Self-Love From a Male Perspective

Macho Macho Man

In the masculine point of view, this is something that doesn’t cross many of our minds. We tend to think love is something we do for others who show us love, respect, or need us. We love sports, so we show ourselves love by supporting our favorite teams. Some may sleep with many women and it gives them a feeling of self-worth and satisfaction, but it’s not self-love. I would say we love ourselves in the looks department. So maybe we exercise, lift weights or at least cut our hair a certain way and wear clothes that match, so we are more appealing to the eye. We love ourselves with food, so we cook or eat the things that give us pleasure, but do we really love ourselves on a deeper level? How do we overcome adversity without becoming a ticking time bombs?

Self-Love

Self-love isn’t something I thought was a huge deal, until I found this writer on Medium who published stories on this topic and I decided to read her book about it. Her name is Neha Sonney!! I always knew in my faith, I am to love my neighbor as myself, but what does that truly mean? You want to treat others how you want to be treated. It goes deeper than this. Self-love is to take care of your mental, physical, and spiritual well being. Self-love is not accepting being treated less than you deserve, because you value yourself. In the eyes of men this could be seen as our respect, but it’s not necessarily about that part of man which is normal to fight and protect our honor.

Self-love is sometimes cutting toxic people out your life so they don’t have any power over you. You won’t have them using space in your brain. Sometimes it’s not letting a situation affect you or cause you to react, because it’s not worth your energy.

I won’t spill all the gems of her book, but Neha overcomes the bully in her life to become a spiritually connected woman who is serving her life purpose, encouraging self-love in decision making, in life, and in relationships.

Self-Destruct

Men have a self-destruct button. The greatest fear of most men is to fail. Whether it’s with relationships, family, parenting, jobs, money or not being in a worst position that maybe a parent put you in, or raised you in. This is more important to the fatherless or who know their father, but the father doesn’t care. These circumstances cause some to choose the self destruct button quickly.

To love a child is Self-Love. To abandon a child is to show you don’t love yourself. That child is basically a part of you that you allow to grow up without your love, support or presence. In turn, the child goes into the high risk categories of adult life. Suicide, prison, drug addiction, early child bearing, poverty and the list goes on, all because a person didn’t love themselves enough to love their own flesh and blood. The product of this type of selfishness is to basically put a burden into the world that is multiplied over and over again.

Meditation

In Neha’s book, a large part of self-love is taking care of yourself mentally by meditation. This time where you clear your thoughts and take a mental break. Slow down your constant thinking and worry. In my faith, it is like prayer without doing all the talking. In your mind, you release the problem or you give yourself enough peace for the solution to come. There is no time for negativity. I don’t think that all people meditate the same way. Even if you don’t read the book, Neha has several stories that help in these areas. If you believe in a higher power and depending on the culture, people will do different things, but the goal is still self-love by caring for your mental health.

There are things that are spiritual and putting these things into practice that work on ourselves are a great benefit. Self-Love. Valuing myself , to be a better version and trust who I’ve become. To be a person who can bring out the best in my spouse and others. Not letting the past define me. Learning from it to strengthen me. Things like forgiveness or reacting to universal norms that go against the nature of men and our core beliefs. Facing adversity with a mindset to overcome. For example, your intitial reaction to someone cutting you off in a car would be to flip them the bird. Self-Love has taught me to ask myself, what will it cost me to accept this and move on or what would it cost me to escalate this? Choose peace if it’s possible. Choose life.

Facing Adversity

Men face many challenges in life that can send us down the road of depression. What do you do if you face losing a job? What do you do with a wife who is no longer in love with you, and wants to divorce you? What do you do when you get rejected by women, society, by people who don’t accept you? What do you do if you have to go to court knowing you will lose? What if your credit is bad, and money is bad? What if the jobs keep rejecting you? What if you were bullied and feel less than a man in your adulthood? What if you feel you have no reason to exist, and no purpose?

You don’t push the self-destruct button. You start writing your heart out. I say that since your on this site. Love yourself enough to tell your story and your frustation to reinvent yourself to a person who never gets knocked down and stays down. You study how others overcame. You get inspiration from someone like Neha about Self-Love and see how she overcame her bully, and her challenges and even though your story might not be the same, you can get inspired. You become a part of the solution and not a part of the problem.

There’s too many guys going off the deep end and sometimes you need to see life through different lenses. If you can let go of your ego, you can find golden lessons.

If your just living and you don’t think about these things, it’s like driving down a road with a bunch of potholes, hitting each one until the tires are all busted and learning the lesson each time after the damage is done. Self-Love for men can be like paving the road ahead, so when you reach would have normally have been a tough road, it’s smooth sailing.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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