Letting go of harsh judgments and learning to be compassionate towards ourselves enables us to love others. Without self-compassion we go around projecting all of our own self-contempt, harsh judgments, and criticisms onto everyone else. If we love ourselves, we spread love. If we are full of self-contempt, we spread criticism, negativity, and judgments. True self-love is full of compassion and rooted in security. Narcissistic love is about the ego and is rooted in deep feelings of inadequacy. Individuals who are filled with true self-love are able to spread genuine love to others.
People who treat themselves with compassion and avoid harsh self-judgments…
- experience greater intimacy in their relationships
- are less likely to be aggressive
- admit and learn from mistakes
- are accountable for their actions
Practice true self-love to improve the quality of not only your relationship with yourself, but also the quality of your relationships with others.
Have a mindful Monday full of self-compassion!
-Kristin
Hi Kristin, I always say, you have to be your own best friend! Great post 🙂
You go back and forth between self-love and self-compassion. Are they interchangeable? Are they different? If so, how? I find people are turned off by the phrase self-love. It sounds too narcissistic. Self-compassion, however, sounds better to me…
Todd,
It is all terminology. If self-compassion works for you, use that term. I often use them interchangeably. Many definitions describe love as deep affection, concern, fondness, adore…. and compassion as sympathy and concern for suffering and misfortunes. When it comes to the self, we want to treat ourselves with compassion but not to the point of embracing a victim mentality for our sufferings. (That would not be self-compassionate at all) As far as self-love, I believe that narcissism is not self-love at all but a defense for deep rooted insecurity. The term self-love may sound narcissistic, but people who truly love themselves do not go around acting conceited and arrogant- feeling a need to be above all others. Narcissism, arrogance, and conceit stem from deep insecurity and feelings of inadequacy. The irony here is that people who really love themselves are not narcissistic. Have I confused you yet? To your point- you are correct in that some mistake self-love for narcissism and that is why I included the narcissistic part in the post. Treating ourselves with kindness and respect is what is important. Thanks Todd- for putting my brain to work this evening. 🙂
Thank you for the comments.