At first glance, self-love seems selfish and self-indulgent with an air of inflated self-importance, but the opposite is quite true. Because you can only love others to the degree that you first love yourself, you can only allow others to love and accept you to the degree that you’ve done that for yourself. The more you learn to forgive yourself when you mess up, the easier it will be to forgive others when they do the same thing.

Learning to love yourself is one of the most beautiful love stories of all time. So, I wanted to share 5 self love quotes — Disney Style, of course — to ignite that spark within you again.

But the thing is, you are the one who lives with yourself. You live with the memories and the shame of your past. Your flaws, shortcomings, and failures are your daily reminder that you must not be good enough. You learned to be the hardest on yourself. You live with the loop of self-criticism in your head. And without even realizing it, you miss out on a beautiful life of love, happiness, and enjoyment because you’re too busy beating yourself up for being human.

One of the most powerful ways to stop the inner loop in your head is to take your self-judging thoughts captive and replace them with self-accepting, self-forgiving, and self-empowering thoughts. Here and some self-love quotes by some of your favorite Disney characters (along with coordinating any Lillian & Co. products so you can wear the inspiration!).  

5 Inspiring Self-Love Disney Quotes

“Practically Perfect in Every Way.” Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins spells confidence, a foundational quality for self-love. Her self-assuredness doesn’t wait for you to confirm her belief in herself. It’s almost as if she doesn’t care what you believe about her. She knows what she knows, and that’s the end of the discussion. Your opinion of her has no bearing on who she is whatsoever. Oh, that you may grow in this same confidence. May you see that your imperfections aren’t imperfections. May you know that you’re practically perfect in every way. 

“To laugh at yourself is to love yourself.” Mickey Mouse

Not to get all dark and morbid, but the truth is we’re all going to die one day. All of us. Charles Franklin said, “No one gets out of this life alive.” Since we’ve only got this one life to live and no one has it figured out yet, it’s best not to take life or yourself too seriously. To do it, you have to accept your human limitations and the unknown and believe that you’re going to be ok no matter what. We’re all going to be ok.

Maybe you’re embarrassed that you fell up the stairs in front of all your co-workers. But hey! Look at it this way. You gave your office the gift of laughter and a surge of serotonin. You made everyone’s day just a little more exciting, and they have you to thank for it. The good news is you can laugh along with them because they’ll forget all about it before next Tuesday. 

“Don’t I Deserve the Best?” Gaston, Beauty and the Beast

Ok, Gaston was self-absorbed and selfish, but under all this bloated self-importance, he inspires us by believing that he is worthy of good things. You, too, are worthy of good things. Believe you deserve the best, mix it with humility and kindness (don’t force someone to marry you), and I think you’ve got a recipe for a healthy dose of self-love.

“Keep Moving Forward.” Walt Disney

The full quote says, “Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” So many times, we fail to pick ourselves up and move forward after we fall or fail because we get locked into the shame of what we did. We ruminate over the experience and waller in our misery, beating ourselves up forever. Walt Disney didn’t build his empire by harboring past mistakes. He let them go and moved on before they hit the ground. May you, too, learn to disregard past mistakes, like a dirty pair of socks.

“Give the guy a chance. We’ve all made mistakes.” Walt Disney

I know this doesn’t sound much like a self-love quote on the surface, but if you take a moment, you can see how this comment is deeply rooted in self-love.

Let me give you context why Walt said this. One of his employees got into a bit of personal trouble outside of work, and his co-workers started mumbling complaints that he wasn’t reprimanded at work for it. Walt shut them down with this fundamental truth. We all make mistakes. But it’s not enough to say we all make mistakes. We must give ourselves room for another chance. Walt faced his own mistakes, and instead of beating himself up, he gave himself the grace to try to get it right again. Because he had done it for himself, he was willing to do it to others. You’re going to make mistakes. That’s a given. Make sure you give yourself permission for another chance.

Remember, learning to love yourself again (like when you were a child) is a lifelong journey. Learning to block out the voices who’ve told you you aren’t worth loving is the hardest work you’ll do. But don’t give up. Keep showing up for yourself because, like a man named Wallace Wattles said, “The greatest gift you can give the world is making the most of yourself.”

May these self-love quotes inspire you to continue to practice loving yourself because it’s the greatest gift you can give the world.

_______

Read more inspiring words from Disney Villians.