Self Love vs. Self Care: What's the difference?
Unsure of the differences between Self Care and Self Love? You’re not alone.
Knowing the difference between Self Love and Self Care is important. But why? It’s because you can do an act of Self Care without practicing Self Love. However, you cannot practice Self Love without including acts of Self Care. Both are important, but Self Love is #1. In fact, Self Love is so important that it is the single most crucial factor to live a successful, happy life.
So what’s the difference between Self Love and Self Care?
Let’s start with defining Self Care. Self Care can look like many things. The general concept of Self Care is anything you do for yourself that is truly good for You--your mind, body, or spirit.
Examples of Self Care
Setting a boundary by logging off your work email at a certain time and not checking it again until your workday begins the next morning
Telling someone “Thanks but not this time” when you are invited to an event you that you just honestly don’t want to attend
Going to get a check up at the doctor’s office for something that has been causing you to feel unwell
Choosing a healthy meal option like steak & veggies over fast food
Spending 5 extra minutes in the bathroom to take a few deep breaths before going back into the chaos of running your household
Watching a funny cat video to take a break from your stressful work day
Buying a new, comfortable pair of shoes so replace the old, broken down ones you’ve been slogging around in
Staying in bed a little longer when you need more rest
Drinking enough water everyday
Prioritizing your body’s needs over what your mind says you “should” be doing
There are a million more examples, but these show you just how varied Self Care practices can be.
Self Care vs. Self Love
When I first began my journey into understanding Self Care and Self Love, I thought Self Care was something like lighting candles, taking a bubble bath, and drinking wine. It didn’t really appeal to me. I didn’t really understand how that constituted this thing “self care” that I kept hearing about. And while taking a relaxing bath absolutely can count as an act of Self Care, it still felt kind of empty to me. I knew I had to be missing something.
What is Self Care, really?
I slowly started to realize that you can practice acts of Self Care but those things are not the same as practicing Self Love. Self Love is a whole other animal. But unlike Self Care, which can be practiced without Self Love, it’s not possible to practice Self Love without Self Care.
Let’s dig into that further because that seems confusing at first glance.
So what is Self Love? Why is it different from Self Care? The phrase “self love” sure sounds obvious but in practice, it can be very challenging to understand and even more challenging to practice. The concept of Self Love is about making choices every single day that demonstrate to yourself that you are committed to creating the life that you desire and deserve.
Look at it like this: Think of a person you love and would do anything for, just to make sure they are safe, happy, and feel loved by you. In order to do that, you might have to occasionally make compromises, sacrifices, little choices and big choices in order to continue to show that person that you care about and love them and want to contribute to their health and happiness. You know they do these very things for you as well, because they truly love you. It is because of that love that drives you to want to do these things for them, not a sense of keeping score or obligation.
Examples of Self Love
Self Love is the same intent, just directed inward toward yourself rather than to another person. Here are some examples of Self Love:
When you make a mistake at work and feel embarrassed, instead of silently telling yourself you’re an idiot and can never do anything right, try saying “Hey you made a mistake and now you’re better prepared for next time because you won’t do that again!”
When someone rejects your invitation to go on a date, instead of feeling sad and calling yourself a gross ugly troll who will die alone, try reminding yourself that someone else rejecting you doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with you. They may have had any number of things going on in their life that made them say no. Remember: what people do isn’t about you, it’s about them.
When someone continues to treat you badly and says hurtful things to you, try reminding yourself that what other people say isn’t necessarily true and when people are hurtful toward others, it means there is something hurting inside them that they haven’t dealt with. You’re just the person in the line of fire at that moment. It sounds like they are hurting you but really you are just witnessing some of the pain that they have inside toward themselves. Remind yourself that you are still worthy of love and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. So in this case, practicing Self Love could be (A.) reminding yourself of those things, and also (B.) choosing to walk away from that person and calmly saying “I’m not going to be spoken to like this. If you want to talk to me, it will have to be after you have calmed down and can speak respectfully.”
When you struggle to do something the right way, instead of insulting yourself and calling your names and breaking down into frustration, try telling yourself “Hey you’re trying the best you can in this moment. Nobody gets it perfect every time and it’s ok to take a break, collect yourself, and come back. You are still worthy of having friends, being respected, and being loved even though you are not doing this task the way you’d like to be doing it right now. You are still good enough and there is nothing wrong with you.”
The tricky part about Self Love is that you can’t do it if you subconsciously still believe you are a shitty person who sucks at life and doesn’t deserve love from anyone. You can’t have an inner voice that insults, shames, guilts, and beats you down no matter what you do. That’s something I didn’t understand for the longest time. It’s something I still struggle with some days. And so will you. But don’t worry, because it gets easier to do with more practice. Just like driving a car or flossing your teeth or solving math equations.
Self Love is NOT selfish
Self Love is prioritizing yourself so you can show up as the best version of you for those people you care about. Self Love is making choices every day to do something good for yourself because you deserve to be healthy, happy, and feel loved. Self Love is knowing that you can’t show up to love another person if you secretly hate yourself. When you try to love someone else without loving yourself, you will unconsciously project your fears, your pain, your inadequacies onto that other person. Both of you will suffer because of it.
Maybe you think prioritizing yourself is selfish, wrong, or impossible. Maybe you are a parent and you think that you can’t love yourself more than you love your kids. Maybe you think that love is only available from other people.
Those are all valid thoughts. But here’s some good news: Not all your thoughts are true. You’re probably wondering how that statement can be true. Stick around and check out the next article that can shed more light on this. As the great poet MC Hammer might say if he were writing this post--Don’t just sit there, bust a myth!
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