Synopsis: Self-love dynamics and importance; the five functions via healthy self-love; living with and without functioning healthy self-love; a healthy self-love self exam.
Dynamics and Importance
Healthy, real love serves us and drives us by way of love’s five major functions. This is true of all types of love including healthy self-love.Knowing the five major functions of healthy, real love and how to apply them in healthy self-love development can greatly assist a person in growing their healthy self-love. That can amazingly and significantly assists people in succeeding at all other types of love relationships.
How well couple’s love, family love, friendship love and a great many other kinds of love flourish or perish often depends on sufficient healthy self-love. The greater one’s healthy self-love the less one tends to operate from fear, insecurity, jealousy, anger, deception and a host of other positions that tend to destroy love relationships. Greater healthy self-love also results in the development of greater self-confidence, self-reliance, self-esteem, self-understanding, self-directed living, self-trust, self-assurance and self-sufficiency. All those strongly tend to lead to greater success in all areas of life. Therefore, I vigorously recommend developing a really good understanding of the major functions of love and what they accomplish when applied to healthy, self-love growth and improvement.
Self-Love and the Five Major Functions of Healthy Real Love
1. ConnectionIt is by love that we are best connected to one another.
It is by ‘healthy self-love’ that we are best connected with our self.
2. Nurturing
It is by love that we best nurture the growth and well-being of each other.
It is by ‘healthy self-love’ that we best nurture the growth and well-being of our self.
3. Protection
It is by love that we protect and safeguard our loved ones.
It is by ‘healthy self-love’ that we protect and safeguard our self.
4. Healing
It is by love that we strive to heal our loved ones when they become afflicted.
It is by ‘healthy self-love’ that we best strive to heal our self.
5. Reward
It is by love that we best take joy in one another and reward one another.
It is by ‘healthy self-love’ that we best take joy in and reward our self.
So, in these ways let us adhere to the ancient admonition – love others as you love yourself.
Rewards, Survival and Well-Being
Joy (part of the fifth function listed above) rewards and reinforces the actions that stem from the previous four functions.Each of the functions of love works for our survival, well-being and improvement. Therefore, our healthy self-love works for our individual survival, well-being and improvement. This in turn works to keep us going and, therefore, can greatly aid us in acting on behalf of the survival, well-being and improvement of those we love.
Loveless Malfunction
Without love and the functions it provides we malfunction. When we malfunction we deprive both our self and those we love of the benefits that flow from our love. Think about each of the five functions not occurring. When we are not well-connected with our self we tend to live in inner disharmony and often work against our self. When we do not nurture our self we grow overly dependent on others and may psychosocially starve. When we are not sufficiently self-protective we live increasingly in danger of being harmed.When we do not sufficiently act to heal our self when afflicted psychologically and physically we promote our own dysfunction and demise. When we do not sufficiently take in, digest and revel in the rewarding joys of love we do not reinforce the actions that stem from the first four functions of love and, thus, they go unrewarded. Unrewarded behavior tends to diminish and disappear. From the diminishment and cessation of love actions everyone may then suffer.
Greater Self-Love : Better Everything
The better one’s healthy self-love the better the five functions of love tend to operate keeping the self strong, healthy and, therefore, more able to love others. The better one’s healthy self-love the better one can operate when other sources of love are not available. The better one’s healthy self-love the more one is likely to attract strong, healthy love from strong, healthy others. It is true that dependent, needy, weak people also may be attracted hoping that your love and strength will aid (save, rescue, fix and/or ‘adopt’) them. So, out of love for others one may be healthfully assistive to the weak and needy but only if out of healthy self-love one avoids becoming depleted or enmeshed in a weakness-enabling dynamic.Self-evaluation
Now, you might want to evaluate yourself. Here are some questions to help. Are you becoming appreciatively more knowledgeable of yourself and your many miraculous workings and, therefore, more healthfully inner-connected? Are you good at nurturing yourself and, therefore, helping your further growth and development? Are you sufficiently self-protective and safeguarding of your well-being?When you are sick, or wounded or in any other way afflicted physically or emotionally do you act sufficiently for your own self-healing? Are you joyous about yourself and the bundle of miracles that you are and, therefore, are self-rewarding enough? Are you helping those you love and care about grow to where they can answer the above questions in the affirmative for themselves?
As always – Go and Grow with Love
Dr. J. Richard Cookerly
When you were growing up how much were you perhaps taught to regard self-love as a bad thing to be avoided and if you were so taught does that teaching make you a weaker person today? For help with this see the entry “Loving Others “as” You Love Yourself ???”.
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