Self Love

"Self-love is misunderstood because people think it’s about buying yourself flowers or treating yourself to the spa once in a while. Self-love is a noun, not a verb. It’s a state of being, not doing. It’s a passive state, not an active one. That’s why 100 bubble baths won’t change how you feel about yourself. We organically acquiesce into self-love only after we reach self-acceptance, which means approving of ourselves exactly as we are with zero judgments. To get to that place, we must first do the work of self-forgiveness.

Think about it. You can't love someone if you don't fully accept them, and you certainly can’t accept them if you hold a grudge against them. That’s why the doing part of self-love, the active work to reach it, actually lies in self-forgiveness; forgiving yourself for not being a size two, the perfect wife/mother, failing at your last diet, not being what your parents wanted you to be, missed opportunities, broken relationships, parenting mistakes, etc. Women are constantly striving to meet the unattainable standards someone else has set for them. When the inevitable failure happens, they turn their judgment inward and subconsciously punish themselves for being less than the ideal. It’s impossible to take loving actions toward yourself when you feel you’ve done so much wrong that you don’t deserve to be happy and at a healthy weight."
- Dr. Habib Sadeghi,  interview