Loving oneself comes before than anything else. Experts Anjana Sahney Thakker, holistic health practitioner and Suma Varughese, former editor of Life Positive magazine and Society magazine believe in the same adage.
According to Suma, “Self-love is the most important quality that enables us to succeed in the enterprise called life. Most of us mistake self-love for vanity, arrogance, snobbery and a superiority complex. But all these stem from a lack of self-love, which forces us to put others down, or ourselves higher up, in order to compensate for our lack of self-love.”
She further states, “Self-love is a very healthy quality and consists of our ability to trust ourselves, respect ourselves, have faith in our capability and appreciate ourselves. Therefore, you can see that it is one of the most important qualities we can acquire if we want to realise our potential and be healthy and happy. A good affirmation I use is: ‘I am whole, perfect and complete’. Will recommend it to say it to yourself as often as you can.”
At the same time, Anjana feels that loving yourself is being true to yourself. “Only when you love yourself can you learn love, understand love, experience love and be able to share love. There are so many wonderful ways to love yourself, like getting healthy, not comparing yourself to anyone and focusing less on what others think of you, forgiving others and moving on; and also be mindful to live your life,” she explains.
