Self-love

“Self-love” is a term that’s impossible to escape. But as much as we hear how we all need more of it and how we need to action it, self-love is uniquely difficult to understand. That makes it even harder to integrate into our lives. 

In doing my research for this topic, I found over and over that one of the best ways to start practicing self-love is self-compassion. This comes in a lot of forms, some that I didn’t even realize. 

Speak kindly to yourself. This is the one I hear the most, but is still hard for many of us to integrate into our lives. This is where affirmations come into play, and the science behind affirmations is pretty cool. Since our brains are malleable, the more we do something, we make that neural pathway clearer for us to do that again in the future. So, if you mess up and choose to be kind to yourself, it’ll be easier to do that the next time, and the next. If you have an unkind thought towards yourself, stop it in its tracks and say something nice. I use this technique for anxiety, but using it to be kinder to myself was something I hadn’t considered before. Or use affirmations in a straightforward way by saying several kind things to yourself.

“I am the best version of myself. I am loved. I am a good friend/sibling/parent/etc. I am abundant.” There are lots of podcasts and YouTube videos with affirmations that you can listen to, or you can write down your own and read them to yourself. It’s powerful when your brain hears you say something out loud.

Empower yourself to be strong. We all fall into ruts where we don’t want to do things we know are good for us, but by making ourselves do them, we are making our bodies, minds, and spirits stronger. We are showing ourselves that we love and care for our wellbeing. My brain is a busy place so I find it hard to meditate even though I know it’ll make me feel more at peace. I know going to hot yoga will make me feel amazing, but getting over that mental hurdle knowing I’m about to step into a 90+ degree room to workout is a tough one. I have to make myself do it for my own good. Overcoming that resistance is how you show up for yourself. And conversely, sometimes being strong enough to rest when you need to is also showing yourself love and care. About two or three times a year, my body completely shuts down for a day or so because I didn’t listen to the subtle hints to rest. I want to be strong enough to listen to those nudges before the request for rest becomes a demand. 

Be your own best friend. I frequently hear the advice to treat yourself like you would treat a friend, but it wasn’t until very recently that I realized I was going through the motions with that. I did all of the things — wrote kind letters to myself (sometimes I actually mailed them, assuming I’d receive the encouragement at the exact time I needed it), giving myself the advice I would give to someone else in my position, seeking the latest research on well-being, etc. Then in a meditation class a few weeks ago I had a breakthrough. I know I’m hard on myself. I always have been. But in the past I saw it as lovingly parenting myself to achieve more. I never actually figured out how to be my own best friend and simply love me instead of constantly feeling like I needed to guide myself. After that revelation, I’ve been able to work on being my own confidant, hearing my thoughts without judgment and letting each situation exist exactly as it is. 

I realize I’m giving a lot of personal anecdotes in this post, but that’s because self-love is a personal thing. It looks different for each of us. Given the amount of articles, social media posts, podcasts, books, etc. on the topic, no one is alone in trying to figure out self-love.

The world does not make it easy to know how to love ourselves. People project their own insecurities onto others, and we see that modeled at a young age so we do it too. We may even see it from the people we look up to most, the people we want to be like when we grow up. We hear how adults talk about their own bodies, and think it’s okay to talk about ours that way. There are so many ways that the examples of self-love reflected back to us are wrong. They’re not the way we should treat ourselves. 

So as we grow and mature, it’s no wonder that we’re confused about what it looks like to unconditionally love and support ourselves. In our busy, go-go-go society, we spend hardly any time trying to understand what loving ourselves looks like.

Here’s the great part of all of this though. Yes, self-love is hard. Learning what kind of ways we need to show up for ourselves is hard (i.e. discipline vs. softness), but that’s okay because there’s no one way to do this. Just like all of us are different with our quirks and idiosyncrasies, the way we express self-love is unique. 

This week, love yourself 1% more. Look yourself in the eyes in the mirror and tell yourself how awesome you are, how kind you are, how you’re proud of yourself for facing the day. Do something you know will nourish your body, mind, and soul. Set time aside to relax and read, go to a workout class, get into nature. Whatever it is that you put off or struggle to make time for, prioritize it. Or find something else completely unique to you that will show you how to really love yourself just a little more. You are worth it! 

With gratitude, 

Natalie