Do You Know How to Truly Love Yourself?

What is Self-Love? Love is something that we all need to survive and even to thrive. No one can have a fulfilling life without love. So what does self-love mean then? Self-love is an encompassing word that covers many other aspects related to love such as having compassion for yourself, forgiving yourself, taking care of yourself and setting healthy boundaries. Love is unconditional, it is having a deep appreciation of who you really are and accepting all the different parts of yourself – the little peculiarities, the embarrassments, the things we may not do so well, and all the wonderful qualities too. 

Unfortunately, sometimes we grow up in a less than ideal environment where love was not unconditional and we learned to only love ourselves with conditions as well. But I believe there is great change happening right now both on a global level and individual level. To bring about this change, love, and in particular self-love can promote a more loving and peaceful world that we want to see.  

So how can you love yourself more deeply today? How can you be more patient and kinder to yourself? How can you be more accepting of yourself and not judge yourself harshly? How can you be more compassionate with yourself and realize you are doing your best at any given moment? 

You can do this, you can learn a new way to be, a new way to see yourself as whole, perfect and complete, because you are. 

Lillian Kui

Mental Health Student Intern