7 Ways You Can Bring More Self-Love Into Your Life for Peace, Contentment and Joy
There are common misconceptions of “self-love” and it’s easy for our inner critic to shrink our greatness. What if there were self-love practices to help you defeat society’s messages, so you could break old habits, fully celebrate yourself, and truly love your whole-self?
When you love yourself, you move past the hundreds of weight loss or plastic surgery billboards that read, “Want to love yourself more? Call 800-***-**** for a free consultation.” With self-love practices, you don’t shrink at the thought thinking, “So to love yourself more you have to look pretty?”
This is one of many misconceptions of self-love. Society and the media tells us that as long as we are pretty, we should be happy.
When you truly love yourself, you do things for you, not for other people.
Does this concept mean we don’t have to fully bake a cake to make it edible? We can half-ass the batter, and try to slather on frosting to make it presentable and as long as no one tastes the cake, they won’t know it isn’t fully baked inside.
Human beings are like cake: We HAVE to fully bake ourselves before we start working on our outer shells. Otherwise we are unbaked, empty shells of people walking around trying to cover up insecurities to make sure no one takes a bite out of us and finds out the real, undercooked truth.
If you are ready to fully bake yourself and love yourself from the inside out, read on for simple ways to invite more self-love into your life.
Here Are 7 Areas In Your Life You Can Start Practicing Self-Love:
These self-love practices will help you quiet your inner critic and cultivate more compassion, joy, acceptance and peace with yourself.
1. Your Fitness Routine
To really practice self-love, look at your yoga practice. Once you gain an awareness of why you are here and what brings you to the mat, the real practice of yoga begins.
Whether you’ve been practicing yoga a month, a year, or a decade, at some point, you will see the shift happen within yourself – the shift to a deeper place of self-love.
Yes, yoga is a fantastic physical workout, but you also practice because of what it does to your mind. You start to see the beauty in the silence, and the grace of the postures rather than simply holding the poses for five breaths and then moving on.
2. Alcohol Consumption
If you truly love yourself, you know you are drinking in a celebratory manner or maybe because that is what feels good in the moment. You aren’t drinking to escape, suppress emotions, or forget about something that happened during the day or week.
You honor your body and you are aware of the detrimental outcomes that come with consuming too much alcohol. All in moderation, and all with positive intentions.
3. Your Appearance
Appearance is not everything. The fact that we are all so consumed with looks is not our fault. Historically, the media, along with societal norms, have taught us to place importance on physical appearance.
Pure self-love, however, is the opposite – it starts from within, when you can look in the mirror and think I’m happy being me, I love myself, and I accept myself exactly as I am now.
When you truly love yourself, wrinkles, stretch marks, freckles and extra pounds just don’t matter. When you love yourself, you are kind to yourself. That means no shameful, judgmental, or negative thoughts about any part of you when you look in the mirror.
4. Eating Habits
To practice real self-love, take a true and honest inventory of your eating habits. Are you eating because you are hungry and your body needs fuel? Or are you eating because you are bored, sad, stressed or angry?
Pay attention to the food you ingest: is it greasy, fatty, or sugary? The food we eat has everything to do with our ability to connect with our hearts and the love we can give. If we aren’t taking care of our bodies, we certainly are not practicing self-love.
Take an introspective look at why you eat what you eat: is it coming from a place of love for yourself or a place of pity? In terms of your eating habits, the point is to eat from a place of nurturing your body, and eating food that will nourish and sustain it.
5. Your Thoughts
When you start to truly love yourself and see your self-worth, you notice your mind state and perspective shifts. Instead of criticizing yourself, you give yourself positive affirmations and motivation. You see the good in others because you feel it inside of yourself.
You uplift others because you know you can’t be inspired and supported without giving it as well. So many times our thoughts hinder us or bring us down, and I’m here to tell you that negative self-chatter is incredibly detrimental to truly loving yourself.
Our brains are naturally wired for “survival” mode, so we have to work EXTRA hard to see the positive in everything.
For more self-love, try to recognize the lesson or the “silver lining” in every shitty situation you go through. Choose to see the good in everyone and everything, and you will start to see a shift within yourself.
Negative thoughts hinder our goals, perspective on life, and destroy us inside and out. Our minds are VERY powerful and when you shift your mind, your entire perspective on the outside world will shift as well.
6. Dating
Another self-love practice is to think about the people you have dated and why you dated them. Do these people all generally fall into the same category? Many people tend to go for a certain “type” of person, and it’s important to understand your reasoning behind it.
Are you seeking out a specific type for self-validation, or old ingrained behavioral patterns? Often times relationships that arise from this place are not self-serving. In fact, sometimes these types of relationships can be very harmful for us.
If you want to cultivate more self-love, date people because who make you feel good and bring out the best in you. The people you date should only reflect the goodness that you already know to be true inside of you.
If a relationship is no longer serving you, love yourself enough to take a stand, make a change, and wait for that special someone who can love you . . . for you.
Ready to attract real love into your life? Read this.
7. Your Daily Patterns
Take a look at your daily patterns and start to analyze why you do them and see if they are really serving you. Certain routines are good: it’s always good to brush your teeth in the morning, and it’s always good to have a fitness routine to keep you on track.
Yet other routines come from a place of habit, or fear, or unwillingness to try something new and different. How often do you turn something down because it’s different or foreign to you?
Love yourself enough to recognize the gain that comes from doing different things and broadening your horizons. Trying something new everyday and pushing yourself is a great way to cultivate more self-love and personal expansion.
Humans need to be challenged and when we conquer things that we deem “difficult,” we prove it to ourselves that we are capable, that we are worth it, and that we deserve to love ourselves unconditionally.
Self-Love Practices: The Takeaway
When you truly love yourself, you do things for you, not for other people. You start to break old habits and patterns that are not self-serving.
Compassion starts to flourish inside of you and you will find that old wants/needs start to vanish and you see things with a clear understanding of what they really are.
Retrain your mind with these self-love practices to recognize the good in every situation, and take all mistakes as a lesson learned. With every breath you take, find gratitude for where you are, who you are, and the love you have for yourself.
Celebrate yourself, and don’t be afraid to love yourself wholly and completely – you deserve it!
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