“If we can respect the divine within us, if we can treat it with dignity, then we can respect others around us.”

~ Vishwas Chavan

 

I have often touched upon self-appreciation and self-love as we explored the constant state of change and the mind, body and soul connection. This in the context of appreciating, loving and accepting you for who you are and all that you are. Self love is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself and is fundamental to living well. Self love is a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from experiences and actions that support our physical, emotional and spiritual growth.

Going hand-in-hand with self-love is self-respect. When we think of respect we often do so not in the context of ourselves but more so in the context of who is respecting (or disrespecting) us and who we respect.  Overall, respect can be defined as a sense of personal value that you attach to someone or someone may attach to you. Self-respect is the personal value you attach to you.

Just like self-love, self-respect grows by our actions or experiences that mature and hopefully evolve us. When we think, speak and act in ways that expand self-respect in us, we have compassion for ourselves and move to a state where we nurture our mind, body and soul. More so, we understand our core values and beliefs and do not compromise them.

Respecting yourself is a major piece in loving who you are. Each of us are magical beings and deserve to be respected and loved because we are unique. A common definition of respect as a verb is “to show regard or consideration for.” In thinking about self-respect, ask yourself if you are showing regard and consideration for yourself and those around you with your thoughts, words and actions. 

Self-respect is something you should automatically give yourself—regardless of what image you see in the mirror or the thoughts running through your head. You need to know and believe that you deserve the respect given to you and show respect for yourself through your actions.

The longest relationship you will ever have in your life is the relationship you have with yourself.  It is up to you to develop and nurture the strength and connection you have with yourself through self-respect and self-love. Only you can define your value. It is not, and never will be, found or defined by someone or something else.

Without first learning how to appreciate and respect ourselves, we will never be able to appreciate and respect the other people and things in our lives. Without self-respect, self-love and investing to find peace with ourselves and cultivating a deep understanding of ourselves, we can fall into the trap of being in a continuous cycle of trying to find acceptance, validation and respect from outside.

The more you respect yourself, the more you will be able to love yourself. As you can imagine, there are many things in life that can distract you from or hinder self-respect. There can be outside influences that interfere with treating yourself honorably. These include the low-vibration energies of comparing yourself to others, envy, fear, judgement and others that are often fueled by life events and situations.

But these life events and situations are simply experiences and you own how you choose to react. If you build a strong foundation of self-love and self-respect you will not react out of fear, envy, judgement, etc. You will be grounded in the value of you and your beliefs.

In short, if you do not respect yourself then you will not take care of yourself, and you will choose to let people treat you badly. With self-respect, you recognize and know your worth and others cannot negatively influence your opinion of yourself. As we have heard many times in many ways, you must love and respect yourself before anyone else can or will.