When we love ourselves, it helps us feel our best, and when we feel our best, we can give more to the world. Discover six meaningful approaches of how to practice self-love.
How To Practice Self-Love: Support Your Own Growth
If you consider yourself a compassionate person, remember that to truly call yourself compassionate you have to show compassion to yourself as well as others.
Appreciating oneself can grow from actions that support our physical, psychological, and spiritual growth. As we act in kindness to ourselves, we may be able to better accept our weaknesses as well as our strengths, have compassion for ourselves as human beings struggling to find personal meaning, are more centered in our life purpose, priorities, and passions, and to get rid of the junk that gets in the way of living our best lives.
Practicing self-love is a part of this: it influences how high you set your goals, how you let others treat you, and how you react to stressful situations. Self-love affects how you treat your body, how you manage stress, and your ability to live consistently with your values.
Read more: Discover self-love and self-compassion advice from the Buddha.
The 6 Pillars Of Self-Care & Self-Love
We can act kindly to ourselves in different ways. These small, simple actions of self-love are all little suggesting for accepting and appreciating yourself more.
Emotional Wellness
Emotional wellness is the ability to cope with life’s challenges. The ability to acknowledge and share feelings of anger, fear, sadness or stress, hope, love, joy, and happiness in a productive manner.
- If you don’t feel happy with your life, write down five simple actions you can take right now to help guide you in a better direction, i.e., go for a walk, phone someone and say you’re sorry, throw out a pack of cigarettes and commit to not buying any more.
- Seek the help you need — set up an appointment for counseling, a massage, a meditation class, a quiet retreat if you’re struggling emotionally. Or try them all and see what helps you most.
- Write down your schedule for the day. This will help you set aside time each day to spend time on your priorities and minimize wasted time.
- Set boundaries on how you’ll spend your time. Steer clear of time-sucking activities that don’t add meaning to your life. No Instagram after 6 pm? You’re not missing anything!
- Say no to toxic people and activities. Be kind but firm, your time is precious.
Read more: Kate James explains how to find inner peace by unhooking from drama in our lives.
Spiritual Wellness
Help yourself establish peace and harmony in life:
- Spend 10 minutes in meditation today.
- Get outside in nature.
- Do something altruistic. And explore how you can make altruism a regular activity; weekly volunteering? Monthly event?
Meditating it one way to practice self-love. Start your meditation journey with popular guided meditations by Sarah Robinson:
- Bright Morning Words Sarah Robinson 7:49
- Guided Journey Into The Safe Harbour Sarah Robinson 10:23
- Sleep Into Self-Love Sarah Robinson 10:35
- 10 Minutes To Rest And Relax Sarah Robinson 9:58
Social Wellness
Connect with others and develop positive relationships:
- Connect today with someone positive, inspiring, and encouraging. This doesn’t have to be challenging. Perhaps send a text/letter/flowers to someone who has supported or taught you in the past.
- Send a note in the post to a family member or friend. Perhaps a funny postcard or cute card.
- Plan an event with your friends. A film night and a pot luck dinner is a cheap and relaxing way to bring your friends together!
- Kiss someone you love.
Occupational Wellness
Finding fulfillment from your work is a very important aspect of practicing self-love, we spend so much time doing it!
- Learn about your strengths — take on new projects or new approaches.
- Write down your big career goals.
- Take regular small steps toward your dream career — take courses, keep your CV updated, talk to peers.
- Connect with a coworker.
Intellectual Wellness
Embrace the joy of learning and discovering new things every day!
- Read a paper/article/chapter on a topic that interests you today.
- Book an adventure to a new place or walk to one! Even a new park or coffee shop is a good start.
- Sign up for a new class — near your home or online. You can learn everything from flower arranging to salsa dancing, massage to Mahjong!
Physical Wellness
Appreciate the amazing things your body can do rather than focusing on what you consider to be your “flaws.”
- Head to your local greengrocers and ask what is in season or what they would recommend, use this new product in a healthy recipe!
- Focus on nourishing your body, not starving or punishing it.
- Establish a nighttime routine for a healthy dose of sleep.
Read more: Discover how to establish a healthy morning routine and it can alleviate morning anxiety.
Feel free to come up with your own ways of practicing self-love and enjoy the journey! As you come to love yourself and love life, it can cause amazing effects in your world!
How to practice self-love is an individual journey. Find inspiration and wisdom by exploring hundreds of free guided love meditation practices that can expand your capability of giving and receiving love. Also read about the damaging effects of lacking self-love in children all through adulthood.
