Self love practices to help you feel true love from inside.
With practicing self love you won’t be craving love from anywhere outside of you because you will receive it from your own damn self!
Self love is not just about treating yourself for a hair spa or nails day, it’s really deeper than that.
These once in a while activities might make you feel good for some time but if you’re not truly loving yourself aside from all these material things, it will never be enough, never!
Naturally, we give so much of our energy and attention in our close relationships, that we ignore our own physical, mental and emotional health.
It’s easier for us to walk miles for the other person, but when it comes to yourself; you might give up sooner or just ignore yourself for that matter.
So, let’s understand more about self love today!
Today we will discuss:
What is self love?
True self love is when you truly value and respect yourself and love yourself with all your quirks, strengths and weaknesses.
We are our own worst critics and we might devalue ourselves more than anyone else in our lives.
Tell me, if you fail at one little task, who is the first person who thinks that you’re not capable?
Don’t you criticize yourself right away without giving yourself any grace?
Self love is about truly understanding yourself, respecting yourself, talking to yourself kindly as you would talk to other people.
Self love is also about having clear boundaries not only at work place or your social circle but also in your close knitted relationships.
In self love, you prioritise your needs and be emotionally available for yourself.
You understand and honour your emotions, you’re there for yourself, you speak up for your choices and opinions, whether others’ do or not.
Self love isn’t something that will bloom in you overnight, you have to water it everyday to experience the beauty of this delicate flower inside of you.
Let’s understand why loving yourself is even important when others can give us the love we want!
Why is self love important?
When you might have a loving partner or family and friends who care for you, you do feel fulfilled but there will come a time in life, when no one might be able to help you, care for you or even love you.
Because we humans love people on our terms depending on what we like/dislike in the other person.
There might be a few things in every person that their family, friends or even our partner might dislike.
And you know what we humans do, if we’re angry at the other person, the very first thing we will do is demean that person.
We will tell that person everything bad they’ve done, all their weaknesses because when our ego mind sees that we’re better than that, it gets a boost and we feel supreme and I’m not saying that your family or your partner still don’t love you, they do but that’s human mentality.
So, in those times when no one understands you, who is left; who has to be there for you?
It’s you right?
You’re by yourself
There are some fights that you’ve to fight for yourself, alone!
Being alone doesn’t mean you’re lonely!
But yes, there will be moments in life, when no one might stand up for you, even your close ones; at that time, you’ve to be your own backbone.
You’ve to raise your voice for your values, for what you want.
A few reasons I feel self love is important:
1. Better mental Health:
When we love ourselves, our mental health benefits a lot.
When we understand ourselves truly with our weaknesses and strengths, we can easily get up from any downfall in our life.
Because when we love ourselves, even if we fail at something, we will analyse it, understand and learn from it and not beat ourselves up for doing that wrong.
And when we stop indulging in that negative overthinking, you’re at peace.
Your mind is at peace and because of that you can get back up faster and start working on your goals again.
2. Better relationships:
When you respect yourself and treat yourself with love and care, you attract better and loving relationships in your life.
Even if you’re in a relationship where you’re not receiving enough love and appreciation, when you start loving yourself more; you change the trajectory in your relationship.
Because the universe sees you as giving love and importance to yourself, when you project more loving energy in the universe, when you send out loving vibrations, that’s what you receive more of.
On the same hand, if you don’t value or love yourself enough, you might be receiving the same sort of energies from other people in your life
So, when you give yourself more love, that’s what you receive from all around you and you experience more loving relationships.
And that’s exactly what happened to me!
When I did not care for myself or love myself enough, I was attracting emotionally unavailable men in my life.
And the point I switched my energy, the moment I started loving myself; I attracted my soulmate in just 30 days(a story for another time)!
You don’t know what you’re missing out on, if you’re not loving yourself enough!
3. Increases Confidence:
Self love helps you to trust yourself and when you have self belief, you can do anything.
When you have faith in your abilities, you are able to work harder and not give up easily and that’s when you achieve your goals.
And automatically, achieving your goals, instills more confidence in you.
It radiates in your aura. It shows. People can notice.
4. Feeling happy from inside:
When you put enough love in your own cup, you don’t need validation from outside.
Because self love gives you all the love and care you need and it takes away the need to be loved from someone outside of you because you’re satisfied with yourself.
You feel peaceful and happy from inside
Now, let’s dive into the various self love practices that you can include in your life.
9 Self love practices
Here a few self love practices to introduce in your life
1. Self compassion:
As I said earlier, we’re our own worst critics.
We’re always ready to negatively talk to ourselves when we make a mistake.
Change the way you talk to yourself.
Show yourself some grace.
Speak to yourself in a way you would provide comfort to a friend.
Replace self-criticism with kind and positive words.
Instead of saying, “I’m not good enough”
Say, “I’m trying my best and that’s enough”
2. Set strong boundaries:
We usually don’t want to make the other person feel bad and so we don’t state our choices easily and openly.
If we don’t feel like going out or we feel like we want to do something else than what the other person wants, we usually sacrifice our own choices and our time.
But what happens as a result?
The other person stops respecting our time and worth and keeps on interfering in our choices, keeps their priorities on top of ours.
If we don’t value our own time and worth, no one cares.
Self love is about stating clearly what you can do for others, when you can do and what you want from the relationship.
If they can’t respect that, step away.
Even in your home, you need to state clearly and demand time for yourself.
Just because the other person is at home and free, you don’t have to give them your whole damn day.
Give them some and save the rest for yourself.
Dedicate time for your needs when you have to.
This self love practice can literally cut toxic people from your life.
3. Prioritise self care:
We love caring for others and in that we ignore our own personal care.
Prioritising self care is a fulfilling self love practice which not only improves your physical and emotional health but also makes you feel more good about yourself.
Because when you care for your needs, physically, mentally and emotionally; you’re improving your overall well being leading to a more happy and fulfilled life.
For example; get enough sleep, read a nice book, apply a face mask, have a healthy diet, etc.
You can also read about 13 self care practices for your overall well being here
4. Stop the comparison:
From childhood, we’ve got so used to comparing ourselves that it’s hard to live our lives without comparing our own with other people.
Plus, thanks to social media!
Earlier we were only compared to the kids in our school or neighborhood by our parents but now we’ve taken their jobs and compare ourselves to everyone we see on social media.
We only compare our bad times with someone else’s good times they showcase on social media.
It only triggers self doubt.
Ive made my 21 day Self Doubt Detox Challenge Workbook to specifically help you to get rid of your self doubt and unhealthy thought patterns. Check it out here!
Don’t compare what you see on socials as it is well planned in advance as what will cater to the audience as most pleasing.
So, it’s not a true reflection of everything happening in their lives.
If you want to compare, compare your progress with your previous day and when you see how much you’ve grown from the last day, week or even year; you will feel so proud of yourself.
This is the ultimate level of self love practice that you can offer yourself.
Related Read: 5 ways to Overcome Self Doubt
5. Self-forgiveness:
We might still forgive our loved ones but sometimes it’s hard to forgive ourselves for our past mistakes.
Because our ego self gets so fixated on what went wrong.
We need to show compassion from our higher self and forgive ourselves for our mistakes.
Self forgiveness is the epitome of self love.
Understand that mistakes are a ladder for growth.
If you won’t know what goes wrong, how would you know what can actually go right?
And how would you experience true happiness after the pain you’ve gone through?
Because when something comes easily, we get too comfortable, we don’t value it enough and don’t push ourselves to achieve what we want.
So, consider your mistakes as part of growth and forgive yourself and move on.
Affirm, “ I forgive myself for all my past mistakes and give myself permission to move forward with love”
6. Release toxic self talk:
We’re the ones living with ourselves everyday. We are the ones who talk to ourselves the most, well not our loud but in our heads.
So it really matters how we’re talking to ourselves each day.
Our self talk can determine how we show up in the world.
If we mostly have negative self-talk and we criticize ourselves on a regular basis, our self confidence goes for the toss.
Before anyone else can lower our confidence, we do that for ourselves.
We don’t need haters, we’re doing that job quite well.
We self sabotage our own growth.
Not only that, when we talk negatively of ourselves, we put that energy out in the universe and the more we project negative energies, the more of those energies we receive from others around us.
7. Take out time for what you love:
It’s easier said than done, especially if you’ve a busy schedule.
But take out time for the things that bring you joy and happiness at least once a week if not daily.
You can also divide based on activities for the day, week or month if you prefer.
It could be anything, whether doing your makeup, some self care, painting, going for a walk even, or just simply being with yourself in the moment without any distractions.
Pick your hobbies that you might have left of.
Think what you used to like when you were small and it gave you immense happiness.
Self love can be practiced in very simple and little things.
It doesn’t have to be grand.
8. Celebrate your wins:
I know we want to have big milestones in our life.
We’re so used to seeing and celebrating the big occasions in life that we don’t value the little everyday wins we might have.
Have you ever thought, how much you’ve done until now?
How did you fight with your inner demons?
How did you learn something new today, as you’re reading this article?
How you finished reading that book or didn’t hit the snooze and woke up on time!
Or how you made it through a hard day?
Society has made us fixated on big achievements that we forget about the little wins we might actually have everyday.
These little things are what makes our day, so go celebrate that!
Isn’t that winning in life!
We need to closely observe our own progress.
9. Practice Gratitude:
Not only show gratitude for others but also for your life.
Show gratitude to what you’ve in your life already.
In the race of achieving big things in life, we usually ignore the beauty of what we might already have.
Because we have it right so we don’t value it enough.
We’ve got used to value things which are far away from us and also when we get that, we forget its value and we start chasing the next thing.
Tell me, when you got your first iphone, how careful you were for handling it the very first day and how you handle it today?
Even if it drops multiple times in a day, you don’t care anymore now! I’m sure you would be laughing right now!
Start showing more gratitude for every little thing in your life. Start counting your blessings.
And as the saying goes; Be grateful for what you’ve and you get more things to be grateful for!
So, you see; self love is not about giving yourself expensive gifts or taking yourself out on lavish dates; it can be practiced with the little things.
Today we discussed what self love truly is, why self love is important and 9 self love practices to inculcate in your life.
If this was helpful or you enjoyed reading, let me know in the comments below👇🏻
