100 Women Around the World Told Us How They Practise Self-Love - What They Said May Surprise You!

As a domestic violence charity, we’re always chatting with women who have survived or are still experiencing domestic violence. We realised that most of our conversations revolved around marriage, relationships, and romantic love. This year for Valentine’s Day we wanted to focus on celebrating self-love!

When we asked women around the world to tell us how they practise self-love one week before Valentine’s Day, the response was overwhelming. Responses rolled in from UK, Singapore, Germany, Brazil, Pakistan, Netherlands, Syria, Sweden, Portugal, Scotland, South Africa, USA, Latvia, Canada, Lebanon, Ireland, India, Kuwait, and Romania!

Women who had experienced abuse by an intimate partner expressed the most positive of outlooks. These women, who had gone through so much while in a marriage or relationship, truly knew what it meant to love themselves, care for themselves, and put themselves first. For women who have left the abusive home, self-love is how they have learned to heal. For women who are still experiencing abuse, self-love is how they cope. For many women, self-love was a practise they had yet to learn?—?they were not at that stage yet.

The responses we received were mined for keywords and phrases, crunched for data, and interesting results were revealed. For instance, only 1% of the women who responded said that feeling beautiful was important in shaping their self-worth, demonstrating that, for most women in our sample, true confidence and self-worth comes from within. Significant themes such as accepting yourself as you are showed that women who have gone through a painful experience value the truest versions of themselves?—?the versions that helped them survive.

Self-love is the stepping stone to living an autonomous life, it is the single most important way that women can empower themselves. However, it is not an easy act. As women we constantly put ourselves down, never feel like we’re quite enough, chastise our simplest efforts with a kind of viciousness usually reserved for our enemies. Women who have experienced abuse have told us it can sometimes feel impossible to love themselves having heard from their former abusers, on a daily basis, how unlovable and unworthy of love they were.

Chayn firmly believes in embracing the global sisterhood of women, and the fact that our responses came from all corners of the world cements the notion that women everywhere can learn to love themselves, and are already finding ways to do it.

Our hope is that this Valentine’s Day, women will take a moment to reflect and acknowledge their strength. Valentine’s Day, after all, isn’t just for couples. You can celebrate it with your new favourite person: you!

Don’t forget to share the video and spread #ChaynLove!

Let us know how you practise self-love! Tell us here.

This blog was originally published on Medium