By – Linda Ibeh
Shout out to all trend followers!
Let’s talk about luuuuurv shall we? Healthy love
One always has to love one’s self first before they can properly love another. For some people, loving themselves entails being responsible emotionally, mentally and physically, for others it is pilling themselves with accolades and pep talks, buying themselves shoes, bags, clothes or latest gadgets.
It is only after loving yourself that you can successfully love another: what you project, what you show emotionally, how you react, is subject to how much or how well you love yourself. Self-love is warm, compassionate, and content and helps you maintain self-esteem. It is an emotional practice that leads to the ability to love others ultimately.
I ran into an old friend online and we got talking. I asked how she was, how work is, what she was up to, is she married, how’s life!
By the end of the conversation, I was sadder than a child denied cake on his birthday. It was a shallow conversation through and through. In fact I felt dumber. Like I had to talk to an intelligent person to fix it…I did! I talked to Google and that’s how the topic came.
Her responses were all narrow minded and somewhat like this; She was super excellent, just got herself an iphone 7 and Samsung s7, she has two rides, hardly drives herself, she can’t stress herself mbok. She’s finished school, served in Abuja, her life wasn’t structured for suffer. Marry keh, why would she want to put herself in bondage so early, her boo was still under assessment sef to see if he can be considered for marriage. She doesn’t do married men but she has a couple of them she occasionally asks for stuff when she needs it. She’s due for a vacation, do I know any enchanting place she can holiday at? Work keh? Puleez!she doesn’t need it. Her boo wouldn’t let her. Can they pay her what she spends on her hair per month? Please o, she has to love herself before any other thing so in a, life is excellent for her, her bank account is over healthy, her skin is glowing, her man loves her, God loves her. Everything is just perfect.
I then proceeded to scroll through her instagram posts again, all posts I viewed had the hashtags self-love, vacation, vacation, self-love, car, private beach, vacation, vacation, hidden boo birthday. I laughed. Typical! She won’t show us the face of this ‘boo’. I decided to end the conversation. I had heard enough. And since that day we haven’t spoken because of course I haven’t said ‘hi’. One key thing to note: not once did she reciprocate by asking ‘Linda how far?’ or ‘how are you?
This right here, is how a narcissist describes or expresses self-love. Narcissists are so enamored of themselves, it inhibits them from having the ability to love others. In fact the only kind of people they regard are those who fuss over them and compliment them on every item on their body. The narcissists’ self-love is shallow and superficial. It strives under praise and admiration which is why they spend all their time and energy on perfecting their appearance, purchasing latest items and prowling the public arena to look worthy of praise.
A narcissistic person relates more to fantasy than reality. They are not grounded in reality. They live a world of daydream, pretense and delusions and are oblivious to their imperfections. They have an inflated sense of worth and importance.
They also don’t know how to empathize with others. They cannot imagine themselves in your situation, they can’t read emotions, and they can’t express genuine emotions either. They can’t put themselves in your shoes which is why they find it easy to cut people off because there is no real bond created, no feelings. They are usually a “one man squad”. The ‘”friends” around them? For show and adulation!
People with self-love have self-esteem and feel self-worth which comes on their own unlike the narcissist whose confidence/ self-worth comes from other people’s adulation. Hence, their self-esteem is fragile which causes their feelings to be hurt easily. They are quick to retreat when they aren’t treated “special” as they think they deserve. They are prone to flying into rages at something so little.
Healthy self-love is the first step toward developing the ability to love others. It goes hand in hand. Self does not mean literally kill yourself with ‘love.’
Know any narcissist who wouldn’t love to read this? Tag’em
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