We Must Love Ourselves Enough To Prioritize Self-Care

I went for a walk yesterday.

It was a lovely walk.

I needed a break from work after sitting through 5 hours straight of Zoom calls so I decided to wander through my neighborhood. After being plugged in for so much of the day, it felt great to disconnect.

I left my phone and headphones at home. I even took my shirt off as I strolled through the sunshine. As I inhaled deeply I felt a sensation slowly rising up inside of me.

Like the faint sound of a train approaching the station, this feeling gradually grew until it encapsulated my whole being. I realized with surprise that for the first time in awhile, I felt fully at peace.

Recharging the batteries

In order to be happy, balanced, joyful, and ready to serve the world, I believe that we must schedule and prioritize time for ourselves to unplug and recharge. I also believe that burnout happens when we fail to adequately fuel ourselves by participating in activities that bring us joy and peace of mind.

If I hold these two beliefs to be true, why is it so hard for me to justify scheduling time to recharge my batteries? Every time I put one of these life-energizing activities on my calendar I feel a pang of guilt that I am not working instead. And yet if I constantly work without recharging my batteries, I will burn out, shut down, and spiral.

I know I am not alone in this. So it begs the following question:

Why do we do such a poor job taking care of ourselves?

Jordan Peterson explains in his book 12 Rules for Life, that we are more responsible in caring for our pets than we are in caring for ourselves. Research shows that people are better at filling and properly administering prescription medication to their pets than to themselves. Given this startling but true fact, Peterson concludes that the reason we do not take care of ourselves is that we do not respect ourselves.

I want to take this a step further by saying that the real reason many of us struggle is that we do not love ourselves.

Not fully at least. If we did, we would not put up with the constant stream of negative thoughts that we tell ourselves every single day.

I’m not good enough.

I’m not smart enough.

I’m not worth it.

Almost every single issue that has come up during my coaching sessions (both when I am coaching and when I am getting coached) stems from these three sentences.

If these negative thoughts are such a universal human experience, where did we go wrong?

It’s not our fault

We live in a society that makes it quite difficult to love ourselves, for two main reasons. The first is that we have unlimited access to pictures, videos, and stories about people who seem to be smarter, richer, prettier, and cooler than us. And while we can understand on an intellectual level that pictures posted on Instagram are edited and posed for, the emotional side of our brain doesn’t remember this.

It instead begins comparing our own (real) lives to the fake, curated worlds we briefly peer into when scrolling Instagram. Even if we are looking at a picture of someone who we know personally to be wildly unhappy, all prior knowledge and evidence go out the window when we see them post a picture of them smiling while drinking rose on a yacht.

The second reason it’s difficult to fully love ourselves is that we weren’t raised to. We are taught in grade school that we should never be too sure of ourselves because we don’t want to come off as cocky or arrogant. And while I dislike haughty d-bags as much as the rest of us, I think we err too far on the side of caution when teaching children about self-confidence. Plus it’s not the confident children that end up being braggadocious, but the ones who are so insecure that they feel the need to fake it.

Where do we go from here?

Realizing that self-love is the answer is step number one. When we trace our hesitancy to schedule fun and relaxing activities for ourselves all the way back to our personal image issues, we see that we have some work to do. We also realize how interrelated all of our issues are and that almost anything that’s coming up as resistance is related to some variation of “I am not enough.”

Step 2 is doing the personal work necessary to recognize how amazing you actually are. This may include journaling, coaching sessions, long contemplative walks on the beach — whatever works for you.

Also the next time someone pays you a compliment, try saying “thank you, I receive that.” And then actually accept what they are saying is true.

Realize that the things people say about us is often more true than what we tell ourselves. Hearing feedback from people without incentives to lie or exaggerate is the most accurate represenation of how we are interacting with the world.

The third and final step is to start treating yourself like someone you’d want to be friends with! Seriously, stop being such a dick to yourself and schedule the necessary activities you need in order to recharge your batteries!

Be selfish with your self-care

“Rest and self-care are so important. When you take time to replenish your spirit, it allows you to serve others from the overflow. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.”- Eleanor Brown

If we do not serve ourselves first, we cannot serve others. This is a concept that I have grappled with for years because it seems to go against my mission of serving others.

What I realized, however, was that taking care of myself first is exactly how I serve others. I need to make sure I sleep enough, eat enough, schedule time to recharge my batteries and do the things that make me happy. Otherwise, I won’t have anyone to serve because no one will want to be around a grumpy Gregory.

By prioritizing our self-care, we enable ourselves to become the best version of ourselves. Then we can go out into the world as magnificent, fully-charged beings who are ready to put a dent in the Universe. When we are happier, the people we interact with will be happier. And this small change is how I believe we can make the world a better place.