Hello, welcome to today’s article on Self-Love.

Personally, this is a subject that I really enjoy, allowing self-love in my life has helped me through some not so great moments. Accepting who I am, working on loving myself regardless of all my flaws. Yes, it is hard to maintain 100% of the time, and every day I keep reminding myself of this.

Self-love is the belief you hold, that you are a valuable and worthy person. It’s when you have a positive view of yourself, and are confident, not only within, but who you are as a person.

"Love yourself first, and everything else falls in line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world" - Lucille Ball

If you are negative towards yourself and don’t love who you are, then you can’t expect that anyone else will love you for who you are. It all starts with understanding that the biggest person who will ever love you is yourself! Once there is understanding and acceptance, you’ll become happier, and will be more positive about who you are.

Self-love is an important factor in your journey of discovering who you are within; without forgiving yourself, accepting you with all your imperfections, and quieting the inner negative voice you won’t let yourself completely let go.

So how do you do this? Here are four (4) things that can help you on your journey of self-love:

1. Accepting you for you

Everything you’ve done in the past, all the good things and the bad. Accept that this is in the past and it’s time to move on.

2. Forgive yourself

By forgiving your past actions, those that you do not like about yourself, it will take the pressure you’ve been holding off you.

Without self-forgiveness you can’t move past, as it will always be a barrier that will hold you back. What does this mean? Well for example, you may have done something you, to this day, are not proud of. You hide that side of you because you are afraid that it won’t show you in the best light.

Think of it this way, you may have had an indiscretion at work where you took somebody else’s hard work and took it as your own. You received a promotion because of that work. You’ve never told that other person, and you feel horrible that it turned out that way.

3. Have a relationship with you

Just like you would in a new relationship, you show love and gratitude towards that person. Shower that attention on yourself. Make time to do the things that are special to you. Soak in a warm bubble bath with music, candles, and a glass of wine. Get a facial or massage, put the fire on, cuddle up on the couch with a good book, put music on and just dance. Do these special things at least once a week. Have a perfect you night!

4. Talk & think positively about yourself

Stop being harsh on yourself. You wouldn’t talk to your best friend the way you talk to yourself. So why are you doing it to yourself. You wouldn’t accept it from anyone else so don’t accept it from yourself anymore. If it’s easier think about you as a younger child. All the child wants is acceptance and love. Show your inner child that you can accept them with all their flaws and shower then with the love she/he deserves. Give yourself the encouragement to try new things, be patient with yourself and tell you how wonderful you really are.

What it does within you:

• When you start to devote the attention to yourself as opposed to other people you will start to feel happier within

• A sense of calm will descend as you give yourself more you time

• You will become less stressed

• Will have more clarity about what it is you need

• You’ll start to feel inner peace about who you are

• You will no longer worry about what other people think because you love who you are

• Sense of pride

• Love

To help you in the direction of self-love, there are some tools that you can use every day to take care of the relationship with yourself.

Gratitude Journal

Give yourself 10 minutes every night to write in a journal. What you are grateful about in terms of within yourself and the day you’ve had. By doing this religiously you will start to see/feel happier and grateful because you are focusing on the great things that has happened.

Positive Affirmations

Listening to daily positivity can really turn your day around. When you are hearing all the positive words about you then you will start to take that in, even though you may not believe its true straight away. Over time you will. These include things like ‘I am Confident’, ‘I am Strong’, ‘I am Beautiful’. By hearing it and verbalizing it you will soon realize that you have amazing qualities too.

Mirror Work

Looking at yourself in the mirror and telling yourself positive things about who you are. Things like ‘I am enough’, ‘I love me for all my wonderful qualities’, ‘I am kind’, ‘I am generous’ etc. When you constantly hear yourself say those things, over time, you will start to believe that it’s true.

The more you inject self-love into everything you think and do, the more you will start to accept you for who you are.

Remember.

• We are all different

• You don’t have to be in the mould you, or society, has put yourself into

• Love that you can forgive yourself

• You are learning and growing everyday

• Be grateful where you are now and that you have overcome difficulty

Have fun with these activities, they are designed to provide you with the love you need to give yourself. To eventually realise that you are perfect just the way you are!

Tessa

Mindset Evolving