The Worthiness of Self-Pride
There’s a lot of fresh energy surging around us these days. Spring brings warmer temps and more sunlight, and currently in the U.S., COVID numbers are thankfully low. In so many ways right now we are peaking our heads out after a long and difficult winter, ready to shed the baggage and enter this part of the year with abundant motivation and renewed intention.
Or at least, that’s how I’ve been feeling. This week I’ve been playing with a renewed-to-me concept of taking pride in myself. This, to me, feels different from self-care, though they can certainly be grouped together as under a single conceptual umbrella. Self-care evokes thoughts of bubble baths, a full night’s sleep, meditation, and positive affirmations - things we do for ourselves in privacy. Self-pride, on the other hand, are those outward acts we perform to declare our worthiness to the world.
And taking pride in yourself is good for everyone! While some people still believe that pride is an anti-social emotion, causing the person to ‘look down’ on others, this study found that the opposite is actually true. Experiencing pride was consistently found to solely make us feel better about ourselves, and did not cause us to feel separate from others or to devalue others in any way. Personally, I would go so far as to say that experiencing pride in ourselves is what enables us to cheer on our peers without jealousy or comparison. When we’re confident in our own worthiness, we are not threatened when others are shown to be worthy.
So do your hair, buy yourself flowers, and sweep your front steps. As you declare your worthiness to others, you equally (or more so) declare your worthiness to yourself. Your fresh face, made-up bed, and clean countertops not only encourage pride as you maintain them, but serve as reminders of how lovely you are with each passing impression.
If you’re looking for inspiration on where to start, try a few of these activities:
Redecorate, repaint, or rearrange parts of your home
Clean countertops, do the dishes, dust, vacuum, etc.
Dress yourself up
Paint your nails
Buy yourself flowers
Fertilize the lawn
Get a new wreath for your front door
Fix those little things around the house
Work out
Share your work
Make your bed in the morning
Tidy up before bed
Compliment yourself
Celebrate your wins, big and small
Treat yo self
