How to Affirm Self-Love

And why it's a good thing to do

I’ve written about how you should believe your affirmations before you say them in prior articles. But, if you have a big limiting belief, it can be very difficult to think of ways to believe the opposite.

Teal Swan has a Self Love challenge this week and so self-love has been on my mind. A lot of people believe they don’t love themselves. And one of the pre-challenge posts in the Facebook group was, “Name a moment in your life where you feel that you were the MOST self-loving towards yourself, and let us know about it in the comments.”

I noticed a trend. There were some random ones from various people, and those were pretty specific and unrelated to each other.

But, a lot of people, myself included, would say it was when they left a bad relationship.

One of the best, most loving, things you can do for yourself is to set boundaries (even if it’s really scary) and leave people who would abuse you, regardless of the type of abuse: physical, mental, emotional, etc. It’s a drain on you to be around them and you can face the fear and do something kind to yourself and get out. Those actions taken in fear help to build confidence in yourself as you see how they work out.

Past Events

When you’re trying to think of ways to say, “I love myself,” and believe it, you can think about past events and focus on how you did love yourself enough to do whatever it was that you did.

When you’re focused on not loving yourself, your brain just doesn’t think of those moments in your life where you were loving. But everything you do is because you thought it would feel better if you did it at the time.

I do have an issue with the question Teal Swan asks, “What would someone who love themselves do?” because sometimes I’m split on the answer. Would I go and exercise because I know it’s great for me, or would I choose to relax and not pressure myself so much? They both sound like self-loving things to do, but conflict with each other.

But I suppose that’s a good problem to have, to see my two choices as both being self-loving.

I was watching this video from Louis (and it may seem out of place compared to my Substack) but it is about self-love. Louis has many videos about the problems with MacBooks. So he doesn’t think highly of them, and then a friend said he (Louis) valued himself less than a MacBook. And his friend had a point.

When looking for a therapist he tried once and didn’t spend much on the trial, compared to how much of a search he made to get a MacBook repair worker for his shop.

But I was thinking about all of the time, energy, and money I spend focusing on bettering my life and realized these are all instances in which I am loving myself. Every one of those times I choose to do something to help me feel truly better in the big picture is about loving myself. I take loving actions.

Do you?

Can you think of times when you’ve chosen to spend time, energy, or money to help you have a happier or more comfortable life? You can make a list of all of those things you’ve done to help yourself feel better in this life, and look back on it and say, “I love myself,” while believing it. That is what helps those affirmations really work.

People Against Narcissists

Now, I got someone commenting on my Note about self-love with a sarcastic, “Right, because our problem is not enough self-love.” People think many people in the world love themselves to the point of causing problems. I would say that there are a lot of narcissists in the world, but they don’t love themselves, and that’s the problem.

So I wrote, Contrary to Popular Belief, Narcissists Don't Love Themselves on my other Substack. Being a narcissist is a red flag that you have a self-love problem.

If we really wanted a better world, we would want them to love themselves more. If people truly loved and took care of themselves, they would not feel the need to try to extract love from other people. They wouldn’t care to be the center of attention because they wouldn’t be lacking that love for themselves any longer.

It is a good thing to love yourself. You should not worry about what other people say. To call it selfish to focus on self-love, is just wrong. The world would be improved with everyone coming to truly love themselves more.

So it’s a worthy endeavor.

So if you struggle with loving yourself, make a list of what you have done to take care of yourself over your lifespan, and ask yourself what you can do in the future to be more loving. You can then use the affirmation, “I love myself and I take care of my mental well-being” and believe it.

You will help the world out by doing so. Only people who don’t understand will see that as selfish.