4 Lessons learnt from a Summer of Self-love

This summer I decided to give myself a gift of total immersion into self-love. I dedicated 5 weeks into actively practicing self-love, prioritising my relationship with myself.

It has been the most amazing journey.

I feel alive in a way I haven’t in such a long time.

I know who I am and where I am going.

And in all my years of working with personal development I can honestly say this time has been the most life enriching I have spent.

As you might of guessed, I seriously cannot reccomend dedicating a period of your life to making your relationship with yourself a priority.

This is what I learnt from my Summer of Self-Love. And if you want to find out what I did and how I did it then check out my instagram!

Know your mission

Self-love can sometimes seem like a fluffy, ambigous phrase. So when I decided to launch on this deep dive into my relationship with myself I wanted some clear direction. So I gave myself a mission. At the begining of the summer I was honestly feeling like a deflated balloon. I had lost sense of purpose. I didn’t know where I was going in life and even if I wanted to get there. So for me my summer of self love was dedicated to healing, nuturing the roots of my soul. Having this mission made my summer of self-love so powerful. As with everything in life if you know why you are doing something creates extremely powerful results. The motivation and the shift in conciousness is stronger and impacts you and your life on a deep level.

Lesson number 1: is simply is know your mission, know why you want to do whatever it is that you are trying to do.

Isolation is a powerful catalyst

Now you might think after the events of 2020 that I’d be sick to death of isolation. However, I also know myself. If I am going truly dedicate myself to massive action I need full immersion. So I created an at home self-love retreat. I planned it out as I would if I had been on an away from home retreat. Cut myself off from the outside world, family everything. And followed an intensive program of self-love. And wow was it a powerful catalyst! Now I get I was lucky to be in a position to be able to do this. However I have to underline that if you really want to dedicate yourself to a new path, a new action, a new habit or personal growth then deep immersion, at least 24 hours will give you the best possible start

Lesson number 2: If you want to make a significant change isolation and deep immersion is the pattern breaker you need.

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!

Knowing your values = self respect (a foundation of self-love)

Part of my mission was to find my path again. And the best way to do that is to get back to the roots. Self respect is a foundation of self-love. And I know that to really respect myself I have to life a life of integrity . Basically live a life that is aligned with your values. At the start of the summer I felt like mylife was out of kilter and something was missing. Experience has taught me that if I feel like that I am not living aligned with my values. Our values do change throughout our life, so checking in with them every few years is a great way to feel happier in lfe and within yourself.

What surprised me about this process was when I clearly defined my values how much my self respected sored exponentially. When you respect yourself, loving yourself is so much easier to do.

Lesson number 3: Living a life aligned with your values is the key to self respect, which makes it easy to love yourself.

the best way to love yourself is to do something for your future self

This really was the biggest lesson of all about incorperating self-love into my everyday. Once I came out of my isolated retreat practicing self-love was of course harded. Until I realised Sometimes self-love is about getting sH*T done. Paying bills, doing that daily yoga or in my case fighting with the garden strimmer to cut down the weeds. At first I fought against these mundane and often uninspiring tasks. However, the more I did them the more I realised how much joy they brought afterwards. So fighting with that monster of a garden strimmer was worth it when sipping wine in my beautiful garden of an evening. So I begin to do acts of self-love for my future me. Asking myself what would I like, how could I make something easier for me, what would bring me joy. Basically think about my future self with love and do things for her the way I might do to support and nourish a loved one. P-O-W-E-R-F-U-L.

Honouring and loving myself became the reason why I would get stuff done. Not only did I get things done that would usually have been a struggle, I also felt loved, cared for and valued.

Lesson number 4: Love your future self and do acts in the present that will make them feel cared for, loved and valued. * And don’t forget to thank your past-self when you reap the benefits!

Being able to say you truly love yourself and show up for yourself the same way you would for partner takes work. But the benefits of that work are tenfold. Next time you have a holiday coming up why not take some time to invest in yourself and dive into your relationship with you?

Your future self will thank you for it

Our Celtic and Nordic ancestors were deeply connected with nature. Shamanically, spiritually & personally. Discover how you can create your own spiritual path connected with nature with the Wheel of the Year.