How to Love Yourself When You Don’t Know How: 6 Starter Steps
How do you love yourself when no one ever showed you how to?
Maybe you grew up in a home where love wasn’t expressed. Maybe survival came before self-worth. If that’s you, I get it, because that was me too.
I grew up in a home where love wasn’t shown openly. Affection felt foreign, and people-pleasing became my way of connecting. Rejecting myself was my norm, until one day I realized I didn’t even know what loving myself looked like.
Over time, I’ve learned that loving yourself is deeper than the show you put on to be accepted.
Self love is the way you treat yourself, the choices you make, the way you speak to yourself, and the things you do while thinking of how your future self will benefit from your present actions.
The key is to think about the kind of person you want to be, think of what that person does on a daily basis, make a list if necessary and begin to implement those things.
Although self love is more than skin deep, these are 6 things that I’ve started intentionally doing as someone who didn’t know how to love myself:
- Be intentional about how you look. It’s really true what they say: if you look good you feel good. On the days you wake up feeling down, take the time to put yourself together. Do your makeup, style your hair, and wear the best outfit you can. You may not feel 100% better, but you’ll have the satisfaction of not letting your emotions dictate how you carry yourself.
- Create a routine. A morning and night time routine that fits your lifestyle and stick to it even when you don’t feel like it… The more you show up for yourself, the more you begin to see the value in showing up even if no one is watching.
- Journal, journal, journal. Write in your journal… all your thoughts, your fears, your pains, your wins, your shames, everything. Write it all and get it out of your head.
- Do a devotional, the Bible app has so many you can choose from. Just pick one that speaks to the area of your life you want to and follow through with it.
- Pray to Jesus and be so raw and real about your life struggles, your fears, your pains, your disappointments, your hopes, your doubts, etc… Tell him everything. There is no need to try to come to God perfect. Come as you are and let him meet you right there.
- Give yourself grace through the process. This is uncharted territory. You’re literally learning as you go. You’ll make mistakes and you’ll have victories. Some days will be great and other days will be awful. It’s all part of the journey.
Learning to love yourself isn’t an overnight thing. It’s a daily choice to show up even when you don’t feel like it, and trust that God is rebuilding you from the inside out.
