You might have heard of self-love, and you might have heard of secure attachment.
But you might not have heard of these terms used together. The connection between the two is important.
First, Self-Love
You might know that a lot of people are talking about self-love recently. I have written more about self-love and why it is different from selfishness and some other things it is commonly associated with. You can read more about this here:
The Difference Between Self-Love and Selfishness
Why Self-Love is Different from Shopping Trips and Manicures
While people can indeed love themselves in a selfish way, authentic self-love is not selfish at all. In fact, authentic self-love makes everyone’s lives better. That is because authentic self-love is showing kindness, compassion, and respect to yourself and to others so everyone can flourish together.
Authentic-self-love flows from the belief that everyone has intrinsic worth and so deserves to be treated as valuable in themselves. Loving ourselves authentically can increase our confidence, joy, and resilience.
Second, Secure Attachment
You also might know that lately a lot of people are talking about attachment theory, which comes from the field of psychology. The theory suggests that when parents respond with caring, empathy, and attention to their children’s needs, those children form a secure base that increases their self-esteem, confidence, and optimism. On the other hand, children that are not securely attached can struggle with these issues in life.
You can read more about this here:
The Different Types of Attachment Styles
Attachment Theory
Our attachment style, secure or otherwise, can affect how we relate to others in relationships as we get older, for better or for worse. In addition, as we age, our attachment style can suffer setbacks because of various situations we encounter such as cruelty or mistreatment from others. You can read more about this here:
Can Attachment Style Change?
The good news is that people can develop or improve their secure attachment. The more they do this, the better they relate to themselves and others.
One of the ways we develop secure attachment is by practicing authentic self-love. That makes sense when we consider that we are our own primary caretaker as we grow older. Every stage of life is new for us, so there is always a little child in us that needs care. So, the way we interact with ourselves affects how secure we feel in the world. And this affects how confident, joyful, and resilient we feel.
In other words, practicing authentic self-love helps us develop, or further develop, a secure base with ourselves and the world around us. That is why authentic self-love is so important.
Do you want to learn more about how to practice authentic self-love? You can read more here:
The Ethics of Compassion
Adopting a Loving View of Ourselves
By the way, one of the reasons I wrote this post is that I will soon be publishing my first online course on authentic self-love. It is titled “Worthy: Cultivating Confidence, Joy, and Resilience Through Authentic Self-Love.” More details on this will be coming in the next few weeks.
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Did you know you can now work with me? I do philosophical consulting. And one of the ways I consult people is to help them learn how to recognize their intrinsic worth and love themselves. You can read more about this here: Work With Me
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You might like this post:
What is Self-Connection?
You might also like this book by meditation teacher Eknath Easwaran:
Original Goodness: A Commentary on the Beatitudes
And you might also like this book by episcopal priest Matthew Fox (not the guy from Lost):
Original Blessing