What is self-love?

Do you know why you need to love yourself a little bit more?

In this blog post, I’ll be sharing some tips and videos to help with self-love.

What is self-love?

Is self-love something you can obtain through a beauty makeover or a new set of clothes? Can you get more of it by reading something inspirational? Or, can a new relationship make you love yourself more? The answer to all of these questions is no. Although they feel good and are gratifying, you can’t grow in self-love through these types of activities.

Self-love is not simply a state of feeling good. It is a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological, and spiritual growth. Self-love is dynamic; it grows through actions that mature us. When we act in ways that expand self-love in ourselves, we begin to accept much better our weaknesses as well as our strengths, have less need to explain away our shortcomings, have compassion for ourselves as human beings struggling to find personal meaning, are more centered in our life purpose and values, and expect living fulfillment through our own efforts.

We now live in a world where we are looking for love and validation outside of ourselves, instead of looking for those things within us and sharing it with yourself, your life partner, husband,fiance etc. Better yet, you can share this love with your children, parents, friends, etc.

I can say I was one of those people, who was looking for love in others, specifically from men. I would go from one relationship to another right away instead of learning me.

Learning what I truly enjoy, what are my triggers, what are my habits, how can I change them? How can I become a better person? For my future self.

I was looking for love in others instead of loving me, loving my flaws and what I truly enjoy.

Now, How do we cultivate self-love?

1. Accept yourself

First and foremost you need to accept yourself. Accept who you are, what you love, what you enjoy, accept all of your flaws, all of your mistakes, all of your fears.

Self-love means accepting yourself as you are in this very moment for everything that you are. It means accepting your emotions for what they are and putting your physical, emotional and mental well-being first.

2. Stop Self-criticism

Self-criticism is the act of thinking negatively about yourself.  The world is full of harsh words and critique — don’t add yours to the mix. Speak kindly to yourself, and don’t call yourself mean things. Celebrate yourself. You’ve come so far and grown so much. Don’t forget to celebrate yourself, and not only on your birthday but everyday!

3. Becoming Mindful

People who have more self-love tend to know what they think, feel, and want. They are mindful of who they are and act on this knowledge, rather than on what others want for them.

4. Forgive yourself

When we hold onto anger towards others, it actually ends up hurting us the most. A lot of us continue to hold anger and resentment towards others, it could be anyone from a partner, an ex, your mother and father. You’ll go on for years with this anger and resentment and never speak on it or let it go that at the end of the day, the only person who is suffering is you, your inner self. “Dr. Wayne Dyer once said that the snake bite won’t kill you, it’s the venom after the bite that will kill you. It’s what we hold on to that becomes destructive to our thoughts and our health.”

5. Be Self-Compassionate

Self-Compasion is when we are kind and caring towards ourselves. Rather than judging and criticizing ourselves, we could show ourselves the compassion we might show someone else. Perhaps we do this by giving ourselves a break when we’re working too hard. Or maybe, we do so by writing ourselves a kind letter, saying the things we wish someone else would say to us. Whatever our method, practicing self-compassion is a great way to grow self-love.

6. Try Self-love meditations

Guided meditations can help shift our thoughts in ways that help us focus on new things. By trying a self love meditation, we are guided to think about the ways we are good, valuable, worthwhile people with a lot to offer. Here’s a guided self-love meditation to try: which is my favorite by Louise Hay.

7. Practice Gratitude

Although gratitude for others and for the things in our lives is a great practice for boosting well-being, we can also practice gratitude for ourselves. For example, we might tell ourselves “thanks” for the good work we are doing or for eating healthy meals yesterday. Or, we might give ourselves heartfelt gratitude for “staying strong and not giving into to our coworkers’ unreasonable demands”, or for “allowing ourselves to take a nap when we were exhausted.” By learning how to communicate with ourselves in grateful ways we can extend the benefits of gratitude in ways that may help us boost self-love.

8. Be loving towards others

Love is a skill. It takes practice to both give and receive love. If we didn’t receive enough love or witness love being given when we were young, we may not have adequately learned how to give and receive love. It’s okay though because it’s a skill and it takes practice for us all. If we practice being loving towards others and ourselves, we’ll grow this skill and it’ll get easier over time.

I hope these tips can help you or if you know someone that could benefit from them please share. Below are some self-love affirmations.