Self-Love Should Be Taught at School

By Annalisa Corti

We teach geometry. We teach history. We teach how to drive a car and how to find the square root of a number. Yet, in 2025, we still don’t teach the one skill that determines the quality of our relationships, careers, parenting, and even health: Self-love. Real self-love. Not indulgence. Not ego. Not spiritual bypassing. Deep, embodied, often unglamorous practice; treating yourself as someone worth protecting, nurturing, and honoring, even when the world doesn’t. When this isn’t taught, adults grow up re-living inherited models of love: believing it’s something they must earn or prove.

The Roots of Relational Dysfunction

A client once said to me, after a long silence:
“I give everything to others… and somehow I still feel invisible.”

That sentence broke something open in me—because I had lived it too.

I had over-given in relationships, over-delivered in business, and overridden my needs again and again, thinking that love was a reward for self-abandonment.

Here’s the paradox:
The more disconnected you are from your own worth, the more you seek love through behavior that makes you invisible.

People-pleasing is not love. It is a trauma response.
And it creates relationships full of resentment, confusion, and codependence.

Self-Love Is a Behavior, Not a Feeling

We often speak of self-love as a vibe: a glow, a confidence, a state of peace.

But real self-love is measured in behavior:

• Do you rest when your body asks for it?
• Do you speak your truth, even if your voice shakes?
• Do you choose nourishment over numbing?

If not, that’s okay. Just notice it. Create space for it. Become aware.
Self-love can be learned through real, concrete, new habits.

This is why I use behavioral mapping.

When you observe how you act under pressure; how you say “yes” when you mean “no,” or apologize for having needs—you begin to see the root of your patterns.
And you can change them, one micro-action at a time.

Science and the Self-Love Deficit

Dr. Gabor Maté writes that emotional suppression in early life leads to a lifelong pattern of abandoning our own needs. This doesn’t just affect relationships, it impacts immune function and chronic disease.

Self-love, then, is not a luxury. It is biological self-protection.

Studies in psychoneuroendocrinology confirm: people who act in self-honoring ways, setting boundaries, processing emotions, nourishing themselves; show:

• Improved cortisol rhythms
• Stronger immunity
• Greater nervous system flexibility

In other words: self-love isn’t about feeling good, it’s about creating the conditions to thrive.

The New Love Equation: Internal First, Then External

We think we need to be loved to feel lovable.
But the truth is: the moment you begin loving yourself through behavior, your external relationships shift.

Why?
Because:

• You no longer accept crumbs.
• You no longer abandon yourself to avoid conflict.
• You no longer need others to reflect your worth, you embody it.

And the paradox is: that’s when love flows in.

The more deeply I committed to behavioral self-love—pausing, honoring my truth, resting, asking for help: the more my external world aligned with grace.

Clients, relationships, opportunities; they all responded to my energetic standard.

It wasn’t magic.
It was integrity.

You Are Godly, Stop Negotiating That

Here’s what I wish someone had told me in school:

“You are already holy. Your body is holy. Your voice is holy.
You don’t need to deserve love. You are love expressing itself through a nervous system.”

When you forget this, you shrink.
When you remember it, you radiate.

This is not philosophy. This is practice.
It’s every small moment where you say:

• “I matter.”
• “I deserve space.”
• “I will act in alignment with my truth, not to perform for yours.”

This is the new curriculum.

Invitation: Love Is a Daily Choice

If you’ve ever felt invisible, like your needs are too much or your voice doesn’t matter, I’ve been there.

But there is a way forward.

Not through theory.
Through action.

Behavioral mapping will help you see where you trade authenticity for approval, and show you how to shift, gently but powerfully.

You don’t need to earn love.
You just need to remember it.

Download the free guide
Map Your Mind, Master Your Life
Learn how to track your emotional and relational patterns, and begin reclaiming the love that was always yours.