How to Build Better Relationships: 3 Ways Self-Love Improves Your Relationships
“Self-love is selfish.”
Does that sound familiar? Have you had that thought before? Or maybe you’ve heard it from someone else?
If you have, you are definitely not alone. It continues to be a very common misconception about what self-love is and what it really means, and it leaves out one of the huge benefits of embracing self-love into your life: improving your relationships with others.
In this blog post, I’m going to share helpful information and a specific example from my own experience that helps dismantle this belief.
Why Self-Love isn’t Selfish
Just because a term has the word ‘self’ in it, like self-care, self-compassion, and self-love, does not mean the term has anything to do with the trait of being selfish.
These terms are a way to talk about taking care of yourself. Taking care of yourself does not mean you stop taking care of or caring about others.
They aim to shift your mindset to see the importance of caring for yourself first before you care for others.
Read more about this in: How to Put Yourself First: 5 Easy & Effective Ways
By caring for yourself first, this allows you the space and energy to nurture other relationships in your life more effectively.
If you hold the belief that self-love is selfish, you will likely need to work through that limiting belief before you’re able to grow in your self-love and get to fully experience the benefits from it.
How Self-Love Has Improved My Relationships
I shared some about my self-love journey in this blog, and I want to expand on that here to further explore the impact of self-love on other relationships in your life.
Over the past year, I’ve had a handful of interactions with long-time friends that have allowed me to reflect on and recognize the growth that has changed those relationships for the better.
I have two friends who I’ve been friends with since 8th grade, 20 years of friendship and counting. That’s wild!
Because we’ve known each other for so long, we’ve seen each other go through a lot and have gone through a lot together.
We’ve seen each other go through difficult relationships and breakups, move out of state, get married, become a parent, and grow and change in other ways.
They feel like sister-friends at this point, and I’m so lucky to have them. And over the past year, I’ve noticed that I feel closer to them.
Self-Love Helped Me Ditch My People Pleasing Ways
While growing up, my people pleasing ways did not allow for many deep connections, so our friendships (and all of my other friendships) were mostly about the fun we had together.
People pleasing most often begins as a way of coping through difficult interpersonal relationships. This was true for me.
Through my experiences, I’d learned that keeping the peace and being the “fun” friend meant that people were less likely to leave or reject you.
However, looking back, I can see that keeping the peace and being the “fun” friend also means that you don’t get very close to anyone.
You may have lots of surface level relationships, which can be fine temporarily, but you tend to struggle to make or maintain deeper connections, which we all crave and desire at some point.
As I’ve grown in my self-love, I’ve been able to move away from the people pleasing mindset and tendencies.
I wouldn’t say I’ve completely moved away from people pleasing because I believe it is a recovery process, but I know there has been significant change and one way I can see that is in my relationships.
My relationships are now stronger, deeper, and fewer. They are much more about quality than quantity now, and that feels amazing.
Self-Love Makes Me More Authentic and Relatable
As I reflect on past relationships, especially those with these two friends who I was the closest with (among a sea of surface level friendships), I also recognized how my difficulties with, and probably fear of, being vulnerable played a role in the lack of depth in my relationships.
My friends would open up to me about things going on in their lives, and I was a great listener but I didn’t openly share much about my own internal struggles.
Not sharing about myself kept them at a distance. I want to say this kept them at a distance unintentionally but more likely, some part of me knew exactly what I was doing and why I was doing it.
It allowed me to keep up the image of the fun, easy going girl. And the funny thing is that I was that girl and I still am but I also have so many other parts of myself that I hadn’t accepted or gotten to know yet.
Because I didn’t know those parts or didn’t want others to know those parts, I kept them to myself but in doing that, it kept my relationships shallow and hallow.
Plus, the fun, easy going girl isn’t relatable if she doesn’t also show her other parts - the vulnerable, insecure, scared, etc. parts that we all have.
A piece of someone isn’t authentic or relatable. We all have many different parts, and when we only show some of those parts to people whom we want to form deeper connections with, we are working against ourselves.
As I shared in Why Self-Love is Important, this worked out okay for me in school. I had lots of friends and lots of fun, so it takes a closer look to see that I was missing deeper connections with those friends and a more loving connection with myself.
Now that I’ve worked on my self-love and I can be real and genuine, my friendships with them are so much stronger.
Don’t get me wrong, we still have the same amount of fun. We just had an amazing time at one of their weddings.
But we are also able to talk about real issues, work through conflict, and share in our wins and struggles together, which has created deeper and more meaningful connections between us.
Self-Love Helped Me Trust Myself and Others
Difficulties being vulnerable can often be tied to difficulties with trust.
For example, I didn’t trust myself enough to be myself and I didn’t trust others to accept me if I did show them the “real” me.
Improving self-love can help you gain trust in yourself and others by building self-acceptance, confidence, and self-worth.
Each of these key pieces of self-love help you to have a strong foundation of confidence and acceptance that allows you to trust more easily because your sense of worth is not reliant on the acceptance of others.
I can show up authentically in my relationships now and trust that those who accept me are meant to be a part of my life and those who don’t aren’t.
I no longer need the acceptance of every person I meet to help me feel good about myself.
Self-love allows me to feel good about myself whether others like me or not.
How You Can Improve Your Relationships with Self-Love
You may or may not share a similar story to mine. Either way, there are ways to utilize self-love growth to improve your relationships, which might include friendships, family relationships, or romantic partners.
If your story is similar to mine, this might include learning to trust and be vulnerable and accepting all parts of yourself.
If your story is different, growing in your self-love might help improve your relationships through recognizing unhealthy or toxic patterns in your partners and relationships, learning to set and maintain boundaries, or learning how to forgive yourself and others for mistakes.
You may want to start with a self-love journal or self-love journal prompts to help you identify your areas of growth in self-love.
This will help guide you towards a starting point and, using a self-love journal or Google search, you can discover various activities, practices, and other strategies that will help you from there.
Final Notes
Self-love is not only about improving the relationship you have with yourself, but it also helps improve your relationships with others.
Whether through setting and maintaining healthy boundaries, less people pleasing and perfectionism, knowing your worth, accepting parts of yourself and being willing to be more vulnerable with others, there are so many different ways self-love can lead to better relationships with others.
If you started reading this blog with the belief that self-love is selfish, I hope at least one of these insights and anecdotes helped you see one reason that it is not selfish.
If you know someone who holds this belief, consider sharing this blog with them so that they might also open their mind to the possibilities that self-love can bring to their life.
If you’ve checked out my book, I’d love to know which parts of it have been most helpful for you! Feel free to DM me on Instagram or send me an email.
Learn How To Self-Love: Self-Love for Women group
If you're ready to explore the power of self-love, my virtual Self-Love for Women group is here to support you. Your self-love story is waiting to unfold, and I’m here to champion your growth every step of the way! Reach out today to join the Summer 2024 session, available for women in Wisconsin, Florida, Utah, and Vermont.
Read more: What Self-Compassion Means & Why It’s Important
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