Am I Being Selfish When I Choose Self-Love?
If you have been pursuing personal growth recently, the word self-love will sound familiar. It may feel very “New Age,” with the wellness industry pushing it from every angle!
However, self-love has been around for thousands of years, with famous Greek philosophers saying that caring for oneself is necessary if we want to care for others. Inner compassion and honouring your spirit are grounded in ancient Eastern traditions.
Is Self-Love the Doorway to Authenticity?
I believe self-love is the doorway to being authentic. My personal desire to reach a state of wholeness meant honouring and respecting my well-being. This meant caring for my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual growth.
It meant loving myself unconditionally.
Does this mean I am being selfish? Many of us have grown up believing that loving ourselves is egotistical and arrogant. And it can be mistaken for that if we don’t understand what self-love really means.
What Does It Mean to Self-Love?
Let’s unpack what it means to love yourself unconditionally. It means:
Being accountable for yourself and how you think, feel, and act. It is the ability to understand what is healthy for you while serving the greater good and being willing to do the necessary hard work to change unhealthy and destructive patterns.
Showing yourself grace through self-acceptance. Accepting all of you, including your flaws, without harsh judgment allows you to love yourself fully.
Practicing self-care. This means creating a healthy lifestyle that supports mind, body, and spirit wellness.
Setting healthy boundaries. Being able to say no to things or people that threaten your inner peace is an act of self-love.
Self-love empowers you to drop the mask you have been hiding behind most of your life out of fear of rejection, judgment, or shame. When you can accept the whole of you, including both the light and the dark parts, you are freed from the false stories you have carried for many years.
What Happens When You Love Yourself Unconditionally?
Loving yourself unconditionally allows you to drop unhealthy behaviours such as:
People-pleasing
Being judgmental of others
Manipulation and control
Passive-aggressive behaviour
Negative self-talk
Getting involved in toxic relationships
Living an unhealthy lifestyle to avoid emotional pain
Taking care of your own needs means you can respect and care for others and their well-being without compromising your truth. You have the energy to be kind, patient, and compassionate with others you care about while maintaining self-respect.
You are not seeking external validation nor taking from others to fulfil your need for love. You are not harming or exploiting others for your personal gain. These are acts of selfishness.
Self-Acceptance and Self-Love
Self-acceptance leads to self-love, and reflecting on the parts of you that need forgiveness is essential. Through self-acceptance, you can quieten the inner critic that plays a heavy and destructive mental game based on lies.
You can start practicing self-acceptance by reflecting on what your inner critic is telling you:
I only deserve love when I am successful, ambitious, popular, making others happy without caring for my own feelings and needs.
No one will love me if they see my flaws.
I am such an idiot for doing that!
It’s selfish of me to have boundaries.
I am not good enough/worthy/lovable.
It may take time, but through self-reflection, you can identify how these thoughts are illusions fed to you from an early age. As you work through limiting beliefs you have about yourself, you can practice self-compassion, self-forgiveness, and self-acceptance.
How to Master Your Inner Critic
Ask yourself the following questions to cast doubt on what your inner critic is telling you:
What strengths and qualities have served me well in recent years, and what evidence do I have that shows me I own them?
How would I behave if I chose to honour my unique gifts and talents?
What have I done today that validates I am good enough/lovable/worthy?
I find it helps to remember that I am human after all, and while I have stopped using it as an excuse to avoid change, it gives me some slack on days when I default to old patterns.
However, choosing ME over and over is an act of self-acceptance and self-love, so I avoid playing the self-pity party for too long nowadays!
When Self-Love CAN Be Selfish
Self-love isn’t selfish, although it could become a necessary act of selfishness if it means preserving your peace, serenity, and wholeness.
Self-Reflection Questions
Today’s self-reflection practice focuses on wise words shared by Brené Brown:
“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.”
Where do you have to set boundaries that may lead to someone being unhappy or dismissive of your need to protect your well-being?
Do you have the courage to love yourself, and if so, what does it look like for you?
Final Thoughts
Practicing self-love empowers me to be authentic. Before I understood what it meant to "put myself first", I was focusing on how to make other people happy. I compared myself to others who seemed better than me. And I tried to fix people without them asking for my help.
These actions were based on disbeliefs about myself. Self-love has shown me another way of living life and that is by being my truth.
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