Self Love for Men
A big part of loving yourself is understanding that loving yourself is a like having a relationship with yourself. Now you wouldn’t tell your friend that they’re ugly, stupid or unlovable would you?
So why say it to yourself? Focus on your positives, what do you say to your friend when they mess up? That they are worthless and good for nothing?
Of course not, you help them realize how awesome they are and push forward. Why treat yourself any different? You are just as wonderful and brilliant and you deserve the same love you give them.
Self love grows into love for others but love doesn’t always go from inside out, sometimes it needs to go from the outside to the in. The problem with that is young boys aren’t shown much affection from other men you can blame that on gender stereotypes, a lack of normalizing platonic love between men or what have you.
The point is young boys often grow up thinking showing love is for women and since they aren’t shown affection from other men they repeat this pattern by not showing affection first to other men and eventually to themselves.
They grow up thinking emotions are for weaklings and they should just bottle theirs up and be a man! This of course couldn’t be further from the truth, emotions are part of all healthy beings and we need them just like we need our intellect or a healthy body.
Self Love is not the same as being smug or narcissistic. Thinking you’re great is not the same as thinking all others are below you. And it’s not the same as being overly satisfied with yourself and commending yourself even for your mistakes.
Self love is more about accepting your mistakes and not hating yourself for them, to know and understand you can make mistakes just like anyone else and YOU can learn from them, to know your errors don’t define you and they don’t make you undeserving of love.
In today’s relatively woke media women are remind of their power, strength and beauty which is amazing and accepted after years of patriarchal oppression but perhaps due to the “tough” appearance of some men and the obvious benefits of being a guy in a male dominated society we over look the fact that men too need that emotional support, love and acceptance for who they are from society.
Yes we need to fight the system and help empower the minorities and women who have been oppressed for centuries but a part of it is fighting gender norms and just like not all women are “girly” not all men are self loving people with high self esteem, we must recognize that as well.
Not only do we need to normalize male self love we need to promote it just like we do with any other group of people.
Now onto how you can love yourself:
Don’t focus on your “flaws” or short comings, no one is perfect. While you should try to embrace them, you must focus on your strengths to realize how wonderful you are.
You must understand you deserve love just like anyone else and you don’t need to prove your worth or provide something in return, love yourself and people will love you too.
Allow yourself to be true to yourself and feel the way you feel, don’t hide or bottle up your emotions. They are important and a part of you, while they might not define you; they aren’t weaknesses either.
Realize loving yourself is also a part in loving others, as the old saying goes “You need to love yourself first before you can truly love others.”
Learning from your mistakes and being afraid of repeating them is good but don’t be afraid to forgive yourself, everyone makes mistakes and over thinking your past never helped anyone.
Be proud of yourself for what you’ve already achieved and don’t be shy from patting yourself on the back from time to time
And most importantly accept yourself for who you are now, you don’t need to change anything or do anything or provide anything to be worthy of love. And of course share the love with everyone around you.
