Today, we all seem to hear the phrase glide through our eardrums, “self-love” or “self-care”, but when we look at the fundamental aspects of this term we may ask, “is it only based on the physical?” Or can we maybe swim through until we find the depth of what it can be and welcome real long-term effects into lives? We can be suggested a million and one things to do to incorporate self-care/self-love. This is a great thing because it gives us the opportunity to CHOOSE any that fits us! Trial and error are fabulous for human evolution and we can be grateful to be able to have many experiences to take place in just one lifetime to test it out.
Self Love Practices can be split into three categories: the physical, the psychological, and the emotional, to make it more simple and organized, let’s take a look at the physical first.
Physical Self-Love practices to try today!
- Standing in the mirror, bare-bodied, Studying ourselves without judgment. Affirming out loud, “I’m beautiful and I fully accept and love myself”. Perhaps, this is the last thing we want to do, but how can accept ourselves or move past the physical when we can barely look at our own self? Even if we don’t believe it at first, notice the things we don’t normally notice that we love about ourselves, like an alien just visiting earth for the first time and is seeing humans – how incredibly soft their skin looks or how their ears perk up when they are beaming with excitement. It’s the little things we can start with, over time we will eventually pick out the positives more than the negatives – giving ourselves five positive things that we can pick out every day.
- Touching, moisturising, and caressing ourselves like someone we love would. This can be just before we sleep or when we wake up, make it meaningful and with intention, think every time we touch our body we’re pouring more love into it like a plant that needs water…fill that with love. For more goodness, add some oils, music, and scents, sparking light into some candles to set the mood. Maybe an affirmation like the one above as we caress our body!
- Living with intention – Creating an intentional way to live. The intention is like the key to a door you seemed to have come by from a secret bookshelf in the library, setting an intention to live a meaningful and purposeful life is the main ingredient to get the ball rolling. If you set a healthy intention – your decisions will guide you towards that. To live a fulfilling life, whatever that looks like to each person- is what the intention is meant to do, we need to first establish what that intention is. If you want to know more about the power of intention, click here for a guide into a new perspective:https://providingtruth.com/intention-unlocks-doors-to-enchantment/.
- Give More Love To Others – This does not have to be a gift, but a gesture, when we give love even in hard circumstances, we realise that love is unlimited and we can offer as much love as we want. Therefore, a genuine smile or telling someone you appreciate them can go a long way. We can make their day while also contagiously, that effect will be the same for us because giving out love feels good! If you want a guide to incorporate a healthier relationship with yourself and others to use love as a daily practice, I have made one here, https://providingtruth.com/self-wellness-and-mental-health/.
Self-Love Practices Mental/Psychological
1.Setting Clear Boundaries for Ourselves and Others – Perhaps we may give TOO much of our time to one person/persons, or too much time on a task we well overlooked and are now in stress mode. That is a sign our bodies need more rest and replenishing than hustle, our hustle can only be great if we give ourselves the balance of the rest also. Our bodies are cars in a sense, we can only give so much until we run on empty, then if we keep running at that pace we end up self-sabotaging or in a garage to get ‘fixed’ like the car. Respect your body, listen to what it is saying and give it space. Nourish it as a baby needs to be. Saying ‘no’ is not negative if it helps us mentally, pushing ourselves in a healthy way is okay, but we need to know when we’re exceeding limits. That can also mean putting down our work for a couple of minutes and simply breathing five deep breaths. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket as they say. Or I find through my own personal experience that if we’re doing something that’s physically exhausting, but after we feel mentally accomplished, then that is a great sign, but if we sacrifice both and the feeling after is awful mentally and physically, we can reconsider and come up with a new solution.
2. Study the 5 Love Languages – https://www.5lovelanguages.com/ , This short quiz can help us understand our needs better and how we can achieve them, there are five different types of ‘love languages’ and we can share them with others which can help them too! It’s a win-win. If you want more depth on what love languages are and like reading, my suggestion would be to purchase the book ‘The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts‘ by Gary Chapman. (This is not sponsored, this has helped me personally understand myself better. If you do decide to buy the book, make sure to check second-hand shops and friends, not amazon! Let’s support each other and small businesses.)
3. Forgiving Ourself – This can be an emotional aspect too, but I think to forgive we must look into our minds from a psychological point of view first- forgiving releases pain and tension from the body, mentally releases any built-up trauma and frustrations. We can not be in the present if we always let the future and past take our hands into bed and out the door every day, we need to speculate on what is holding us back specifically and to let go – not just saying ” ah, yes, I am letting go…” but to actually feel the power behind what we’re forgiving and infusing it with surrender. To move on we must leave our trash in the bin, we might require a new one, but at least now we know the process of it, the walks to the bin, and how to tie the knot properly so it doesn’t spill. For me, this specific book helped me actually release my sorrows and woes. ‘Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender‘ by David. R. Hawkins (again, this is not sponsored but pure experience, I enjoy reading if it’s about the health of the mind and body.)
4. Become Mindful – Mindfulness is what carries the essence of joy and love into our days, same as with intention, it is a key component to a healthier and joyful life. We become mindful of how we speak, act, and think of ourselves and others. This includes the thoughts that pass by in our minds every day and how we can use our words to heal, not hurt. Mindful eating, drinking, and sitting can change our personalities, that awareness spreads into a safe space in our bodies and minds mental state.
Emotional Self-Love Practices
- Brain dumping – This is a simple act, that we can use to check in every day or every week. All we have to do is ask ourselves what is worrying or bothering us? The simple method is to write everything on paper with no holding back, it’s all for our own sake, let it out without any regret. Once we have recognised the things that bother us, we can then ask if there are solutions to these equations. If there are, we can write them from the first priority to last. Make a schedule based on how we can manage around them and if we can’t find a solution, we can focus on the technique above of letting go and surrendering. If we can’t have a solution for our problem then we can’t have a problem for a solution, as I like to say.
- Welcome pain and joy like visiting guests and us, as the host– This world would be rather dull if we always had what we asked for and wanted, sometimes pain helps us evolve into what we need or wanted to always become, the way we react and perceive things is what can drive us mad. Learn about how everything needs a balance, a scale. Everything has another side to it, just as in every circumstance. Welcome every feeling with acceptance and know it won’t last forever, it may take a while, but appropriate healing and surrender to this help form a union rather than separateness. What we want is sometimes not the best thing for us. However, we will get what we want but we need patience and to understand that sometimes it won’t look the way we want it to, expectations are the assassins of the minds, we can protect ourselves and be open to all opportunities that arise.
- “Comparing is the thief of joy” as Theodore Roosevelt said it best – We constantly compare ourselves to everyone around us, with technology it seems in an instant our mood can go down because we see someone ‘more’ beautiful, ‘ more’ rich, ‘ more’ happier. We must remain humble and recognize that these are filtered, highlighted ideas of someone’s life. We are incredibly different from each other, from our genetic makeup to the chemistry that stirs in our brains, no one is made exactly the same as us, and we can use this power to create confidence, not lack of. Once we stop comparing we can enter the focus back on ourselves and pick what is amazing… Surprisingly, we end up stop caring about what other people are doing or thinking because we’re too excited about who we’re becoming and making ourselves feel good. Sometimes even putting the phone away can help our overall mood. If you want guidance on distancing from your phone, make sure to check out how to disengage and reconnect back ourselves here: https://providingtruth.com/mentalhealthawareness/
Let me know how you feel and if you tried any of these out. I love making people’s days a little brighter, especially during this time, I wish you a fulfilled and loving day,
Neena
Happiness is a state of mind that has nothing to do with the external world.
Krishna
