I enjoy spending time with people who appreciate spending time with me”. There is an element of doing in how we can love ourselves.
The doing of things is where the self-care piece comes in. How we care for ourselves is the next level in improving how we feel about the way we take up space on the planet. I have worked to change my relationship with food and my body. It had to shift my position of disdain for what I looked like and how food was the enemy to food being fuel and something to be enjoyed. It took like to create a healthier connection with what I put in my body and using it as something I look forward to. I enjoy eating good food with my friends. I enjoy spending time with people who care about me, and eating can be an opportunity for connection. Now, it is a way I take care of myself. I also take care of my physical and mental health with working out. I feel better when I get out and run or walk daily. Walking helps me manage my anxiety and gets me ready for the day. I take really good care of my skin and doing my skin care routine is a way I take care of what I look like. Doing things like managing my body is a way for me to feel connected with it and treat myself well.
I enjoy travel. One of the ways I reward myself and think about self-care is by taking myself to places I have never been or going back to places I really enjoy. I like to set goals of visiting places either by myself or with friends to see the ocean or have an experience. I enjoy planning the trip and talking about it with my people. I take pleasure in working to provide myself with the opportunity to go to new destinations. I also like going to see my family where they live and creating memories with them and their kids. I have made that part of how I take care of myself. I feel like setting goals to include the things I appreciate helps keep me focused on something to look forward to. I can then get through the middle part of accomplishing the smaller goals in between. I can set up a budget and work toward saving for the next trip.
Self-care can be as simple as making a good cup of coffee or tea in the morning. It can look like making your bed every day. You can be taking a nice bath with scented candles and essential oils. The business of caring for ourselves is being good to the person you are in the moment. I encourage people to listen to the music that can elevate their mood. I recommend they put on their favorite item of clothing that helps them feel comfortable or confident. Doing self-care in an extension of self-love. They are not mutually exclusive. Although they are in some ways about doing actions that make you feel better, they are also about how you are feeling about yourself. When you can shift your awareness and attention from the negative perspective to a neutral one, a positive point of view is possible. It is a daily practice, and it does take time. The best way to combat our Codependency and need to have other people validate us, is to love and take care of ourselves. When we do, we can shift what we allow from other people. The practice of self-care is to create peace for yourself. When you have peace consistently, you are more likely to protect it. You are more likely to defend the good feelings associated. The goals for improving your wellbeing start to become so important that you will set boundaries up to protect it.
Things to consider:
How do you feel about yourself right now?
What about yourself, even one thing do you like?
If you could start to shift how you talk to yourself, where would you start?
Can you think about what you say to people you love and apply it to yourself?
Start to list facts about who you are and how you show up that are neutral if not positive.
How do you take care of others, and can you do some of those things for yourself?
Write about how you feel in moments when your are feeling confident or positive about the person you are. Even if the moments are brief, allow yourself the opportunity to have those moments.