What We’re Missing When We Don’t Prioritize Self-Love

July 11, 2015 / Humble the Poet

We know it sounds cliché – but Lilly Singh’s teamed up with Humble the Poet, and she’s keeping it real about why you need to love yourself. Check out her helpful insight and take some steps to an empowering place of self-love.

With Love,
The Editors at Everyday Feminism

Click for the Transcript

Humble the Poet: I got ten years to fill a stadium, but only two minutes to fill your cranium. Humble the Poet, signing in.

Lilly Singh: One of the most important things I’ve learned in my life is the importance of loving yourself. When I do motivational speeches, or even tell myself “Love yourself” (and you should love yourself), I’m aware it comes across very cliché. I tell myself, “Okay, I sound like a Tumblr quote.” But really, if you actually think about it, a lot of us don’t love ourselves.

It’s the most important thing we should do on a daily basis because nobody knows our needs as well as we do. No one knows our thoughts, our honest, genuine thoughts and fears as well as we do. So it’s really odd that we rely on other people and things.

Yes, it’s nice to rely on your parents, rely on a boyfriend, rely on a girlfriend, a sister, and friend. But the way I see it is that people and things are down here, but people are just cherries on top of a wonderful cake that is life. They should be bonuses. They shouldn’t be things we fall upon expecting them to bring us back up. We should always count on ourselves.

People who are always like, “I need to be in a relationship – I can’t be alone” and they feel uncomfortable being alone, it’s probably because they don’t love themselves. And they don’t know how to be comfortable being alone and being with themselves. You can’t be part of a two if you’re not a complete one.

I think it’s so important to be comfortable with yourself, know your strengths, weaknesses, talk to yourself, and be friends with yourself. I literally talk to myself. I’m super, super lame.

I love all people in my life, don’t get me wrong. But I just feel like if you don’t love yourself, none of your other relationships can work because a relationship you have with yourself is most important. It’s a huge reflection on how other people treat you.

If people treat themselves poorly, that’s an indication to other people like, “Oh, she treats herself poorly. Now I can also treat her poorly.” How we treat ourselves is a projection to other people. I love myself, and I know how I should be treated. I should be treated well. Therefore, I will not accept not being treated well by everyone else.

When people think about loving themselves, it gets confused with being selfish. They’re two very different things. You have to be selfish to a certain degree in your life. Often, the word selfish is taken to be something bad. No, there’s a balance between being selfish and hurtful to others, and loving yourself.

You putting yourself first in certain situations and thinking, “Okay, I’m in this situation. It’s not making me happy. It’s not good for my person.” That’s not selfish. That is loving yourself, and more people need to love themselves because there’s a difference.

Humble the Poet: Thank you so much for watching. As always, please comment, rate, and subscribe. The Davis Drops will ask you really, really nice to reply to the comments. I reply to the comments.

Lilly Singh: I do reply. I would love nothing more.

Humble the Poet: Just today I replied to the comments that people make. This one, and everything else, is inspired by the idea of unlearn, which is the title of my book. Unlearn. You can get a copy at unlearn101.com, or Amazon, Barnes and Noble, anywhere online that sells books. You can get an ebook, audiobook, hard cover, everything.

We really appreciate the time you took to watch this today. Please share this with somebody you really care about. Thanks for watching.

Editor’s Note: This cross-posted video uses the term “lame” to express dissatisfaction. While we strongly appreciate the sentiments of self-love and compassion in this video, we also recognize that “lame” is an ableist term that has hurt many people. We don’t support the use of such language, apologize in advance for any harm caused, and look forward to the eradication of such language from our collective conscious.

Also, while Lilly expresses how important it is for us to love ourselves and treat ourselves well, some of her words may be interpreted as implying that others treating you poorly is a direct result of not loving yourself enough – which isn’t true. You only have control over how you treat you – and we like this video because it expresses that you should treat yourself well.

To learn more about this topic, check out:

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Lilly Singh aka Superwoman is a Toronto based entertainer who has acclaimed worldwide fame through her YouTube videos. She is a sassy South Asian woman that makes you laugh, makes you think and most importantly, makes you feel good. Complete with her backwards snapback, graphic t-shirts, and witty punch lines, Lilly does everything from creating videos to stand-up comedy, motivational speaking, rapping, event hosting and acting. Check her out on Twitter @IISuperwomanII.

Kanwer Singh aka Humble The Poet is an elementary school teacher & Toronto bred MC/Spoken Word Artist with an aura that embodies the diversity and resiliency of one of the World’s most unique cities. Humble is introducing a critical viewpoint to Hip Hop’s Landscape, and having a lot of fun in the process. Check out his YouTube channel and follow him on Twitter @humblethepoet.