“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line”

-Lucille Ball

For centuries poets and singers have waxed eloquent about how love is an extraordinary feeling and best experienced when poured at the feet of another. Mahatman philosophy now makes the audacious claim that far from being a helpless feeling, Love is an active choice – marked by awareness, strength, and energy. What’s more, it is a choice that you should first make for your own self.

The significance of Self-Love for the Great Soul just cannot be emphasized enough – both as a concept in the Mahatman philosophy as well as actual practice in the process of Self Actualization. Self-Love is doing everything that will keep away harm and negativity from your own self. Self-Love is loving your own thoughts, dreams, goals, words, songs, actions, limbs, body, and your very breath. Self-Love means that you never do anything to hurt or damage yourself – whether in body or mind. 

The essential test of Self-Love – like with all major Mahatman concepts – is the test of energy. When you subject yourself to blame, guilt and shame, you make conditions for drop in energy. How many times have you hated yourself for not making it to the football or cheerleading team in high school or failing to get that promotion to the corner office? How many times have you blamed yourself for a failed relationship or a messy divorce? Self-Love is refusing to pillory yourself for such setbacks – real or perceived – and instead letting yourself know, “hey it’s OK, we’ll do better next time”. Hatred, blame, anger are among the most negative emotions around and if they are bad for your relationships, they are absolutely lethal when directed to your own self. Instead, get rid of all such emotions in your relationship with your own self and fill your being with Self-Love.

Mahatman philosophy is well aware of the conceptual traps human beings tend to fall into which is why it is equally important to discuss what Self-Love is NOT. It is not greed or vanity or pride. When you blow up your entire pay check on a pair of shoes that will be dated the very next season or binge drink just because you have won that coveted contract, you are definitely not acting out of Self-Love. Instead, these are harmful actions that would make you poorer in your resources. 

Likewise, Self-Love is not self-centered when you don’t care whether your actions are hurting others as long as they make you feel good. Let us look at the difference with the help of a real-life example. Self Love is taking time off during the weekend to go an art gallery or attend a meditation retreat on your own whereas self-centeredness will be dragging along an unwilling partner to the art show or depleting your kid’ college fund to sponsor your vacation. In each of the latter situations, the action is driven by that elusive – and ultimately mistaken – desire to feel good but both end up causing self-harm, through ruined relationships or resources. 

The other important difference to be aware of is between Self-Love and self-delusion. Praising and valuing yourself are essential components of Self-Love but need to be based on Self Awareness. When you think you are attractive, funny, smart, rich, and successful but in reality, you are not, you can be led to self-destructive thoughts and actions – if not immediately, definitely in the long run. For example, you are slated to appear for an interview and are confident of your skills and subject expertise. But self-delusion may lead you to believe that the hiring manager will be so blown by your previous accomplishments that whether you turn up half an hour late or sporting a dirty collar for the interview, you will still get the job because there just cannot be any candidate better qualified than you. The site of such an arrogant attitude and foolish behavior is yourself delusion which eventually harms your prospects and progress and hence cannot qualify as Self-Love. If you truly respected your own capabilities and goals, you would have ensured that you turned up in a way so as to maximize your chances of getting that job – this would have shown true Self Love. In this way Mahatman emphasizes that Self-Love is always, always backed by action. And the way to go about this is by following the three pillars of Great Health, Great Wealth and Great Wisdom. All the practices laid out in these pillars are sure to benefit your body, brain and life.  So staying back in the office to complete an important report when others have left is as much an example of Self Love as taking a pre-dawn walk on the beach with just yourself for company. Follow the practices in the three pillars and you will do well for your own self that will lead to achieving your inner potential and the actualization of your inner Greatness.

Despite being a vital ingredient for a Great Selfhood, Self-Love has received somewhat ambivalent treatment in mainstream disciplines. Though Aristotle did talk about Philautia or Self-Love in Nicomachean Ethics, he paid far more attention to a person’s duty as a member of the social group or polis. For most of history, the idea of self-love continued to place in unfair opposition to the community and deity. Any idea approximating self-love was seen as vanity and liable to the sin of pride. Instead, you had religious leaders around the world promoting the idea of service to others and sacrifice for causes rather than ensuring that these emerge from a healthy sense of selfhood anchored in self-acceptance and self-compassion.

 It was not until the mid-twentieth century that Self-Love was rescued from such negative opposition and seen positively as an essential trait for personal wellbeing. Humanist theorists like Carl Rogers said that high self-worth was one of the traits of the fully-functioning person while Eric Fromm talked of love as a creative capacity or ‘productive orientation’ and not just a passive abstraction and said, “Man must have an affirmative, loving attitude towards oneself”. Around the same time, Albert Ellis insisted that unconditional self-acceptance was the first essential condition of Rational Emotive Behavioural therapy to succeed. Today Self-Love is getting more of the research attention it deserves and it now figures a foundational concept in Positive Psychology. 

Mahatman philosophy actually goes further with the bold claim that Self-Love is the only healthy way to fulfill the intrinsic human need for love and connection. Whether the evolutionary side effect of the drive for species survival or an inborn instinct, few disagree that humans feel a need to love and be loved in return. But when you look outside your own self to fulfil this need for love, you end up making your own worth, esteem, and acceptance conditional to another person’s whims and approval. So according to Mahatman, self-love and its components like self-compassion, self-esteem and self-acceptance are the basic conditions for empowered selfhood which then is ready to attain self-actualization of Great potential.

Mahatman philosophy points out that Self-Love does not mean isolating yourself from the wider human connections – it does not mean being independent by severing yourself from the rest of humanity. Indeed true Self-Love is the real wellspring of genuinely meaningful relationships. In this state of Self-Love, when you reach out to a significant other – be it your partner, parent or child – you do it from a position of strength and maturity. You already know that you are a being who is full of potential, skills, goals and energy, who is worthy of and is already treated with respect, kindness and promise. Hence you engage in relationships not from a state of neediness but in order to give generously and fully. In this way, Self-Love frees you from the needy, dependent bondage which has unfortunately been glorified in pop culture as ‘love’. Mahatman says when you are good to yourself, only then you can be good to others and be a great partner, parent, child, and so on.

When you love yourself in the way Mahatman understands it, as an active choice, you are bound to extend that creative force to others as well. Love in this sense cannot be restricted to one person, object, being but must flow from the self to others, to entire humanity, to nature and the Universe. This is also what Fromm talks about when he describes love as “productive orientation…which is the experience of union with another person, with all men, and with nature, under the condition of retaining one’s sense of integrity”. This love is neither co-dependent nor independent in the sense of isolating one from another. Rather the best kind of love is inter-dependent – it realizes that no human is an island but does not tie itself with other’s expectations and approval or disapproval. Instead love weaves the web of humanity with its own energy derived from Self-Love.

Modern research makes the same point of interdependence that distinguishes Self-Love from narcissism on one hand and co-dependency on the other. Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer identify the idea of Common humanity as one of the three basic facets of self-compassion which Mahatman understands as part of Self-Love. “Through this act of perspective-taking, our outlook becomes broader and more inclusive, recognizing that life’s challenges and personal failures are simply part of being human. Self-compassion helps us to feel more connected”. 

But all this does not end in abstractions. There have been numerous empirical studies that have linked self-compassion interventions to increased optimism, happiness, life satisfaction, self-efficacy and body appreciation among people. (Neff & Germer, 2013; Shapira & Mongrain, 2010;) What’s more experimental studies designed to induce a self-compassionate mood have been shown to increase positive affect and motivation and also decrease negative emotions such as anxiety, shame, and depression. (Breines & Chen, 2012; Diedrich et al, 2014; Johnson & O’Brien, 2013; ). So even in hard science, there is now little doubt that Self Love with its various aspects like self-compassion and self-esteem makes for a psychological and emotional well being.

After all the discussion on the importance of Self-Love, it is now time for some simple, doable tips on  practicing Self-Love:

1. Begin your day with self-love: Look at the mirror and wink yourself with the left eye, then the right eye. Kiss yourself. Smile at yourself – broadly and generously like you are opening your heart out to yourself. Keep smiling until you feel loved and then say “I love myself”. To heighten the emotional cues, do all of this while playing your favorite morning song.
2. Take grooming seriously. Grooming and adorning one’s body are not signs of narcissism when fuelled by Self-Love in the Mahatman sense. they are important acts of caring for your own self and ensure Great Health. So follow grooming essentials on a daily basis and take efforts to look pleasant – such acts will definitely make you fall in love with oneself as a result you will feel ‘great’ about yourself and by extension, about the world. 
3. Put yourself first. In many ways, you can display love towards yourself. Practice self-kindness like refueling over a quiet cup of coffee when in the middle of a busy workday rather than criticizing yourself for running late. Spend around 20% of your pay check on your experiences which energize you – like spending a day at the spa, going for a wine tasting tour, or taking an evening course that you have been planning for very long.
4. Surround yourself with positivity: Avoid people like your frenemies and images like those splashed in commercials and print ads which make you feel bad about yourself. Instead make sure you are surrounded by everything that makes for growth, hope, and positivity. 
5. Three Mahatman Pillars: Above all, practicing the Great Health, Great Wealth, and Great Wisdom pillars of Mahatman is the most consistent Self-Love practice in the long run. These will ensure that your body, mind, and resources are cared for and in the process empower you to create that energy that will fuel your way to Greatness.

In all its discussions of Self-Love, Mahatman makes it clear that it is not a feeling or abstraction but an action. Self-Love means you take charge of your well being and do all that is necessary for you to be strong and move forward. It is to choose thoughts, words and behaviors that empower you, rather than what merely feels good to yourself and looks good to others. In this way, Self-Love is crucial for the process of actualization of your potential. Unless you love your own self, demand the best for it and are eager to work to achieve all that, Self Actualization remains a noble dream. And above all do not be hesitant or apologetic about it. Cultivate a frame of mind so that if someone asks you who you love the most, you can answer without thinking, “Nobody loves me more than me”. Take a leaf from Sam Adettivar’s own practice of Self-Love when he says to himself every moment of his existence: 

“Nobody loves Sam Adettiwar more than Sam Adettiwar and this is precisely what makes Sam Adettiwar the Great Love!”

References:

188.Fromm, The Art of Listening, New York (The Continuum Publishing Corporation) 1994, p. 188.)

189.Fromm, Sane Society The International Library of Sociology; Routledge; 1 edition (14 October 2010)

Neff, K. D., & Germer, C. K. (2013). A pilot study and randomized controlled trial of the mindful self-compassion program. Journal Of Clinical Psychology, 69(1), 28-44.

Shapira, L. B., & Mongrain, M. (2010). The benefits of self-compassion and optimism exercises for individuals vulnerable to depression. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5, 377-389

Breines, J., Toole, A., Tu, C., & Chen, S. (2014). Self-compassion, body image, and selfreported disordered eating. Self and Identity, 13(4), 432-448.

Diedrich, A., Grant, M., Hofmann, S. G., Hiller, W., & Berking, M. (2014). Self-compassion as an emotion regulation strategy in major depressive disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 58, 43-51

Johnson, E. A., & O’Brien, K. A. (2013). Self-compassion soothes the savage ego-threat system: effects on negative affect, shame, rumination, and depressive symptoms. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 32(9), 939-963.