1 Corinthians 13 is known as the love chapter. When we think of this chapter and its virtues, we often think of how it can be used with our relationships with others.
But its also about using it as a guide for your most important relationship – the one with yourself!!! That’s right. We’re talking about self love.
Self-love or self-compassion is so important. It is how we show love, understanding, and acceptance to ourselves. Having more self-compassion builds resilience in the face of adversity, helps us to recover more quickly from trauma or romantic separation. It can also help us to better cope with failure or embarrassment.
A lot of studies have shown that self-love is the key to mental wellbeing and it keeps depression and anxiety at bay.
A lot of times, we are our biggest critics. We can be too hard on ourselves without realizing how mean we can be to ourselves.
Self-love is not being selfish. Its about putting yourself first. Its about not being so tough on yourself. You don’t need to be perfect to love yourself.
An increase in self-love and self-compassion can help you:
- Accept your failures and not punish yourself excessively for them
- Acquire a sense of responsibility for our lives
- Acquire life satisfaction
- Attract the right kind of relationships and reject the wrong ones
- Avoid people who mistreating you or hurting you
- Avoid the negativity that pulls you down
- Be mindful of how you spend your money
- Become comfortable being alone and in turn get rid of the loneliness
- Become more confident
- Become self-aware
- Deal with adversity
- Decreased stress
- Develop a healthy lifestyle
- Develop a positive outlook on life
- Develop an inner sense of security
- Develop healthy self-esteem
- Develop your life purpose and goals
- Enable independence, and being happy on your own
- Enable you to be more genuinely loving towards others and to be of greater service to the world at large
- Escape other people’s dogma and their expectations of who you must be
- Experience more health and vitality
- Gain a boost in attractiveness
- Get the confidence to be who you want to be
- Give you higher level of satisfaction
- Have a positive impact on your professional life you accept and you admire more
- Have better physical and mental health
- Have greater happiness
- Have healthier relationships
- Have increased motivation
- Have more clarity and insight
- Have more compassion for yourself and others
- Have more confidence
- Have more energy
- Have more support
- Have success at your work place
- Help you accept disagreements
- Help you love others better
- Improve your health and personal growth
- Improve your self-awareness
- Improve your self-care and self-management
- Increase productivity
- Increase strength
- Increase your self-acceptance and self-appreciation
- Let go of the habit of comparing ourselves to others
- Love others in the same measure
- Not stay in situations that will hurt you
- Prepare healthier meals for ourselves in order to have a healthy body
- Provide you with an inner happiness
- Radiate confidence and happiness
- Reduce stress and anxiety
- Reduce the desire to feel like we have to impress anyone to make them notice us
- Rejoice in other people’s good fortune
- Say no without feeling guilty
- See that there is a place and space for everyone in this world
- Set a standard for others to follow
- Show the world who we really are and what special talents we have to offer
- Start growth
- Stop depriving ourselves of things we deserve
- Stop harming our bodies physically
- Stronger resilience
- Take care of your appearance by grooming yourself properly
- Take care of yourself in every sense
- Take more risks and have bigger rewards
- Truly love another
- Trust yourself
Recognize the value of loving yourself. Love is patient. Love is kind. Practice those virtues with yourself every day.
