The most powerful form of love is self-love

It is inevitable for us as humans to seek love from others. Love, in the form of acceptance, appreciation or approval. From birth until now, we have been receiving love in various forms from those around us. Love in the form of Philia, Pragma, Familiar, Eros, Ludus, Mania, Philautia, or Agape. Each form of love holds its special meaning, just like in a dozen roses where each bloom holds a different meaning. But, what about self-love? 

Self-love is the most undervalued but most significant type of love. Love helps us appreciate ourselves as a result of acts that benefit our physical and mental health. Self-love means selflessly prioritizing our needs, accepting our imperfections, valuing our feeling, holding ourselves accountable and so on. The meaning of self-love various as we all have different ways to care for ourselves. But the core to self-love is patience. Patience, to acknowledge that self-love is a lifelong journey and that gratification comes from persistence.    

There are three stages in the journey of self-love: acknowledgement, acceptance, and action.  

Stage 1: Acknowledgement, which is the realization that you want to prioritize yourself, selflessly spend time with yourself and be the best version of yourself. This is the most difficult, but most important, first step. Which will be experienced at a different time in life for everyone.  

Stage 2: Acceptance, which has much higher energy than stage one, is characterized by ambition and determination. It’s the stage to acknowledge your imperfections, fears, shortcoming and weakness. During this stage, we must be mindful that we are not expected to be perfect and nor do we have to pretend to be. 

Stage 3: Action, during this stage, we are ready to incorporate activities that are primarily focused on ourselves into our daily routines. The following are a few activities you can incorporate to reach self-love but feel free to include anything that works best for you.