The Importance of Self Love
This may sound strange but I used to think “what does self love mean”? Have you ever really thought about what self love means to you and how you can incorporate it into your life? It seems like it is obvious but it is also complicated, because I believe we each have our own unique idea of what self love means to us. We all have different priorities and ideas of what our ideal life is like and what makes us feel happy. Self love means we are doing the things in life that matter to us.
As a special needs mom, I unknowingly sacrificed self love for many years. The role of a special needs mom was so consuming, I got lost in it. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy with caring for my daughter and being her mom. Becoming a mom gave me a passion and purpose that I have enjoyed immensely. While being a mom is an important part of who I am as a person, it is not everything. I had to learn that it is ok to explore other aspects of myself and that it is ok to make myself a priority.
Making that choice was an act of self love. And, at first, it felt a little uncomfortable. I felt guilty for putting my needs first. What I had to discover is that self love does not make me a bad mom, it makes me a better mom. Making my needs important does not mean I am not making my daughter’s needs a priority too. It just means I am making room for myself. It is not just about the other people in my life but exploring what’s important to me too.
There is so much to learn about self love and what self love can mean in our life. I think it is necessary to start by understanding how self love can impact our life.
The most obvious way self love helps us is with an improved overall happiness or well-being. It only makes sense that if we allow time for ourselves and taking care of ourselves, we will feel better. It makes us feel good to pamper ourselves. Not only does our mood improve but our overall mental health benefits. So many people struggle with depression and anxiety, but if we can educate others more about the importance of self love and how to incorporate even small simple acts of self love into our day, this can help to improve overall well-being.
As we begin to work on incorporating self love into our life, another aspect of our life that improves is our relationships. When we don’t feel good about ourself or happy, our relationships often suffer. But, when we are working on ourself and we take the time for self love and care, we feel confident and happy and this oozes into other aspects of our lives including our relationships. Our friends, family, children and significant other get to benefit from the love we give ourselves. This is an unexpected gift of self love.
Once we get the hang of self love and it becomes a habit, we start leveling up. We gain confidence and happiness in life and start learning more ways to add self love into our day. As we add more self love, we start a process of self growth. Self growth allows us to become a better version of ourself, how we live and impact the world, and the people around us. Self love leads to a deeper level of understanding of ourselves and living a more intentional life.
At this point, self love leads us to become role models and leaders. We become an example for those around us especially our children and the people we love. We lead by example. Our self love inspires those around us because we are living an authentic life. We aren’t putting it on display to brag because of our ego but because we our living our life’s purpose. We are sharing to impact and influence others to live their best life. We want others to experience the impact that self love can have in their life.
My passion is to help others with self love in their life.
Join my Facebook group “Self Love for Special Needs Moms” for more support or follow me on Instagram at www.instagram.com/amandamillemon.
With Love and Gratitude,
Amanda 😊
