Hello darling,
How to love yourself more? I sat for over an hour contemplating this because there are a few different angles of self-love: how we care for the physical body, water, nutrition, supplements, movement, and fresh air.
Then there’s emotional self-love, the essence self, the real you, your inner world.
Things like drinking more water, exercising, and eating healthy meals look after the vessel, the physical you, but without the connection to your real self, your inner world, external habits don’t last, and we never seem to reach that place of feeling truly balanced, loving, or connected.
We are going to talk about how to cultivate inner self-love, connecting to the real you type of self-care, because when we truly connect with our essence, the deepest part of who we are, the outer actions of self-love unfold naturally as a by-product of loving the core of you.
What Happens When We Connect With Self?
When we are connected to our deepest selves, stress slips away, we have more time, the rushing stops, the overwhelm disappears, our relationships improve, and our bodies (and life) transform naturally as a result.
True happiness, zest for life, alignment, and purpose are all born out of authentically loving ourselves fully.
There was a time when my life was in a mess, with poor health, gut issues, and being overweight.
My romantic relationship was disconnected, no work-life balance, and I was feeling a deep discontentment, a secret sadness.
The kind of feeling that nothing externally could fix, shopping, sex, alcohol, food….nothing filled the emptiness I felt inside.
It wasn’t until I began my spiritual exploration, finding out “who is this thing called I?”, that I began to learn that this uncomfortable feeling, this not feeling comfortable in my skin, this dissatisfaction with myself, my body, and my life, was due to a disconnection with myself. Non-loving, neglecting, and unaware.
I’ve had some incredible mentors and spiritual teachers over the years, and here are the things that have dramatically transformed my life:
I’ve fallen in love with myself
manifested my soul mate
and feel inner peace, joy, and an unshakable understanding of who I AM.
There is a magnificent book that truly changed me, “This Thing Called You” by Ernest Holmes
1. Desire
You have to want to feel better. Everything is born out of desire
Everything to do with loving ourselves more, at its roots, comes down to identity, who you think you are, and our relationship with time. How much time and attention do we allow ourselves to tend to our emotions and feelings?
As you read this, if the first thought you have is “I don’t have the time”, then my love, this is exactly why you were drawn to this page.
Slow down, you have time, you ARE time.
Time flows from you, it’s not something that’s “out there”, It’s in here, inside you.
Your choices, your decision, your power.
Journal prompt: Let these questions lead you write them down:
What do I really want for myself?
How do I want to feel?
Why do I feel I don’t love myself fully?
Take your time to contemplate.
2. Meditation
Connect with yourself- through meditation, the essence of you. In stillness, we hear messages and can communicate with our higher selves.
Through meditation, we actively send the message to ourselves, “I matter, I’m important, I’m worthy of taking this time”.
Just the act of sitting down to meditate with intention is a powerful act of self-love.
Not to mention the laundry list of meditation benefits.
I have so many favourite meditations for cultivating connection, compassion and visualisation journeys that allow you to access your higher self, who you dream of being.
Who you desire to be already exists. The fact that you have desires about who you’d like to be and how you’d like to feel about yourself IS proof that on a different timeline.
We can choose the path we want to walk.
Spend 10 minutes each morning to sit in meditation. Just you and your higher self, connecting, communicating.
My favourite app for guided meditation is the Insight Timer. It’s free and powerful. Type in to the search bar “self-love“, and beautiful meditations will appear.
Let your intuition guide you; you can choose a different one each day, let yourself have fun and explore.
There will be some that you fall in love with, save those ones and practice daily.
3. Journal
Writing is such a powerful pathway of connecting to yourself, releasing stuck emotions, expressing yourself and gaining access to your unconscious beliefs and thoughts.
We can journal in so many different ways and for different purposes, but for me, when cultivating more self love, at the end of each day, I sit in bed and answer these questions:
“How did I make a difference today?” – Think about the smile you gave someone, the door you held open for a stranger, the dinner you cooked for your family, the time you took to do something loving toward yourself, no matter how small, write it down.
“What am I grateful for today?” – Write 10 things that you are grateful for about yourself.
Some examples might be:
I’m grateful for:
My kindness towards others
My ability to be patient with myslef
My openess to learn new things
My commitment to meditating today
Being alive and being able to experience all of life
My body, it’s always looking after me
I am learning to love myself more and more each day
My increasing compassion for myself
4. Prioritise yourself
Time blocking is such a powerful tool. I use google calendar. I sit for 30 minutes on a Sunday and plan my week ahead.
I create my diary with this mantra on my mind “me first, I’m important”.
I then go ahead and block out “me time” in my diary for the next 7 days. These are the things I block time out for:
- Meditation
- Self-development work (I’m currently bathing in this program with Lenka Lutonska)
- Hot Yoga
- Night time routine
- Sauna
- Cooking nourishing food
I block all of the “me time FIRST, and then I plug everything else around my commitments to myself; work, family, social stuff.
I treat my ‘Me Time’ as sacred appointments with myself that can’t be canceled, forgoten or moved.
Imagine you have the most beautiful, best friend in the world that you would literally do anything for, treat yourself like you would her.
By time blocking, you make yourself a priority, which, again, sends a powerful signal to your subconscious that says, “I take care of myself, I’m important”. Time blocking this way really helps to minimise overwhelm with the to-do list.
I use my to-do list a reference when I’m planning my week ahead. I pick the things from my list that need to be done the next day, later that week, and also consider delegating any items on the list to someone else.
5. Self-development
Get into a community with other like-minded women who understand and are journeying through the same feelings and emotions as you.
There is SO much power in community, especially spiritual ones that speak our language.
The shared energy in these spaces is so nourishing for the soul, opens the door to whats possible for you and a beautiful sense of ‘I’m not alone’, We are all one.
6. Identity alignment
True mind, body transformation and cultivating deep self love does not begin with food plans, workout schedules, getting your nails done or doing a face mask every Sunday.
It begins with identity.
When you shift into the identity of:
- A woman who values her time
- A woman who honours her body
- A woman who protects and nourishes her internal world
- A woman who believes rest is productive
Your behaviours change naturally. Food choices shift. Your priorities realign with who you think you are, who you believe you are, and how you perceive yourself in the world.
You no longer force self-care.
You embody it.
And from this place, something remarkable happens.
I wrote about Identity in another blog post, you can read it here.
I go into more depth about how to shift your identity.
Final thoughts
Can you notice a pattern emerging? The underlying principles in how to love yourself more all require your time and attention.
–You are worthy of taking the time for yourself
You are THE most important person in your life
You do so much for others, can you take a gentle yet powerful shift of your focus onto you?
Make yourself a priority.
Loving yourself more is about integration and embodiment. Recognising and acknowledging yourself as the divine Goddess that you are.
How do you think you would feel if you started making yourself a priority?
-Empowered?
-Self-led?
-Vibrant?
-Respectful?
-Calm, peaceful & balanced?
I’d love to hear from you. Do let me know if you have decided to honour yourself by implementing one of the above.
I Love You,
