How To Be In Self-Love Before Being In A Relationship

Reading time: 10 minutes

Your love for yourself already exists; you just need to remove the conditions you’ve attached to it over the years.

“I’ll love myself when I earn…, achieve…, receive…”

Practicing self-love is not about attaining or achieving something; it is about seeing what is already there.

Your relationship with yourself deserves your full presence, no less than any other relationship.

So, allow yourself to nakedly connect with your inner source of joy, trust, and empathy.

Why do we need to love ourselves before loving others?

Self-love before loving others makes sure that our love comes from a place of wholeness rather than neediness.

• True self-love teaches us to realize and value our self-worth. This makes us less likely to seek validation or acceptance from others. The resulting self-assurance then allows us to be authentic in our relationships.
• It helps us set healthy boundaries, preventing us from losing our own identity in relationships or becoming overly dependent on others.
• It also helps us steer clear of love that is based on conditions, driven by insecurity, or fear of rejection.

Why do we struggle to love ourselves?

Self-love takes a back seat because of the toxic messages we receive as children or from our culture and society:

• “You’re not good enough if you don’t meet a certain standard of intelligence.”
• “You’re not worthy unless you possess a particular type of beauty.”
• “You won’t be accepted unless you conform to what you’re told.”
• “You won’t be loved if you speak your truths.”

How To Cultivate Self-Love Before Loving Others?

Here are 4 ways to self-love before loving others:

1. Practice Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM)

Loving-kindness meditation helps us reconnect with our grounded, compassionate, and accepting center.

Rooted in the Buddhist tradition, Metta (loving-kindness) meditations encourage us to compassionately embrace ourselves before extending that love to others.

1. To practice, start by finding a comfortable seated position.
2. Close your eyes and take a few slow, steady breaths to ground yourself.
3. Then, gently bring your attention inward, focusing on your own being and holding yourself in open awareness.
4. With a sense of love, patience, kindness, and compassion, silently repeat the following phrases to yourself:

May I be happy.
May I be loved.
May I be safe.
May I be at peace.

Repeat these phrases slowly three times, allowing their meaning to resonate.

Once you’ve nurtured your own sense of well-being, extend these wishes to a loved one, an acquaintance, someone you struggle with, and finally, to the entire world.

2. Mind Your Emotions With Care

Being mindful of our emotions is another powerful way to deepen our sense of unconditional self-love and acceptance.

Often, when challenging thoughts and feelings arise, we unintentionally add to our suffering by letting the mind take over and create negative stories.

By approaching our emotions with curious and compassionate mindfulness, we can observe our inner experiences from a broader perspective. To practice this, we might ask ourselves:

• What does this emotion feel like in my body?
• Can I watch it come and go without attaching a story to it?
• What beliefs do I hold about this situation that might be adding to my suffering?

With practice, we begin to develop a growing sense of resilience.

We become less reliant on external circumstances for peace. And more capable of sitting patiently and curiously with our innermost experiences.

3. Embrace Alone-Time As A Gift

If you find yourself struggling to accept your current status of being self-partnered, believing that being in a relationship would be better, take a second look at this belief.

Being single has its downsides, but so does being in a partnership. Meanwhile, singlehood offers deeply fulfilling unique opportunities:

• Time and space to explore yourself without compromise. You are free to pursue new passions, interests, and personal growth without needing to accommodate your partner’s needs or schedules.
• An opportunity to become more resilient, self-reliant, and self-nourishing. Without relying on a partner for emotional support, you learn to cultivate inner strength and self-compassion, which can lead to greater emotional independence.
• Freedom to spend your time and energy as you choose. You automatically put your goals first, whether it’s advancing your career, traveling, or simply enjoying the peace of being without responsibilities towards a partner.
• The ability to build a deeper connection with yourself. Singlehood allows you to focus on understanding your own desires, boundaries, and values, which can lead to a more authentic and satisfying life.
• Flexibility to form and nurture a wide range of relationships. Being single gives you more time to invest in friendships, family, and community, enriching your social life and support network.
• A chance to cultivate self-love and acceptance on your own terms. Without external pressures, you can learn to appreciate and love yourself fully, laying a strong foundation for any future relationships.

Imagine asking yourself this question 10 years in the future:

Now that I’m in a relationship, what things I wish I could have done with my alone-times?

4. Release Limiting Notions About Perfection

The mind often idealizes or romanticizes what certain things should look or feel like—self-love included. But self-love doesn’t mean we will never doubt ourselves or that we’ll be immune to difficult emotions.

By softening our rigid expectations of what self-love “should” look like, we free ourselves from the notion that it exists only in some distant, perfect future.

Instead, we can turn our attention to the present moment and discover a sense of self-acceptance right here and now, without clinging to an idealized version of it.

Moreover, some of our greatest acts of self-love will emerge during times of failure, defeat, or grief.

For example, if we’re feeling insecure or deeply saddened because a romantic partner has left, practicing self-love doesn’t mean suppressing these emotions. It means embracing ourselves unconditionally, holding space for our own hearts as we navigate the rough terrain of pain and loss.

This is when self-love is needed most—not when everything is going well, but when we’re struggling, and at our most vulnerable.

Release the notion that self-love must be perfect. Allow yourself to experience it in its most authentic form—imperfect, messy, and deeply human.

What If Already In A Relationship

Many of us are already in committed or intimate relationships. For some of us, self-love is cultivated routinely, or even becomes second nature. For others, we flounder beneath waves of harsh words and feelings directed towards ourselves.

What do we do then?

We can still practice all of the above – relationships or not. However, rather than embracing alone time as a gift, can we embrace our relationship as an opportunity for growth? This is where we might start.

1. Embrace Partnership For Its Exposure Of Our Shadows

When we are in relationship with another, we will undoubtedly be exposed to all the ways in which we struggle to love ourselves. This is both the blessing and the challenge of intimate relationships – they bring everything undealt with to the surface.

But rather than focusing on feelings of frustration and anger in regards to our challenges, we can consider where we might be urged to evolve.

For instance, if a partner is persistently unkind and hurtful, can we take this as an opportunity to stand up for our own being and leave an abusive situation? Is walking away safely (seeking support if needed) an act of self-love?

Alternatively, where disagreements and challenges are not abusive, we can take a closer look at how we might embrace a new way of being with our partner.

For instance, if jealousy is causing grief or unease within our relationship, we can use our awareness of this to practice loving kindness and self-inquiry. With patience, compassion, and support, we might slowly undo old habits that no longer serve us or our relationships.

2. Balance Togetherness And Space

Being in partnership provides an opportunity for mutual support and shared experience. However, we can practice self-love by creating alone time for ourselves as needed. When we are alone, we gain the chance to check-in with ourselves:

• How are we feeling?
• Are we taking the time to self-care?
• Are we remembering to put energy into our passions, projects, and personal evolution?

Each relationship carries its own dynamic – a dynamic that can also shift from time to time. Balancing togetherness with personal space requires us to authentically and honestly check-in with what we feel the relationship – and we as individuals – need in any given moment.

Both togetherness and space can be acts of self-care; through the intuitive heart, we discover what is required at any moment.

3. Practice Patience – With Self And With Others

Again, self-love is not about perfection. Practicing patience with ourselves and with our partner is a compassionate way of supporting this inner (and often messy) exploration.

Both ourselves and our partner (or future partner) will undoubtedly bring past scars into the present. Through kindness, loving attention, and patient presence, we create space for the old to unravel itself so that our unconditional self-loving hearts can come to light.

Self-love and Happiness

Self-love is the foundation of our happiness, enabling us to live more authentically, find balance, and experience true satisfaction in life.

1. Self-love cultivates self-esteem and self-worth, which are vital for our happiness. When we value ourselves, we are more likely to choose trustworthy people and build relationships that add to our well-being and joy.
2. Self-love fosters resilience, a key factor in sustaining happiness during difficult times. By fostering inner strength and self-compassion, it helps us go through tough times with a positive outlook and emotional stability.
3. Without self-love, our happiness becomes fragile, as we might rely on others for validation and emotional fulfillment. This dependency can lead to dissatisfaction and a constant search for approval, reducing our ability to grasp lasting happiness.

Final Words

By loving ourselves first, we create a solid foundation for giving and receiving love in a healthy, balanced, and fulfilling way.

In the words of psychologist, author, and meditation teacher Tara Brach:

By regarding ourselves with kindness, we begin to dissolve the identity of an isolated, deficient self. This creates the grounds for including others in an unconditionally loving heart.

Love is already here.

As you move through this journey into greater embodiment of self-love, remember that the love you seek is already here. It is unconditional of relationship status, rising from within rather than being granted by someone or something beyond ourselves.

At any moment, we can reconnect with its presence – beginning in or continuing on from this very moment.

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Author Bio: Gillian Florence Sanger is a writer for Mindfulness Exercises. She writes both poetry and non-fiction and teaches yoga and mindfulness. Through her work, she aims to uncover ever-deepening realms of soul and psyche for greater peace, self-awareness, and contentment.

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