Whistle on self -love: why self -acceptance is healthier

Do you actually love yourself? A question that we have met again and again for some time. Be it on social networks, advertising or several psycho-guides.

Self -love is now the key to happiness, it seems. On Instagram alone you will find 2.2 million contributions under the hashtag “Self -Love”, almost 200 posts are playing the hashtag “self -loving learning”.

Smart -sounding sentences suggest clever minds that self -love is a worthwhile goal. You have probably already read or heard that “you are the most important person in your life” or you can “only love them if they love themselves”.

If you are looking for a definition of self -love, you will find one sentence on the net: “Self -love is the all -encompassing acceptance of your own in the form of an unreserved love.”

Translated freely: No matter how bad I behave towards other people, how much I may sometimes stand in the way of myself and whether there are diseases or disabilities that make life difficult for me – at best, I should find myself pretty great. And always and everywhere. You realize that self -love is not a harmless concept.

The many people who confidently stage themselves with all their flaws and mistakes on social media often trigger one thing above all – immense pressure.

Because they make it look light, which is a difficult matter for many of us: the relationship with ourselves. A fat bowl here, a bacon roll too much there, and self -love has apparently moved back to a long time.

Short rhetorical question at this point: do I really have to love that I am usually unpunctual, lay my key at least once a day and have difficulty opening me to other people?

Or may it be enough for me to accept these pages as part of myself – who makes me the person I am now? A person who likes to develop and change? Because it is what we all do in the course of our lives – we change.

Anyone who has ever been in love knows them, the notorious pink glasses. When we start looking at ourselves through these glasses, we become incapable of acting.

Because what we love intimately, what do we find great as it is. As a result, the limit between self -love and self -love is also negligible, maybe as thick as a sheet of paper.

And anyway: tell someone with a chronic illness that the key to happiness is to love themselves with all its facets. Daring thesis: Hardly anyone is in love with his illness. The mere acceptance of the fact that there is something in your own body that limits life is a huge mountain of work.

Admittedly, a hymn of praise to self -love, you will not find them here. But a diplomatic counter -proposal: self -acceptance. In contrast to self -love – it is about perceiving and accepting our whole.

That means we know our positive and negative sides and find the overall package of us as a person. We may even love some character traits or parts of the body, but it is okay for us that we are struggling with other areas.

This gives us one thing above all: air to breathe. If we accept ourselves without the aim of always having to love us, we have space to grow and the opportunity to develop ourselves further.

We give ourselves the “go” for mistakes and contradictions. We can sometimes be sensible and sometimes naive, sometimes quickly and slowly and sometimes entertaining and sometimes boring.

Don’t get me wrong: Of course it’s really great if you really love yourself. But only if it is like that from the deepest inner and you don’t try to chase a new social ideal picture of happiness, even though you actually feel very different.

It looks a little different with self -acceptance – it is actually almost no alternative if you want to be healthy and happy in the long term. It is about a positive basic feeling towards yourself. Only if we have internalized that, then we set limits, dare to say “no” and deal with our own time.

Self -acceptance can also act like a protective shield. If we are at peace with ourselves, know and accept our weaknesses and strengths, then attacks from the outside can also affect us less.

Science now agreed that we can control our self -esteem through thoughts and feelings about ourselves – and that it does not depend on the opinion of others.

Yes, you can really establish self -acceptance. In this context, learning may sound a bit too easy. Because it is a long process to really accept yourself in all colors and shapes.

And the following also applies: it is okay if it doesn’t work right away. Compared to the highly praised self -love, however, acceptance gives us the freedom to find us stupid.

The fact is: We all master life as best we can and of course we also deserve love for it. But whether it really has to be our own is questionable. Because with all the striving for self -love and the search for a good connection to ourselves, we shouldn’t forget one thing:

The world also consists of many other lovable people. And maybe we should start investing more energy in our interpersonal relationships and accepting ourselves that we just “only” find ourselves quite good.

And if nobody has told you so clearly:

It is okay not to throw yourself in front of the next camera with his bacon rolls on the stomach, just to show other people how much the excess skin that hangs over his too tight trousers is important.

It is okay to struggle with yourself, on some days to curse your own reflection and sometimes even want to be a little more like XY.

It is okay not to celebrate every millimeter of his body, not to write love songs for his personality and not find yourself absolutely great. You can still live a good life.