6 tips to help you cultivate self love
It's Valentine's day - the day of love - but today as always I'm here to big you up for some self-love!
Self Love is not an easy thing to do but just like everything the more you do it, the easier it gets - think of it like trying to gain that new PB on your next big lift - the more you practice, the better you get and the bigger the results.
Hands up who needs a little help training that self-love muscle?
If I’m fully honest I preached a message of self-love for a long time before I truly accepted and began to love my authentic self, for years it was such a synthetic process and I never truly bought into loving all parts of myself, I know today will likely be awash with self-love messages but I’d love to share some tips with you - expect realness, a bit of hard work and a lot of self-exploration over the contrived version of self-love we see plastered all over social media these days…
If you’re ready to dive deep- then read on…
Accepting and understanding your emotions
There's no one out there who is happy all the time, nor are they the best version of themselves every minute of every day. You need to understand and acknowledge that some days will be better than others, and not to beat yourself up when you have an off day, or week or even a full-blown slump ‘period’. Practicing to regularly check in on your emotions is the basis of good self-care. Knowing when to rest and embrace those down days or when to give yourself a pep talk, shake up your routine or habits to get yourself out of the long slump. Self-love is all about finding a balance between showing yourself kindness and forgiveness and maintaining good habits that will actively improve your mood.
Reflect on what you do “right”
Positive self-talk is key, even when reflecting on what you have done that was good. Try to avoid negative language such as - 'I didn't skip my workout' or 'I didn't eat my bodyweight in cupcakes'. Instead, practice positive language with yourself - 'I smashed my workout' and 'I nourished my body today with great food'
Our brains' natural survival instinct is to focus on what’s wrong in a situation t takes practice to train yourself to shift your attention to what’s right.
Write it down - journaling
Is this my answer to everything? YES. But it’s because it works. The practice of writing things down takes it out of our heads and makes it real! It also gives us something to reflect back on.
One of the things that helped me on my self-love journey is to dive deep into what I’m feeling and why I’m feeling it. Even those icky, negative emotions too. My darkness was always that the world was out to get me. Years of bullying left me with a self-limiting belief that I was naturally disliked, wasn’t good enough and others were way better. It led to horrible moments of comparison and despair. When I began to explore this and meet my inner critic head-on, I began writing down these feelings when they came up and making lists of why I felt them. Once I understood that my past experience was shaping my present, it became way easier to zoom out, get some perspective and recognise them as self-limiting beliefs and habits. The result… My relationships, life experience, decisions, leadership and most importantly my opinion and understanding of myself got better.
As a reflection exercise, I look back at those journals and it reminds me of how far I’ve come, something that is incredibly healing on those days when self-loathing creeps back in.
Reframe your thoughts around food and movement
Diet culture teaches us that food has to be earned and that exercise is there to atone for what we have eaten. It also drives a narrative that who we are is in how we look and if we don’t look “perfect” then we are not worthy. It’s no wonder we then spend a huge part of our lives feeling bad about ourselves. Reframing these thoughts is such a powerful tool in helping you to understand and accept that you are SO much more than a body and that you are worthy NOW.
You can start by giving yourself permission to eat. (This is a lot easier said than done and if you have disordered eating habits then reaching out for some support from an intuitive eating coach and a psychologist with experience in eating disorders is a must.) Once you start to believe that food is something you are allowed to have it becomes an act of self-care rather than something you have to be ashamed of and when you continually practice self care you cement that belief that you are worthy, good enough and absolutely loveable.
You can do the same with exercise. Challenge that DC Gremlin that tells you you must punish yourself with exercise to be worthy and find ways to move your body that bring you joy. Reframe exercise as movement and think of all the ways you can move your body, not because you “should” or to “earn your food” but because it’s fun - teach yourself that you deserve fun is another step in the direction toward a loving and supportive relationship with YOU <3
Learn to say ‘No’
Boundaries! You cannot think highly of yourself if you constantly self sacrifice to please others. Think about it - saying yes when you mean no or when you don’t have the capacity for what the yes entails, teaches you (and others) that your needs don’t matter. Multiple reaffirmations of this over time embed a subconscious belief that it’s “selfish” to put yourself first and that you should say yes to keep everyone else happy. What you are saying when you do that is that other people’s happiness comes before yours- you are not important enough and so it’s then a massive jump to start loving and accepting who you are when you don’t believe you are good enough.
One of the most life-changing books I ever read was - Set Boundaries and Find Peace: A Guide to reclaiming yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab and I recommend it to everyone I meet who struggles with saying no- buy it as a valentine's day gift to yourself, you won’t regret it.
Prioritise ‘you’ time
This is such a biggie and follows on nicely from boundaries - make time for you a non-negotiable. It’s a practice that takes real commitment to make work and real honesty to break those people-pleasing habits but - holy shit is it worthwhile! It can’t all be hour-long bubble baths and spa breaks, but it doesn’t have to be. Take the micro-moments. Put them in your diary and mark yourself as busy and please don’t cancel them unless there is an emergency. Treat yourself as you would a good friend or loved one, show up for yourself and take that time to rejuvenate and indulge. It can be a workout at the gym, a walk on your own, a coffee alone or 5 minutes to take 10 deep breaths, it doesn’t matter what it looks like, what matters is that it’s your time- show yourself that you are worthy of that time and you strengthen that relationship and affection for who you are.
Remember - Be patient but persistent - it's not a once and done practice – you gotta keep building the muscle and just like working toward that PB there’ll be days when you can’t be bothered, days when it hurts and days when you want to throw in the towel but if you keep showing up for yourself in small ways, over time they build up to big changes, you get one life and the relationship with yourself is the longest one you’ll ever have- you deserve for it to be a good one ❤️