So let’s talk self-love and why this is important during heartbreak.
It is important because during this time you are probably being very hard on yourself, disliking yourself.
So being kind with yourself during this challenging time is more important than ever.
When we have a good and healthy relationship with ourselves we become a much happier person and this shapes the relationships you have with others, including the so important romantic ones.
I think there is a misunderstanding about what self-love is.
I’m not talking about vanity, shallowness, navel gazing.
The way I understand it is in terms of love and kindness toward yourself in the same way that you are loving, kind and forgiving with those you love.
Why shouldn’t you be put in the same category?
You are no better but no worse either.
Think of someone you love. You probably don’t like everything about them but you love them anyway because you can see beyond.
But when it comes to us, we tend to concentrate on those parts of us that we don’t like and those become really big, obsessively big and that’s all we see.
Flaws everywhere.
And this is particularly true during heartbreak. I bet you are questioning your whole existence.
Not liking yourself will always make you (in your mind) worse than others. Whereas the healthy liking, accepting and loving yourself I’m talking about won’t make you better than anyone else.
I will actually put you at the same level as everyone else, as an equal.
It took me a long time to realise how little I used to love myself.
If you, like I used to, think that torturing yourself with your “countless flaws” and continuous self-deprecating thoughts that this heartbreak is bringing to the surface is normal, I’d like to tell you that they have become normal because that’s what you have become accustomed to.
But they aren’t normal.
The good news.
You can change the way you relate to yourself and that’s what healing is about.
You are enough.
Let me repeat that.
You are enoguh.
With love, always.
Flor xx
Photo: Joyce McCown