Self-care or Self-love

This blog is dedicated to highlighting how people demonstrate self-love so we can take those examples and learn from each other.  Our goal is to highlight and apply  these examples of self-love that will help us increase the levels of self-love within ourselves so we can be more successful in our everyday lives. So I’d like to begin our on-going conversation about self-love by defining what it is and what it’s not.  I’ve noticed that sometimes they are used interchangeably.  Self- care is used a lot these days especially during this pandemic.  In some professions such as the medical field or in education for example where you take care of others, self-care is used as a way of preventing burnout and to cope with the high demands of the job.

So what’s the difference?  I see self-care as the things that you do for yourself to replenish energy and continue to be effective in what you are doing.  It’s literally emotional and physical maintenance  that you engage in to balance your responsibilities it includes the habits that we engage in that support our well-being. The person who stops by the coffee shop at the start of the day or by the bar at the end of the week is a person that is treating themselves to their favorite beverage as a way of getting through the day or celebrating an accomplishment.  Either are examples of self-care.  It’s doing the things that bring us pleasure.  During stressful times  self-care is a life-line that brings bright spots into your life that allow you to cope and handle tougher parts of your day.  My go-to self-care routine has always been a warm bath. I think this became a favorite self-care activity that I started when I became a mother.   I usually saved it for a long day or as a treat on a Friday night to wind down from a challenging week at work. Self-care are also those things that we do to maintain our image or our bodies such as getting our hair done, shopping for clothes, manicures etc.

Self-love on the other hand is a mindset.  It’s how we think about ourselves.  Self-love brings with it confidence and security. You know you are enough and there’s nothing to prove to anyone.   When you are confident and secure things are effortless.  Everything flows.  You are in a balanced state of being therefore you don’t have the need to replenish your energy or indulge in comfort food or activities because you feel complete.  There’s no sense of lack or need within you.  How much self-love you have for yourself determines the level of self-care that you will need to apply to keep yourself going.  For example,  self-love will mean that you set healthy boundaries at work.  You put in the hours that allow you to feel professionally accomplished without feeling overworked or burned out.  The same for your personal relationships. You have a balance with what you give and receive and you are comfortable in your own skin. There’s less reliance on self-care habits or other people’s validation.

A person who has had a hard week at work may choose to come home on a Friday and  sit on their couch and watch Netflix.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with binging on Netflix, but the person that has no other choice of activity because of their low energy level may in fact be suffering from lower levels of self-love.  I can remember a time when this was one of my self-care activities at the end of the week. I noticed that after a while the routine of binging on a tv show was not lifting my energy. This was because I was not going to the root of the problem.  Not having balance during the week meant that I had to use my weekend to catch up on maintaining my home and running errands on the weekend.  I wasn’t spending time working on hobbies or recharging my energy for the creativity or problem solving that I needed for the upcoming week.   The exhaustion I felt at the end of the week was coming from the pressure I was giving myself to prove my worth at work. It was essentially a lack of self-love. I saw other people receiving promotions at work so my thought was that despite the positive results I had, I somehow was not enough if I wasn’t receiving the validation from my superiors. I now know that I first needed to give myself the validation and credit I was seeking from others. Feeling accomplished in what we do starts within us.

So how do you shift from an over emphasis of self-care to more self-love? I found purpose in my career.  I love my work and I do it for the pleasure it gives me.  It’s great to receive recognition but I give that to myself when I give my work 100% of my effort. Another mind shift for me was  choosing more healthy habits  that I could sustain such as walking every day, drinking a gallon of water a day and eating less sugar.  These habits gave me higher levels of energy and I felt more fit which contributed to an increase in my self-love because I was happier overall with myself.  With increased level of energy I can do more with my time.  I don’t think it matters what order you do things. What matters is the balance. Now I set boundaries for myself within which to get my work done and it leaves room for all those other things that I enjoy doing.  In summary, self-care is necessary and a step towards reaching higher levels of self-love. We cannot get stuck in our self-care routines in a way that these self-care habits or routines become band-aids for the wounds that we develop for not having enough self-love.