Health Ed Lesson: Love Yourself & Others
Teens can fall into the rut of comparing and being self critical. This is a health lesson outline to help them learn love for themselves and others.
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Introducing the Topic: Love for Yourself & Others
To start my lesson, I like to bring up the main topic with my students. This way, they understand what I’m hoping for them to take away from our time together.
I might say something like, “All of us have some level of love for ourselves and others. We show love with words and actions. We can work on improving our feelings of love we have by being aware of our thoughts and actions. Today we are going to learn about strategies that we can use to feel more love for ourselves and others.”
I have a few quotes that I then use to generate discussion with the class. I’ll write them on the board or pull up a slide, so they can read them as we talk. To get their mind going on the topic, I ask them what these quotes about self love mean.
Quotes for discussion:
- How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you. – Rupi Kaur
- Where there is self love there is endless happiness. – PN
- Self love is not selfish; you cannot truly love another until you know how to love yourself.
- Your greatest responsibility is to love yourself and know you are enough.
Love List Activity
Following the class discussion on love quotes, I like to do an activity.
For the activity, each person needs to have a piece of paper to write on. You will tell them they have 1 minute to write a list of what they love. Give them 1 minute to write. When they are done, ask a few of them to share a few of the things they wrote.
After a few have shared, ask if anyone wrote on their list “myself”.
Statement: “We have so many things that we love in life. It is important to remember or include that we love ourselves. We actually get to decide to love ourselves, and we can work on increasing our love for ourselves by what we do, say, and think.”
While this is a brief activity, I think it is powerful in helping the students to recognize the value of loving yourself and loving others.
Self Love Activity
Now that they are thinking about self love, I have them write in their notes 5 ways they show love to themselves.
Here are a few suggestions to help get them thinking.
- Exercise to show I love and appreciate my body.
- Do activities that I enjoy daily.
- Hang around friends who are uplifting.
- Let some of them share what they wrote.
Once they’ve completed that, I have them write down 1-2 ways they feel like they could do better at showing love to themselves after hearing some ideas from the activity before.
Challenge them to work on these 2 things!
Statement: “This week, I want you to work on at least one of the 2 ways you wrote down to better love yourself. I think you’ll be surprised how even small efforts to be kind to yourself can go a long way to improve your mood.”
Love Languages
Then, we move on to love languages.
Statement: “Because we are all different, we give and receive love in different ways. For some of us giving gifts is a natural and easy way to show love, whereas, some of us don’t like giving gifts. We’re going to look at the 5 love languages that have been identified in individuals. Most people have a main love language that is the way they feel love from others or the way they show love to others. Let’s take a quiz (or look at the chart) to see what your love language is.”
To find out what their love language is they can go to this website to take a small quiz. Or show them the 5 love languages poster so they can see what their love language is.
Have them write responses to these questions:
- What do you think is your main love language?
- What are the ways you like to receive love?
- What love language do you use to show love to others?
Statement: “By knowing our love language we can improve our relationships by letting others know what makes us feel loved and know how to show love to others. We can work on improving our relationships when we have love for ourselves and care about others. Relationships help our lives feel meaningful and enjoyable. Hopefully you feel more aware of your love language, the ways you feel love yourself, and the ways to show others love.”
Optional Activity
Depending on the length of your class period and how quickly you work through the lesson, you may have time to do this activity. Essentially, each person takes time to write a “Love” note to someone that they love/appreciate. They could even write a letter to themselves.
Notes for LOVE LessonWhat do you love? (Writing activity) 5 ways I show love to myself. 1.2.3.4.5.
What could I do better about showing love to myself?1.2.
Love languagesWrite: What do you think is your main love language?
What are the ways you like to receive love?1.2.3.What love language do you use to show love to others?1.2.3.
Love Yourself & Others Worksheet Printable
