Path to Self Love

Self-Love is something that many find difficult to achieve and to be honest it is a life’s journey.  We can love others, and allow ourselves to be loved but when it comes to truly loving ourselves, we often fall short without even realizing it.  Especially if we have old conditioned patterns of not feeling good enough or are running low in the self-worth department.  For example, if you grew up with critical parents or siblings, then you’ll run this inner critic yourself as an adult.

It’s easier to love ourselves through the eyes of others.  And receiving and reciprocating this love is important to living a fulfilled life.  But if loving ourselves is completely dependent on others loving us first, this is a slippery slope into co-dependence.  Where we fear losing others since our love for ourselves will go with them if we do.  But when we can reach a place of true and unwavering love for ourselves, we can feel safer in all our relationships and life circumstances because we know we’ll be ok no matter the happens.

The first step in the path to self-love is to identify the parts within you that do love yourself and those that do not support this.  We all have various parts within us that create who we are.  From parts that are in charge of beating our hearts to parts that are in charge of keeping us safe. 

Internally, we are a dynamic cast of parts that create the complex beings of who we are.  When our internal parts disagree – the inner self-love and inner critic, for example, this results in inner conflict.  Often these loops of conflict run deep in our subconscious mind to sustain our loyalties to ancestral entanglements or are habituated patterns locked down during childhood. 

A great way to uncover these internal conflicts is to listen to our inner dialogue.  How do you talk to yourself?  Spend the day really listening to what you say to yourself. I guarantee you the world is not judging you as harshly as you are judging yourself.

Self-criticism diminishes self-love.  It can be a motivator, to find what’s not working in order to improve ourselves.  However, this is neither healthy nor sustainable.  Instead, imagine how supported you would feel if you spoke to yourself like you would your best friend.  With encouragement, compliments, respect and admiration.

It’s important to note that our goal here is not to bind and gag our inner critic while forcing it out the door.  Excluding anything like this will only create more of it for growth.  We want to honour what our inner critic is trying to tell us, even if it isn’t in the most productive way. 

Here’s the thing, your inner critic is trying to bring your attention to a need that is not being met.  Notice the inner critic and bring that complaint back to a more resourceful place by asking ‘What do I need right now’.  You’ll get valuable information about what you can do to support yourself and release the need for your inner critic to poke at you about it.

A really useful exercise to help quiet the inner critic and build more self-love is this.  While listening to your inner dialogue, notice when you have a negative thought about yourself. Take a pause and now come up with at least 2 positive statements.

 This helps to reprogram your neural net pathways but first interrupting the old negative thinking pathway and then installing new positive thought pathways.  It’s important to come up with at least 2 positives for every negative since the first positive brings the negative to neutral and the second brings it to the positive. 

Acknowledging your negative self-talk can be challenging, but stay with it.    At first, it might take time to counter with 2 positive statements.  Stay with it.  Eventually, you will create a list of self-compliments, self-pride, and self-love that can be used when you feel stuck. 

Since it takes 21 days to make a new habit, I recommend doing this exercise for at least 2 rounds of 21 days.  It gets easier the more you do it and can be a life-changing experience for accessing and building self-love from an internal dialogue perspective. 

Once your mind is supporting positive and loving thoughts about yourself, the next step is to put that into action. Do this by making self-care part of your daily routine.

Notice if any negative thoughts came up for you when I said that.  Like, I don’t have time for that or that would be selfish.  After addressing that thought with two positives, something like: I deserve to take time for self-care today & I must take care of myself first to best serve others & Because I love myself, I will take time for self-care today, I love myself enough to commit to daily self-care.  Or whatever works best for you.

Self-Care is essential to building self-love and should be practised daily for the best effect.  The things that fill your existential tank, bring you enjoyment, peace, and laughter to elevate your spirit. 

These can be small gestures like taking time to consciously enjoy your favourite cup of tea or coffee, pausing to take 10 deep breaths throughout the day, or appreciating the beauty of nature each day. Yoga or meditation, if even for a few minutes a day, is a great way to give yourself the gift of self-care.  Exercising is also an act of self-care from gentle walking to athletic training. 

The good news is that you are most likely already doing this, so notice these actions and build on them.  Committing to creating your own happiness through acts of self-care is essential to sustain self-love over time.  

If you feel it is selfish to do this, remember that the definition of selfish is doing something without thinking of others.  So, be mindful to practice this from the place of knowing that by taking care of yourself, you are taking the best care possible of others too.  You can’t give from an empty tank, or as the airlines tell us every time we fly we must put our O2 mask on first before helping others since we’re no good to others if we’ve passed out.

Now that you can notice self-love and support it through your thoughts and actions, the next step is to keep your self-love tank full.  This is done by knowing what your language of love is and making sure you keep yourself in an abundant supply.

Your language of love is what is most important to you to know you are loved.  I always work with these in relationship sessions, but working with your relationship with yourself is equally as powerful.  Languages of love can be things like words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, spending quality time and physical touch. 

Knowing which of these you value most can help inform your self-care practice.  The idea is to practice these regularly and often, to keep your self-love tank full. So that in moments of crisis, you feel safe and loved which will help you through it more easily.

When your self-love tank is full it will also support you in the next step, which is to love all parts of yourself, even your not-so-favorite aspects.  Just like you love your partner, family or friends even though they have an annoying trait or two, you still love them as a whole.  Hold yourself to this as well.  Loving your shadow aspects will bring forward greater overall self-love as you are bringing forward more self-compassion that no one is perfect.  And (spoiler alert) in doing so, you will release the hold these shadow aspects have over you. 

By practising these steps in your daily life, you will notice a deeper appreciation for who you are and love yourself more fully.  It is from this place we draw in loving relationships and situations that mirror our own self-love. This also has the power to change the world, embodying greater self-love and joining with those like you will elevate our collective conscience energies so that all things can be loved, loving and loveable

Now let’s do a meditation that will activate self-love for your past, present and future selves.