Think of all of the times you've heard the term "self-love".
Now think about who was saying it, how it was said and why...
Was it mentioned by a person who was happy and thriving or one trying to heal and overcome?
The truth is, more times than not, the term self-love becomes a part of a person's vocabulary after having dealt with trauma of some kind. Which makes sense because after going through a tough time most people need to accept, care, value and love themselves. In other words, self-love is the healing that we seek. The aftermath we're left grappling with and the point we're trying to get to.
Self-love is the healthy recognition of our worth, value and our ultimate goal.
The problem is, sometimes we don't know how to love ourselves. Especially not right away after the pain and hurt. It's something that we have to practice, experience and learn.
Which can make it easy to fall into the trap of having a victim mindset and holding resentment. Even with the best of intentions. Making the self-love that we seek turn mistakenly into becoming selfish. Which is the exact opposite of our original goal. To heal, be happy and love who we are.
So what's the difference between self-love and being selfish? And where is the line drawn?
Below is a chart that can help you keep track of what is and isn't self-love.
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