There's a lot of talk these days about self-love. I believe the idea of self-love is misrepresented and maybe {you be the judge} overrated. Here's why...
The less famous sister of self-love is self-connection. The definition of connection is to join, to unite. Self-connection is the union of all elements of yourself: mind, body, and spirit. You ebb and flow re: self-connection. Sometimes you feel very connected intellectually and exercise a fair amount of intimacy with your thoughts and your mind, but maybe you're not connecting to your physical body or you're neglecting spirit altogether. There's a wide spectrum of connectedness that you ride every day, in all aspects of yourself. Mind. Body. Spirit.
Union, connectedness, between things that are not well-known to each other takes some effort. Raindrops running down a window easily join up with each other - water knows water and connects upon meeting more water, drop after drop. Your mind, body, and spirit are not the same as those raindrops. It takes deliberate awareness to join these elements into one. To create self-connection. Ebb, flow. Flow, ebb. Connect and connect and connect again.
So, here's why I pick self-connection over self-love every time: self-love doesn't count without self-connection. You cannot love what you do not know. Plus: connection with anything outside of your mind, body, and spirit doesn't exist without a foundation of self-connection. All of your relationships, exchanges, discussions, discoveries, longings, dreams...they don't come with connection unless you are first connected to yourself. What could connection with others possibly offer you if you're not *in* yourself first?
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for self-love as a result of self-connection. That's the good stuff, right there. But start with self-connection. Don't bypass union on the way to love...