Why do you have difficulty loving and caring for yourself? |

Have you ever stopped to observe the way you take care of yourself? How do you manage your time for this care and also your leisure and pleasure? How much do you respect your body, its limits and meet your own needs? Many times, in the rush of everyday life, we forget our basic needs, let go of our feelings, anguish, tiredness, body aches… We even forget that we have a body! We often forget about ourselves. Let’s take care of the daily tasks and run over each other along the way.

Why do you only pay attention to physical problems but not emotional ones?

At some point the body demands this attention, makes you stop anyway to look at yourself and realize yourself. Unfortunately, we are used to paying more attention to physical than psychological manifestations.

If we are sad, distressed, anxious, with many fears, feeling pressured, insecure, or any other difficult emotional sensation, we tend not to give much importance, naturalizing the situation.

But when the body manifests itself in the form of diseases, the importance given is another, much greater. Then, yes, it is accepted that you collect yourself, that you seek a professional in the area to help you and that you make time to take care of yourself.

Sometimes, however, even the small physical symptoms don’t matter, and then the body has to resort to a bigger strategy to get your attention. At these times, the most serious illnesses come and force you to stop and look at yourself. But why not take care of ourselves before reaching this point? What makes everything else more important than yourself, your physical and emotional well-being?

It’s not selfish to put yourself first.

There needs to be a balance between “giving” and “receiving”. When we give too much and receive too little, we are prioritizing the other and putting ourselves in this position in life – whether that other is a friend, loving partner, relative or even a co-worker. I.e, we go over ourselves, leaving our own needs aside.

It may even start to feel like no one cares about you and you don’t get anything from them because no one cares. But reflect: could your attitude of putting yourself aside, always prioritizing the other, could be passing on an image of self-sufficiency that makes them not even realize that you need something?

Many ask me if it’s not a selfish act to prioritize and take care of yourself, without having to put others first and go over your own needs.

see well, selfishness is wanting someone by your side who lives just for you, to the detriment of your own well-being. Taking care of yourself, respecting yourself and setting your limits when necessary is extremely healthy and necessary for a balanced and harmonious relationship.

That doesn’t mean you won’t care about anyone else. It just means you won’t go over your limits, needs and well-being to please someone else.

You can help and do the best you can, but putting yourself aside and stepping over yourself is different. For everything in life, balance is needed and we can only take good care of each other if we are taking good care of ourselves too.

Negative beliefs you hold about yourself may have appeared in childhood

This receiving is also related to receiving from yourself and your self-care. If you feel worthy of care and respect, taking time for yourself, allowing yourself to have pleasure and leisure, and meeting your own needs is essential for a healthy emotional life.

When there is a difficulty in allowing yourself to look at yourself and take care of yourself as you need, it is a sign that you have some internal belief, which says that you are not worthy of this care. This belief is usually unconscious, going unnoticed beneath the countless “yes” we offer to others and the “no” we give to ourselves.

One of the possibilities to understand this belief is to look at our origin and our first years of life. We learn to take care of ourselves from the way we were taken care of.

We learn to take care of ourselves from the way we were taken care of.

It is important, first, to understand and stress that our parents did the best they could and that there are no guilty parties in this story. We, as babies and children, understand the world in a way that is still distorted by the limited perception we have.

In this period, we still do not have the autonomy to meet our basic needs and, therefore, we depend on our parents to meet them. When we have our needs met, we internalize the feeling of being loved.

We understand that if I feel hungry and food comes, or if I feel cold and I am warmed, or if I feel unprotected and then receive a nurturing touch and feel safe, then I am loved and worthy of that love and care.

This is the foundation of self-love, self-esteem, and a sense of worth in life. Of course, throughout life, this may or may not be reinforced and other episodes may occur, increasing or creating this belief.

Often, we are still stuck in a childlike state, believing that the other needs to guess our needs and meet them, just as the mother needs to do with the baby. In the process of maturing, we need to take responsibility for our own needs and for meeting them, either by communicating what we need or by doing something to provide for ourselves.

Children who need to take care of others do not learn to respect themselves

There are also cases of children who, from an early age, are placed in the role of caregivers – of siblings, mothers, grandparents… Children who invert the role of an adult and do not experience the place of being cared for, receiving, the place that , in fact, belongs to them. In these cases, a belief of not allowing care can also be internalized, both for oneself and for others. It is learned only to be in the place of providing for the other, going over one’s own needs.

It is learned only to be in the place of providing for the other, going over one’s own needs.

These can also be cases of not receiving care, welcoming and support, as this place of receiving is inverted. This way, they usually grow up adults who don’t know how to take care of themselves, respect themselves and position themselves. These people live for each other and not for themselves. Unconsciously, this can also establish a belief that they are not worthy of care and love.

Self-esteem is related to the way you felt cared for in childhood

Also as babies and children, we learn to recognize ourselves and know who we are from what the other says about us. What they say we are is internalized as truth in us and we end up believing that we really are that.

If the idea is negative, we can go through life with this limiting belief within us. In the maturing process, we need to emancipate ourselves from this and recognize ourselves in the face of what we feel to be, of what comes from within – and not from outside. Therefore, self-esteem has a lot to do with how we felt cared for in our childhood and the impressions we received about ourselves.

Internal feeling of unworthiness is just a created belief, it does not symbolize your essence

There are many possibilities that can generate behavior patterns and negative beliefs of low self-esteem and difficulty in self-care. Usually, these patterns and beliefs are hidden in our unconscious and we are not aware that they exist.

Sometimes we realize its consequences, but we don’t have the perception of what is generating it. By understanding what brings about this behavior of low self-esteem and little self-care, perceiving the beliefs that lie behind them, we are then able to transform them, re-signify them and change the way we position ourselves. We become aware that we put ourselves aside and understand that the internal feeling of non-deserving is just a created belief that we are not in essence.

In a process of self-knowledge and awareness of what is happening within us, it becomes easier and more feasible to transform issues that are not well resolved in our lives.

Self-care tips to boost your self-esteem

Self-care, in itself, is already something that can help increase self-esteem. When we are taking care of ourselves and allowing ourselves to receive affection and attention from ourselves, self-esteem is consequently stimulated and you start to feel much better. Some resources can help:

An important resource is the self-knowledge work, which can be developed into a psychotherapy, in which it will be possible to identify these beliefs and patterns and reframe them. The act of taking time out of your week for psychotherapy is also, in itself, a self-care action, in which you propose to have time just for yourself, to take care of yourself and receive care.

Another resource is to take care of physical health. Keeping up with your body, your exams and medical appointments that you may be pushing with your belly.

Feeding better, with more love and affection, is also a great act of self-care. As many say: “we are what we eat”. Indeed, food has a huge effect on our physical and emotional well-being. Nourishing yourself with good food is also nourishing yourself emotionally. Intake of food has a great connection with emotional nourishment.

Physical exercises that generate pleasure are also sources of self-care and self-esteem. It is important to stress that it is best to do a pleasurable exercise, not a painful one. The body is happy when moving and this generates an enormous sense of well-being with ourselves, in addition to being a time to take care of our health.

Another resource that is rarely talked about and explored, and which is generally received with strangeness due to its lack of custom, is the bus. Caring for yourself, touching your body, discovering which region you feel most comfortable when being touched, if giving that touch and affection is an excellent stimulus.

We are not in the habit of touching ourselves, of knowing where we like to be touched, what kind of affection we appreciate receiving and also what our own touch is like. In addition to being a resource for self-knowledge, it is an exercise in welcoming yourself. Hug each other, kiss each other, caress each other, make a cafuné. Why not? Try it and you will see. This generates physical and emotional well-being.

At first, there may be strangeness, it may be uncomfortable because you are not used to your own body and touch and also with this possibility of allowing yourself to receive from yourself. But, try it a few times, without preconceptions, discovering yourself, until you are comfortable, and observe the effects. Do this daily for 21 days and see how you feel. If afterwards it still doesn’t make sense to you, relax and let it go if you want. But if you realize it makes sense, include this habit in your daily routine. In the same way that you shower and brush your teeth, why not take some time to take care of yourself, give yourself a cuddle, touch a tired or sore spot?

You can also buy a nice soap and take a more conscious bath, feeling its touch and smell…