Self-Love or Love Others? What a Christian Mum Thinks!

Love. The act of love is the most human thing on earth, and yet it causes such strife for us all in our daily lives. Do we practice the art of self-love or do we put more energy into loving others? As a Christian woman, I am learning what it means to live a life of love, and I am pondering the thought of self-love or love others and wanted to share my musings with you.

The Power of Positive Thinking

In the book ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’ by Norman Vincent Peale there is a chapter about how to get people to like you. If you’ve never read this book, it is a great Christian book with many Biblical points throughout, helping you to live a more fulfilling life with faith at the cornerstone of everything you do.

He gives an example of a 35 year old man who is having problems with relationships; he seems to struggle with people not liking him. As Norman got to talking to this man, he discovered that he acted a little superior to others and seemed rigid, with no flexibility of personality. It seemed that the man was self-centred and egotistical, and seemed to like himself more than others.

The man really wanted help with better relationships with others, so Norman had to help teach him to love other people and to forget himself. It seemed that the man would be irritable with people and picked on them in his own mind. Unconsciously, other people picked up on his attitude towards them, and barriers were created in their minds towards him.

Since he was being unpleasant to people in his thoughts, it followed that he was less than warm in his attitudes to others. How often do we do this to people? I wonder if we were truly honest with ourselves; many of us do this, even just a tiny bit, when around certain people. That particular person who just seems a bit different, or makes us feel awkward, or we just feel anxious for some reason around that person…

He was suffering from self-love, a chief cure for which is the practice of love for others….

The suggested techniques for developing love for others in place of self-love.

– The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale

What an interesting approach to building better relationships with others, focus on loving others rather than self-love. I think there is a lot to be said for this approach, and it could easily be misjudged if we don’t stop to think about what it actually means.

This got me thinking: is there space for both, to have self-love and love others, or does our energy only go into one? If we are honest with ourselves, do we find ourselves putting more energy into one, or can we find a healthy harmony with doing both?

Self-confessed Self-love Advocate

I am a self-confessed self-love woman. After years of being in the health sphere as a personal trainer and wellness coach, I naturally moved into the self-love circle. In my journey of personal development, I found myself focusing a lot of energy on SELF. It was all me, me, me. Blah, blah, blah. What is best for me? How do I grow in this? What can I do to love myself more? How can I be more loving to myself? As I have grown over the years (do I dare say matured?!) and become a Christian, I can see how self-centred I have been, which has definitely impacted my relationships in a negative way.

I am still learning and have a long way to go to rid all the self-centred thinking and focusing more on loving others. It sounds absurd because, of course, we all say we love others; we love our family, children, partner, friends, dogs, but are we showing up in daily life actually loving others unconditionally? Are we showing love for others before our own ego? Are we being, dare I say it, selfish in our ways?

I think for many years I was caught up in the thinking that in order to love others I needed to love myself first. This kind of makes sense; there is logic in this. We do need to love ourselves, we really do. Truly liking who we are as a person is important, so please do like yourself. But a different approach is to just have it as a baseline that we should be taking care of ourselves and loving who we are anyway. It shouldn’t really be one or the other…should it?

Self-Love or Love Others?

If we create a baseline of taking care of our health, peace of mind and living a life that encourages who we are created by God and rooted in Christ, then from there we can pour into loving others. That’s my thoughts, maybe I will re-evaluate this in another ten years to see what works and what doesn’t in living a healthy, wholesome, fulfilling life and creating healthy, loving relationships.

One thing I have come to learn as a woman in my 40’s is that we do have to let go of being so self-centred and putting too much emphasis on ourselves, and put more energy into serving others. Yes, eat good, wholesome food; yes, exercise and move your body regularly; yes, go to bed at a good time and get plenty of sleep; yes, drink water; yes, do hobbies that fulfil your being, and yes, make time for others, help others, serve others, pray for others, care for others.

It’s about finding that sweet balance of looking after ourselves and loving others. Self-love or love others, what does the Bible say? Just as Jesus said…

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” - Mark 12:30-31

Love God, love others, love yourself. It is possible to do all three, we just have to rid the big focus on ourselves and turn that focus into all those around us. Our Heavenly Father, our partner, family, friends, neighbours, and ourselves. Are you willing to choose love for others? Are you willing to rid the old ways that puts self first 99.9% of the times even when we don’t think we’re thinking of our own needs?

Perhaps that means less spa days, retreat weekends, “me-time”, Netflix binges, shopping sprees, a long Saturday run, hitting the gym five times a week and reading a book for a few hours.

Instead, it means reading the Bible, praying to God, going to church and being in fellowship with other Christians, having lunch with church friends, playing with our children, doing exercise at home, going on a bike ride with the family, joining a walking group, studying the Bible with friends, helping a friend, listening to a friend, and having a bit of time to read a book, have a massage, and enjoy a hot bath at the end of a beautifully full, abundant day.

To Conclude

I think the idea of self-love or love others doesn’t have to mean completely ridding our own needs and desires, it just means taking a moment to pause and check in with our motives and how our relationships are doing. It’s ok if we want to isolate ourselves and live as a hermit away from the world; however, for most of us, we do best being around others.

As humans, we thrive with others. This doesn’t mean we need to completely change who we are; it might just mean making a little more space for others to be in our space. Making time to call, text, hug, pray, share, bake, sing, write, cook, play or clean for others.

We all love to feel loved, and we do shine when we show love to others. Let’s make a bit more time to love others whilst still taking care of ourselves. I promise, you can still do a few nice things for yourself and live a healthy, happy life whilst also scattering sunshine in others’ lives and living a life of love for others.

Find peace in Christ. If you need more help, check out my Ultimate Faith Planner to help build habits and be accountable for your walk in faith.