What is Self-Love?
It is the ability to turn inward as you learn to how to see, accept, and love who you are as you are in all of your beauty.
It is Giving Yourself Undivided Attention and Intention
It is nurturing that beautiful place inside yourself that fully acknowledges the wonder that is you and feeling empowered from within. There is no judgment there, only acceptance and space to thrive and grow.
When you practice self-love you feel calmer inside, more in tune with who you are. You create stronger boundaries, your confidence increases, and you are at more peace within. Relationships may also grow stronger as your level of internal trust grows and you learn to love and respect yourself more and more. As your self-love increases, clarity around your life's vision and purpose increase.
Practicing self-love and honoring yourself are not easy tasks and many things may hinder your ability to truly love who you are as an individual. Sometimes it can be beneficial to have some loving guidance along the way.
Common Obstacles to Self-love
Sacrificing Self
It is easy to put others’ needs before your own, to sacrifice your well-being, your state of mind, your needs and wants for others. As women we tend to do this on a regular basis and this can make it challenging to focus on self-love because we tend to see it as being selfish. This can make us feel like we are not good enough, trying hard enough, or being perfect enough.
Stress & Pressures: Days get filled, lives are busy, sometimes you may find you barely have time to sit and relax, never mind focus on the things that nurture and restore your inner well-being. With the stressors of everyday life, the pressures of family life, social life, and work life, it is easy to put self-care, thus self-love, on the back burner.
Social Media: With the momentum social media has gained over the years, it is easy to turn to the validation of others, to rely on likes and followers to define how much importance you place on yourself and how to measure yourself against others. This external voice can speak louder than your own internal voice.
Comparison, the Thief: This is a danger zone-comparing yourself to others. It is easy to fall into the trap of comparing who you are to other people. The truth is, you are you and no one else. You are a unique individual with talents, gifts, and beauty to share with the world. Comparison can quickly be the enemy of self-love.
But what if the more you practiced self-love, the more energy and love and intention you have to put into everything else in your life? What if by practicing self-love your purpose became more clear, you felt more empowered, and you began to thrive even more?
How to Practice Self-Love:
Acceptance vs Resistance: To love yourself as you are in all of your imperfections, your quirks, not only the things you love about yourself but the things you don’t love about yourself-there is space for it all. Instead of resisting who you are, your true nature, all that is you, what if you practiced letting go of the resistance and start boldly and bravely accepting who you are?
Put Your Own Oxygen Mask on First! In order to give fully to others it is important to give to yourself first. By nurturing yourself, taking care of your own needs first, you are restoring, rejuvenating, and loving yourself and you will have that much more to give to others. You can’t give fully to others or love others fully if you are not at home in yourself, if you are depleted inside.
Taking Time: It is important to take time every day to do the things that feed and nurture your heart and soul. Whether for you that is painting, journaling, dancing, singing, reiki, massage, therapy, meditation, yoga, breathwork, art…whatever it is that helps you connect with your inner self, it is important to spend intentional time doing these things. They will help feed your self-love.
Forgiveness and Compassion: This is a big one, ladies! Self-love is finding the space within for forgiveness and practicing compassion within yourself. You are not perfect, you make choices in life, you cannot “do it all.” Along the way it is easy to judge yourself or others. There are a lot of pressures, conditions, and expectations in life. It is important to learn how to go inward and find forgiveness, to be compassionate and love everything that is you. You are a beautiful soul experiencing life unfolding.
Self-love is Attainable: It takes commitment, practice, dedication, and consistency in letting go of the inner voices of judgment and criticism. It takes consciously choosing to love yourself wholly, as you are-a beautiful, soulful, intelligent being who has a lot to give and share with the world.
If gentle guidance would benefit you, check out my corporate reiki healing to see if what I have to offer would help you along your path to loving yourself more deeply.
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