Self-Love vs. Self-Care
On the topic of self-love, the average, well-meaning person has a tendency to get a little ahead of themselves. Love itself is not easily defined. Self-love and self-care are often used interchangeably, but they are not at all the same. For this essay, I suggest that “love” should be thought of purely as an emotion and “care” as the actions carried out from the feeling of love.
The Misconception of Quick Fixes
People tend to focus on jumping right to the loving part and being done with it, as if self-love was a universal concept that is the same for all of us through the many stages of our lives and lineage. We act as though a feeling of self-love is a simple, permanent cure for complicated, lifelong issues that evolve within us which require consistent care. It is not hard to see why superficial, generalized self-care techniques don’t always result in lasting fulfillment or positive effects. Not everyone is going to bounce back to normal after a spa day or a perfect morning on the back nine. The best chance for anything to flourish is to offer it as ideal an environment as possible to foster healthy growth. This requires ample care and tending. In simpler terms; if love is to grow, it will take a lot of work.
Tailoring Self-Care
An individual’s self-care plan must be tailor-made to fit them to provide a healthy state for love to take hold, bear fruit, and become self-sustaining, I must point out that, prematurely, many people would say that they know themselves better than anyone, so they know best what they need or deserve. Therefore, prescribing self-care and self-love methods should be a breeze. For others, it’s challenging to recognize the lack of self-love they are allowing themselves. Some may not even know where to begin. While acknowledging that we need to take the lead in our own self-care, I’d ask: What does caring for self look like? How often do you do it? Which is better for you, tough love and self-talk or a gentler approach? Where did you learn this? Would others consider your self-care plan caring? The answers are never the same for everyone.
The Trap of Comfort Zones
It’s universally apparent how easily we slide into routine and comfort zones. Spending too much time in leisure and lackadaisicalness can leave a person sufficiently complacent yet bored, with a twist of false self-confidence and misguided conviction, eventually leaving a person disillusioned, distant and empty. It’s incredibly hard to exercise “tough love” toward self in a healthy way, without impacting self-esteem and grinding all emotional momentum to a halt. Doing this can make it nearly impossible to convince ourselves that we even deserve love, making the conception of a self-care strategy absurd and undeserved. When it comes to loving oneself, tough love is often an oxymoron. Go for the loving form of love when it comes to love of self.
Recognizing the Need for Self-Care
So, how does one really know when it’s time for some self-love and self-care? Will this be done on a daily maintenance level, or only in crisis moments or when the battery is fully depleted? How can one tell when they are being fair to themselves without leaning toward self-deprecation or self-indulgence?
The Role of Honesty
Distinguishing between enabling, supporting, adoring, checking, criticizing and/or chastising oneself requires patience, mindful practice and blatant HONESTY. That’s the hardest thing. We can justify ourselves, explain things away, deny, procrastinate, and/or flat out bully ourselves our entire lifetimes yet wonder why we secretly feel tired, or less than, or unsatisfied. If we can’t come to terms with reality and continue deluding ourselves, we can say goodbye to genuine fulfillment. Often, even the most introspective geniuses need guidance and perspectives beyond their personal arsenal of coping mechanisms to better understand if their version of self-love is healthy and their self-care regimen intact and implemented. This is where feedback comes in. We constantly receive feedback from our bodies, minds, the voice inside us, and the people around us. Deciphering relevant and irrelevant information can be overwhelming. Some are lucky enough to have found professional assistance through various forms of therapy. Yet, even with all this data and input from others, we alone decide what we believe. Even when the data is reliable, if it’s not something we want to know about ourselves, denial and ignorance prevail if we let them. On the other hand, letting others decide for us what we want or think or need never makes anyone happy inside, and it keeps us from knowing our true selves. Keeping an open mind to feedback allows us to be internally honest and to feel less fear of healthy confrontation. The truth is out there, but we have to let it in and consider it all to finally end up with what’s true about oneself, and what one truly wants and needs.
The importance of Authenticity
Have you ever been on a first date where, although the other person was splendid, the setting was fine, the food was good and everything went well, there was an undeniable lack of connection because you’re still just strangers doing what two people are supposed to do on a first date? This is what self-care feels like when you aren’t honest with yourself. Love cannot take hold in a shallow, feigned environment. True self-love takes exploration and discovery of yourself that can only be accomplished by monumental amounts of internal grit and bluntness. It requires flexibility, planning, stamina and emergency measures. I am sorry to say that like so many other things in life, if it is going to be effective, it likely won’t be easy. We must get our hands dirty and get to know ourselves diligently to make the right calls for self-love and self-care consistently. Only then can we know when we are pushing ourselves too hard and neglecting our inner child versus when we are being overindulgent to the point of affecting our wellbeing. Self-care means a healthy sustenance of rewards within boundaries. We can decide if tough love or self-nurturing is the best plan of action for a particular circumstance, and exactly how tough we really ought to be.
Taking the First Step
If you are feeling disconnected and maybe a little lost, you probably are. Some self-care is likely needed. Whether you’re repeating days like a broken record, or don’t know where to begin to put the pieces together, the first step is simple: take a moment and be honest with yourself in that very moment. If you need outside perspective, go get it. If you need some time to contemplate privately, you’ve probably earned it. The fact remains: you cannot love someone you do not know and understand. You can’t help yourself if you don’t slow down enough to know what’s going on inside. Show some love and care for yourself— you deserve that much. Don’t waste your time and energy pretending, when you are the only one in the audience. Take all the time needed to know yourself, truly. The longer you do that, the more love can start to take shape from within, growing without you even noticing it. The self-love part is then naturally recurring, and you’ll find how sweet it is to be loved by you.