How to Love Yourself Unconditionally

Whether we realize it or not, our lives cannot appreciate beyond the level of our self acceptance. And our level of self acceptance is largely tied to how well we feel we are appreciated by the most important people in our lives. Here are some proven keys to mastering the art of loving yourself unreservedly!

| Isaac Oladipupo

Manage Strong Influencers
The capacity to love ourselves without reservation begins right from childhood with the influence of your parents, siblings and other strategic people in your life. Our feelings toward ourselves are, to a large extent, determined by the feelings that we think other people have toward us. For instance, when we believe that other people think highly of us, our level of confidence and self-acceptance increases significantly and vice versa. That’s why Les Brown once wrote, “As is our confidence, so is our capacity!” Therefore, the starting line to building a healthy personality involves understanding your feelings, and striving to be on the offensive and not on the defensive always.

Open Your Soul
For you to truly know and appreciate yourself, or to stop being troubled by your past experiences and encounters, you must be able to disclose and open up yourself to at least one trusted person. You have to be able to get those things off your chest. You must rid yourself of those thoughts and feelings by revealing them to someone who won’t make you feel guilty or ashamed for what has happened, but would help you to consistently get over your experiences and develop a strong attitude in the face of every challenge.

Understand Your Strength
It is impossible to appreciate other people without appreciating ourselves; to love others, we must first love ourselves. In the same light, nobody will appreciate you for your strength until you are able to identify and develop them. It is only when you can disclose what you’re truly thinking and feeling to someone else can you become aware of those thoughts, emotions and strengths. If the other person simply listens to you without commenting or criticizing, you have the opportunity to become more aware of the person you are and why you do the things you do.

Be Honest with Yourself
After having gone through self-disclosure to self-awareness, you arrive at self-acceptance. You accept yourself for the person you are, with good points and bad points, with strengths and weaknesses, and with the normal frailties of a human being. When you develop the ability to stand back and look at yourself honestly, and to candidly admit to others that you may not be perfect but you’re all you’ve got, you start to enjoy a heightened sense of self-acceptance.

Review Your Accomplishments
One invaluable exercise for developing higher levels of self-acceptance involves doing an inventory of yourself. In doing this inventory, your job is to accentuate the positive and minimize the negative. Think of your unique talents and abilities. Think of your core skills, the things that you do exceptionally well that account for your success in your profession and in your personal life right now. However, keep developing yourself at that thing you’re good at and never rest on your oars!

Reflect About Your Future
The best way to predict the future is to create it. I have realized that, regardless of your present position, you have the power to begin to create the future you truly desire right away. Think about your future possibilities and the fact that your potential is virtually unlimited. You can do what you want to do and go where you want to go. You can be the person you want to be. You can set large and small goals and make plans and move step-by-step, progressively toward their realization. There are no obstacles to what you can accomplish except the obstacles that you create in your mind.