What is Self-Love? & 7 ways to practice self-lofe – “Love yourself”, “Just be YOU!” and “You only need self-love!”. HOW DO WE DO THAT? And what is self-love exactly? Is self-love just doing skincare? Is self-love taking bubble baths? Does self-love mean being positive, all the time? Let’s define self-love. Self-love is a state of recognition for yourself. It grows from your behaviours that support your physical, psychological and spiritual growth and needs. Its means respecting yourself, your own prosperity and your own happiness. Taking care of your own needs and not sacrificing your prosperity to please others, are also parts of self-love. In a nutshell, Self-love means to no settle for anything less than you deserve sister.
What Self-love is, varies from person to person. That’s because we all have different ways to take care of ourselves. Doing my eyebrow regime is one of the ways I take care of myself for example! I don’t pluck my eyebrows anymore, but I do dye the parts that are bushy. it’s the same result, without the ‘haramness’ of it all and I feel like I’ve given myself the time that I (and my eyebrows) deserve, I love it. Sister, your self-love is probably different to mine, but let me give you a few other examples to get an idea of possible self-love practices.
Self-Love practices
1. Loving yourself is prioritising yourself
If you are not doing well, how on earth can you take care of others? Start prioritising your own needs and stop jumping though hoops for others. Think of yourself first! And once you are doing fine, you can start helping others. Finding your value and self-worth will help you prioritise yourself.
2. Self-love is stopping with the self-judgement
Isn’t it weird how we judge ourselves the most? We can be unnecessarily mean to ourselves. If we ever did that to someone else, others would tell us off. Constantly bombarding yourself with accusations doesn’t make you feel better and won’t motivate you to do better. Take a chill pill, stop being so judgy!
3. Loving yourself being lovely to yourself
You are Allah’s creation! You are a miracle from the heavens! That alone, makes you worthy of love. So be lovely to yourself. The world is harsh enough as it is, so don’t add to it. Be kind and patient with yourself. Give yourself compliments, assure yourself, look at yourself in the mirror and just admire your reflection. Yes, it feels weird, and no, I’m not telling you to be a full-on narcissist. I just want you to appreciate yourself because not everyone will and loving your self will be your shield against those that want to put you down!
4. Self-love is trusting yourself
Trust is an important part of all your relationships, including your relationship with yourself, because it requires us to be vulnerable and brave. Trust always precedes love. You can only love someone that you can trust! The sense of security, the fact that you can be your true self without any judgments or fears, that is trust. Before you can practice self-love, you need to be able to trust yourself.
5. Loving yourself is being true to yourself
Who is the true, authentic you? That’s a big question I know, but being true to who you are, will make loving yourself easier. Imagine that you are an actress in a movie. People all around the world know you as that character, they love that character! But when you come home, you’re not that character anymore. You are you, the real you. Who we are outside, is not always an honest representation of who we actually are inside and that’s okay. Of course, everyone should be able to be themselves, but that also means that you can choose to not show yourself to the outside world. That’s perfectly okay! But sister, when the curtains close, and you get home. Stop acting and just be you!
6. Self-love is setting healthy boundaries
“No”, means no sisters. “I don’t want to” should be an easy thing for you to say. Setting healthy boundaries is a part of growing and respecting yourself. When you have boundaries, you acknowledge your value. When you acknowledge your value, you’ll love yourself even more. Self-love is really not that hard. You just have to grasp the essence of who you are as a person and what you like and dislike.
My niece hates giving kisses to others. My Moroccan aunties gasp and stutter when she doesn’t give them any kisses: “how can you let her not kiss us? How are you raising here?” Mind you, this is a 5-year old girl who is not interested in kissing my aunties sweaty cheeks (honestly, same). Her mother would try to force her wanting her to ignore her boundary and just do what she wanted her to do! (Not an unusual thing for Moroccan mothers to do) My niece, God bless her, said: Melissa (her teacher) said that no means no! You can’t make me! I’m happy she learned that at a young age, I will be even happier if you guys apply this to your own lives as well.
7. Loving yourself is forgiving yourself
Here I am, telling you to be lovely to yourself, to trust yourself to be true to yourself, that’s an awful lot of ‘do’s’. You won’t be able to do this all the time, you are, after all, only human. So sister, if you ever do judge yourself, if you’re mean to yourself or anything of the likes, that’s okay! Forgiving yourself is a big part of self-love. Forgiveness is a very important aspect in Islam! Al-Ghafur, Al-Ghaffar and Al-Ghafir are three names in the Quran that refer to Allah’s forgiveness. “Al-Ghafir” means the Forgiver, the other names Al-Ghafur and Al-Ghaffar are more pronounced, indicating that Allah is the most forgiving! Our creator is the most forgiving, and we can always repent. You deserve to forgive yourself, sister, so give yourself a break!
Your Classy Muslim Sister helps you find your value
Do you want to learn more about self-love? I write about Elegance, Self Love, Modesty, and more! Do you want to help the other Muslim sisters in your life too? Share my blog with them and follow me on Social Media!
Kisses,
Your Classy Muslim Sister
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