Self-love: A Necessity for a Woman’s Mental & Emotional Survival

Self-love has become such a cliché. It is more so praised for its surface-level appeal, rather than the deep, lonely journey that comes along with it. Aside from the cheeky memes and generic quotes, many fail to realize that self-love is a necessity for surviving the day to day life struggles that every woman faces. As natural born givers, we often find ourselves depleted and rundown. Self-love is the gauge that puts a halt to unnecessary stresses and stops “loyalty slavery” before it even starts. Self-love is an awareness that helps us create boundaries, limits accessibility, and allows us to feel empathy instead of seeking revenge.

Love for self is the underlying premise for clear and healthy boundaries. Through the understanding of one’s self, we become aware of our tolerances and have no fear in voicing them. Prior to knowing myself, I had a fear of being disliked, I was seeking validation outside of myself. External validation is the opposite of self-love. Validation-seeking-behavior is an indication of failure to recognize our worth. We do not understand that we are more than enough, regardless of our connections or accomplishments. Desperation follows the need for validation, and acceptance, for any kind of treatment.

During this low period in my life, I was taken advantage of financially, used for my body and mentally depleted. I was truly in a state of depression. Life felt like a constant inconvenience because I was living to please others and not for my own happiness. This fear resulted in the tolerance of blatant disrespect and abuse. After doing the internal work, I set the boundaries for how I wanted to be treated. Once those boundaries were established, there was no longer room for individuals who crossed them.  The feelings of anger and betrayal were no longer constant as I cut the perpetrator off at the first sign of disrespect, life automatically became easier.

With clear boundaries, standards are formed. Through knowing myself, I learned what I would and would not tolerate. I abided by these certain standards, which in turn allowed me to limit accessibility. Being too accessible can be dangerous. Previously, my life was a revolving door. I was too open and failed to questions motives leaving room for toxic exes to come in and out. Not all re-connections are derived from positivity. Some people re-enter to see how solid your boundaries are. We have to learn to question people’s potential motive. Some people just want to see where we are in life or maintain connections for shallow reasons. Self-love will allow us to learn the difference between who is genuinely there for us and who just wants to join in for the ride when we appear to be winning.

Along with self-love comes empathy for others. Instead of judging, I learned that lack of self-love comes with certain tactics and behaviors. I used to behave a certain way when I was in a low mental state, and attention was considered valuable. When seeing the same behaviors in others, there was like-mindedness that followed. This understanding caused me to dodge karma due to my disinterest in seeking revenge.

Just like clothes and food, self-love is a bare necessity. Boundaries, limited accessibility, and an understanding heart will make the day-to-day struggles of life a bit more tolerable. Seeking happiness instead of validation will have us glowing differently.