One thing I have noticed in my years as a coach is the misconceptions people have about self-love. Self-love is a phrase that get’s thrown around a lot and that often gets missused in social media. So I thougt today I would take a moment to clear things up and debunk a few of the common things we get wrong about self-love. To explain what self-love really is so that you can really start practicing self-love truly and deeply.Â
It doesn't have an end point
Life is a journey and so is self-love. It is a journey with no end point.  Self-love is a lifelong journey of self-discovery. In life we are constantly growing and changing and learning more about ourselves. With each change there are things we have to let go of, our identity changes and that gives us new things to love and appreciate about ourselves. The art of self-love is to appreciate this journey of becoming, to honour it and celebrate it.Â
you don't have to love all of you
To a certain extent self-love is about loving parts of yourself and accepting other parts of you are well, simply you. To practice self-love is to accept we are flawed and that that is COMPLETELY ok. that we stop obsessing on these things as negative. It’s about appreciating how far you have come and where you are today. Your scars make you beautiful. So self-love is looking at your flaws as parts of you that are beautiful and make you unique in this world.
Self-love takes practice
‘You just gotta love yourself’. Yeah, like it is just that easy. Nope. It’s not. Self-love takes practice. Especially if you have speant years trash talking yourself you are going to need to train your new positive perspective muscles which is why doing things like a daily self love journal is super important, affirmations and correcting your negative self talk every day is so important. It’s like any relationship, new habit and skill you need to practice, practice, practice to get it into your muscle memory. To help with this you can download my favourite daily self love practice below. This was a game changer for me.
Self-love is mostly on the inside
Self-love is an internal process. One of the most important parts of self-love practices is to change our internal dialogue about how we think about ourselves. The language we use about ourselves. Remember language creates our perception and experience. And what we tell ourselves is what we believe.
Self-love is not self care
This is one of the big mix ups I see again and again. People often think that self-love is giving yourself random treats, juice clenses, down days, facials and the like. But these things actually come under the banner of self-care. Self-care is super important for our mental and physical health. And yes it does help our self-love to do these loving acts for ourselves. But self-love is about how you feel about yourself. The clue is in the words. Love is an emotion, care is an action. But they do go hand in hand. When practiced regualrily and fuly the combination is an empowering cocktail!
Self-love is about standing out
Fitting in is not the goal here. Self-love is all about standing out. Standing up for yourself, setting boundaries, considering your needs before saying yes. And basically showing the world that you value yourself. The goal is to have the courage to be who you are proudly instead of trying to be just like everyone else. Think about this. Everyone we know has quirks. What if those quirks suddenly disappeared, wouldn’t that be wierd. It is our quirks that make us unique and those quirks need to be celebrated and shown in all their glory. It’s not about hiding, it’s about showing up for yourself. Every single day.
I have been working on my self-love journey for a long time and I have gathered some of my favourite tools into this downloadable e-workbook so you can start to really begin to train your self-love muscles and fly!
I truly hope this has helped clear up some myths and inspired you to rethink or even start your self -love journey. Self-love has been the biggest gift I ever gave myself and continue to give myself everyday.Â
And I know it makes me happier than I have ever been before.Â
Who doesn’t want to wake up feeling happy to be themselves every day?Â
