One of my goals for this year is to work on my self-love and build self-love into my life routine. Luckily the internet has a mountain of advice and inspiration. However, a lot of it is very vague. I understand, and practice, the art of non-negative thinking. I remind myself to stop the guilt cycles and use gratitude regularly. And from this intermittent focus, I know that I love and appreciate myself more. I am more comfortable with who I am and where I am in my life. Yet something is still lacking.
Self-love needs to be something we can realize and feel on a daily basis. I realized recently that my self-love attempts we effective, but sporadic. I want to have a stronger foundation in loving myself- who doesn’t? And the only way to get better at anything is to focus and to practice. Like anything else in life if we make it important we focus on it and grow. So I have decided to take the next step, level up at self-love, by making the art of self-love a daily practice.
Now as those of you who are regulars at Re:root know, I love practical actions. I think doing something practical enhances our focus and makes for a great reminder (albeit daily or weekly) to focus on personal growth. And like most of you, I have a busy schedule. So I needed to create a daily self-love practice which didn’t eat into my schedule but was manageable and easy to implement. Sounds impossible? Well with a little prep and commitment it’s as easy as ABC. If you would like to boost your self-love a little every day, here is a practical guide you can use to initiate your self-love journey.
A: Analyse your options
First, do a little google-fu (or check out some of the self-love ideas on my blog by searching under self love) and find some inspiration of self-love practices you would like to try. Some of my favorites are:
- Mirror work – Loving affirmations you tell yourself in a mirror
- Writing yourself a love letter
- Using the self-love worksheet
- Journaling daily three things I am proud of myself for
- Giving myself a home spa day
- Having an evening alone to do just what I want to do
- Bedtime yoga
- Hand and foot massage
- Buy myself flowers
- Using self-love mantras
- Going for a Sauna
- 6 min Miracle Morning practice
- Watching personal development videos with breakfast
- Dancing in the kitchen with music
- Going for a walk alone
However, there are millions of ideas out there so dig deep and find a bunker of inspiration. Now write all of your ideas down. And note what are things you could easily do on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis.
B: Build your practice
Now build a practice up for this month. Don’t try to do it all at once. I would recommend adding one simple self-practice into your morning routine and another into your after work/ end of the day routine. In your week try to add one bigger self-love practices and in your calendar plan one of the biggest self-love activities you would like to try. So you could end with a plan that looks like this
Daily:
Mirror work in the morning.
Give me a hand massage on the way home from work
Weekly:
Buy me flowers or give myself a facemask
Monthly:
Have an evening at home with a good book, music, nice food, candles and wine. Write me a love letter.
Try out different activities and find out what works for you.
C: Choose and continue
After a few weeks, you will have found what works in your life rhythm. So choose the activities that fit, that you like and that gives you the biggest boost of self-love and then simply continue your practice. Keep self-love activities an important feature of your to-do list and weekly planning. By making it important to love ourselves we show other people how much we respect ourselves and they will begin to mirror that behavior in the way they deal with you.
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Self-love takes time and dedication. You cannot get up one morning and say now I love myself completely and implicitly. However, with regular practice you will find that eventually loving yourself is as second nature as breathing. May 1st is the ancient Celtic festival of Beltane, the festival of love. So I have decided to give myself a self-love boost with an intensive week of self-love practice just because I can! I can highly recommend it as a way of checking in and kick-starting a journey of making your relationship with yourself the most important one you have. Let me know in the comments your favorite self-love practices and lets’ inspire each other in love.
Have a beautiful week <3
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