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I love myself, I've learned how to love myself, I am constantly learning how to re-love and love myself even more.
We live in a society that for the most part doesn't encourage radical self love and tends to push radical self improvement. In our society you can always be; prettier, skinnier, curvier, smarter, wealthier, cooler, taller...and the list goes on. It's been very rare (until recently) that've seen/heard more companies and individuals promoting the importance of self love and even suggesting practices to love yourself more.
What is self love? Well you may say "well duh, it's loving yourself!" but what does it actually mean to love yourself and how do you know when you love yourself? For me, loving yourself means regardless of what anyone thinks (even yourself at times) you still have the courage to live boldly, create, have compassion for other and express your thoughts and feelings freely. You know you love yourself when you know that you being alive is a gift and a miracle and that no one, absolutely no one has the power to control your feelings unless you give them that power. You know your boundaries and you know what you deserve and if you don't deserve something you have the courage to not accept it. I am still learning that bold lesson, it's taken me a long time realize the beauty of boundaries, I use to think that it was mean to say, "No" or to stick up for yourself, I thought the compassion thing was to be patient and forgive others even when they walked all over you. But after many hard lessons I learned that real love is knowing what you deserve and speaking up when a boundary has been crossed.
Speaking up for yourself tells yourself that you love and trust you enough to value your life, time and comfort, it strengthens you Root chakra that deals with safety and is the foundation of all the chakras. It is essential that you take time to ask yourself about your boundaries so you don't get hurt and walked on. If you're like me a few months ago and think, "I don't really have boundaries" just laugh at yourself and give yourself a hug because ooooh yes you do! For me I just started asking myself, "what would be disrespectful to me?" and I began to come with answers like, "someone not listening to me or cutting me off in a sentence" "someone not respecting my body and my no" "eating food I know don't make my body feel good"...etc...
Find a quiet space and ask yourself that question... "what would be disrespectful to me?" make a list and then read the next blog "How to say no with love"...