That’s a bold statement! How dare this writer claim that loving oneself can solve all of life’s problems? Does she have any clue what I have been going through? Can loving myself give me money, or pay my bills? Can loving myself make my husband stop cheating on me or my wife come back to me? Can loving myself stop world hunger, repair the ozone layer and find the cure for cancer? The answer to all of these questions is a bold and resounding, YES! Although some problems may be complex and seem completely impossible to solve, I am willing to confidently demonstrate how self-love can directly or indirectly solve any personal or global problems you can think of.

First, let us define self love. It may seem obvious that self love is the act of loving oneself, but it goes deeper than that. Many claim to love themselves but when they fail at something or have a bad day, their thoughts about themselves can be judgmental and downright hateful. There is more to loving oneself than just buying yourself some jewelry or a day at the spa. Self love is an everyday conscious task. To practice self-love is to pay attention to our thoughts and actions towards ourselves, daily. Even our words can reveal some lack of self love. Calling ourselves fat or ugly, and secretly wishing that we were something or someone other that who we are, are examples of a subtle self hatred. A funny example is the sensitive topic of race. For centuries, racial inequality has been a global struggle, yet just looking at the beauty products on shelves in a supermarket, one will notice how the shops in the Western world feature skin tanning products, while the shops in the African world may feature skin bleaching products. No judgement here. Just an example of how, we as the human race are never satisfied with who we are or what we have. This is why self-love has become the main topic in the self-help field these days. People all over the world, regardless of race, creed, caste, religion or status, are struggling with the acceptance and love of the self.

Let’s look at ways in which self-love can solve our existential problems.

1. Self-Love Takes Away The Fear of Loneliness.
   • Why do we fear to be alone? What is so horrible about ourselves that we fear to be alone with our self? You were born by yourself and you leave this earth by yourself. The sooner we realize this, the faster we can begin to appreciate ourselves. Your self is your one and only true companion because he never leaves you. You are your own shadow, and if you are afraid of your shadow, then you will forever feel like you are running away from something.
   • “Wherever you go, there you are”, is something they teach at AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). This is their way of saying, you can never run away from yourself. This is why you hear of celebrities living a fast paced life full of drugs and sex, seemingly happy, but riddled with depression and suicidal thoughts when alone in their homes. We may fill our lives with money, alcohol, fun, drugs, friends, lovers etc., but if we do not take the time to make friends with the self, we will always be miserable when distractions are taken away. Loving yourself begins with acceptance of yourself. Finding ways of enjoying yourself without the need of props and distraction strengthens your character.
2. Self-Love Cures Depression & Anxiety.
   • You may already know this. Having suffered from depression myself, I understand that it takes more than just affirming “I love Myself” a hundred times a day to cure it. Of course there are many forms of depression, one of which is clinical. Chemical imbalances in the brain can make it difficult to treat depression holistically. Most people however, suffer from depression caused by situations in their lives, as was the case with me. When one is depressed, it can be difficult to get out of bed, or be motivated to go out and do things that may make you happy. Self-love is not an overnight magic pill, but from my personal experience, working at being kind to myself in my thoughts, combating negative thoughts with positive ones and slowly adapting a lifestyle that was good for me, definitely started me on my journey towards healing. Depressed people are constantly thinking negatively especially about themselves. Anxious people do not trust themselves and are always afraid that their world will fall apart. When you begin to love yourself, you become your own hero, and in doing so, you regain your power and begin to find ways to make your life better for you. Practice self-love long enough and you will see how your life slowly begins to turn in the right direction. As you notice the positive changes in yourself, your confidence will increase, and as your confidence increases, you will find that you are strong enough to come up with ideas and ways to improve your life even more, thus truly becoming your own hero. I recommend reading Joseph Campbell’s book, “The Hero’s Journey”, to better understand this concept.
3. Self-Love Improves Your Finances.
   • Now let me to demonstrate how self love can actually earn you money. This is a perfect follow-up to the point about being your own hero. When I was in my early twenties, I struggled a lot just to meet my basic needs. As a result, I was riddled with anxiety about my future. I would be depressed about not having money, so I would be too stressed to think about a solution. This is what happened. Instead of spending time with myself brainstorming and job searching, I would distract myself with friends, alcohol, parties and television. What I did not realize at the time was that I was wasting time and that no one was going to come and drop money on my lap. One day I had an epiphany. I had to get up and do this for myself. I had to have enough faith in myself to believe that I could actually earn a living and take care of myself. Once I realized this, I stopped laying around in bed after a long night of hard partying, and began to take better care of myself. I started enjoying work because it brought me money, which made my life easier. I realized that if I had money, it meant that I could have a roof over my head and food on the table. I had to love myself enough to want these things for myself and to go get them for myself. Loving yourself will motivate you to do better for yourself, leading you to better jobs and opportunities. If you do not love yourself, you will not have the confidence to pursue the best opportunities that this world has to offer.
4. Self-Love Eradicates Fear of Judgement.
   • We’ve all been there. You try to live your life and do something to better yourself, like starting a blog, posting YouTube videos, becoming a comedian or performer of some sorts, and being your most authentic self, only to be met with criticism, gossip and trolls. People judge your content, how you look, dress or talk, who you are with, what you believe in etc. You do not even have to be famous these days to be judged. Social media has made it where anyone can comment on your posts. There is also judgement coming from people in your church or school, and even family. One who completely loves and accepts himself, will not be affected by what people think about him because he is content with himself. I know this is easier said than done, but with practice, we can learn to be completely unaffected by what others think of us. Think about this. You are the most important person in your life. You know how I know this? I know this because I know that you will not ask anyone for permission when you die. You will leave only with yourself. Therefore, the only opinion about you, which should matter to you, is your own opinion about yourself.
5. Self-Love Cures Addictions.
   • What causes addiction? We become addicted to something as a result of doing it excessively, to the point of becoming a habit, but the difference between an addiction and a habit is the motivation behind it. When we do something, be it drugs, alcohol , sex, or video games, as a way to escape our reality and to numb our feelings, this is when the habit becomes an addiction. Loving oneself can cure an addiction, because what it takes is the realization that we are harming ourselves by continuing with the habit. Would you knowingly harm someone who you love? Think about the person you love the most in the world, and imagine yourself offering them enough alcohol to kill them, or assisting them to shoot heroine into their system. You would never do this to a loved one, so why do it to yourself? The question is, do you love yourself enough to want the best for yourself? If you do, you will stop doing things to yourself, which bring harm to your self.
6. Self-Love Improves Your Health.
   • To elaborate even further on the addiction point, health improvement can be a result of self-love because when you want the best for yourself. You will eat better, exercise and do whatever it takes to ensure a healthier version of yourself. As a result, you will be both physically and mentally healthy.
7. Self-Love Helps You to Reach Your Goals.
   • Again, with love of self, one is motivated to improve his own life. In doing so, steps are taken towards the kind of future wished for. With time, small goals are attained, and one then feels motivated to go for even bigger goals. Repeating this over time leads to achievement of every goal imagined and the construction of the life of your dreams.
8. Self-Love Improves Relationships.
   • There are two facets of this. One is how self-love can help to maintain your relationships. Boundaries are very important in a relationship. A relationship with no boundaries is known as a codependent relationship. Codependent relationships may seem nice at first, with both people seemingly so in love with each other that they cannot spend a minute apart, but with time, this type of relationship crumbles, leaving in its wake a tornado-like aftermath. Victims of a codependent relationship may have problems starting a new healthy relationship because they lost their sense of self. This is why even in a relationship, it is very important to continue to love yourself, without expecting the other person to complete you. In doing so, a healthy partner will appreciate your boundaries and work to keep the respect in the relationship mutual, leading to a much healthier cohabitation. A unhealthy partner however, will either have to change or exit the situation, which will work out for you either way.
   • This brings me to the other facet, which is how self-love can help you gain better relationships. Loving yourself helps you realize that even in a relationship setting, you deserve the best. You are the best, therefore you deserve to have a partner who appreciates you just the way you are. Lack of self love leads to people settling with partners they have no business being with. At the first sign of abuse, a self-loving person will run for the hills, because she is not going to subject herself to that kind of treatment. When we stay in abusive situations, we are sacrificing ourselves for the feelings of the other person, who is probably narcissistic and only cares about himself. Love yourself enough to rescue yourself and to only allow people in your life, who are good for you.
9. Self-Love can Remove the Fear of Death.
   • I am trying to cover every problem we have as humans, and how self-love can help, therefore, we have to speak on the fear of death which plagues most people in this world. What causes the fear of death is the uncertainty of it, and the loneliness we think we would encounter after it. We are used to having family and friends, and the thought of leaving them is torture. We therefore distract ourselves again, until someone we care about dies, then its time to think about it again. Death has never been seen as a positive thing, but we can change how we view it, if we are comfortable with ourselves. Almost every religion in the world has an afterlife story and its usually a good one. Yet, humans are still afraid of death. Christians believe in a paradise after death, where your soul travels to heaven. Muslims believe in something similar. Hindus believe in reincarnation, where your soul finds a new body and is rebirthed. Buddhists believe that your spirit sticks close by and seeks a new life and new place to be reborn. Yet, in all those beliefs, with billions of people in the world believing that death is not the end of your soul, people are afraid of making that journey. Why? My theory is, it is because of the fact that we cannot even spend time with ourselves, or spend a day not having any negative thoughts about ourselves. In the same way, we do not realize that we are our own best friend, the shadow that never goes away, and that even at the end of life, that part of us, the self, remains. If we can reconcile with our deeper self, then we would never feel alone or afraid to journey into the unknown. Was that too deep for you?
10. How Self-Love Helps The World.
    • Now it is time for the big questions to be answered. How does self love help solve the big world problems, like hunger, war or cancer? People who love themselves also tend to treat other people with care, because these people tend to be happy and content with their lives. Such a person is more likely to embark on a philanthropic venture, or choose a career which in turn helps others. I know this because when I first learned about self love, I was all about myself in an egotistical way, but once I improved my life and was happier, I found that I wanted to spread the word on how to improve oneself the way that I did, and this is how my blog was born. A deeply happy and content person will want to spread this joy, and therefore, if we have more doctors, scientists and leaders who are happy and content, they will more than likely engage in activities which help the human race as a whole. I am not implying that the world will change overnight because everybody is happy and content. I am merely suggesting that more healthy and happy humans in the world may result in a happier and healthier ecosystem.

In conclusion, I would like to point out that self love has nothing to do with narcissism. A narcissist has an exaggerated sense of self, and lacks empathy for others. A narcissist believes that they possess no faults. Healthy self love recognizes your own faults and flaws but loves your self anyways, which in turn makes it easy to love others in spite of their faults. Begin to truly love your authentic self, and see how the world changes for you.