The art of self-love.

What’s the first thing that comes into your head when you see/hear the words ‘self-love’? For most people it usually flows into the idea of self-care. Taking care of your appearance, going to the gym or exercising, taking your medication at the correct time, eating healthy meals. Of course, these are all prime examples of self-care and by all means they are the first steps in keeping ourselves happy and healthy. But today I want you to look at self-love as the way we talk to ourselves, how we nurture ourselves and how most importantly it reflects on the people around us.

I recently read a book by the author ‘Yung Pueblo’ called ‘Inward’ and it’s little passages on how to channel our self-talk has really altered my mindset on how self-love reflects on every interaction and thoughts we have towards the people surrounding us. We cannot expect to be kind towards others if we are not kind towards ourselves. If you’re in the midst of a rough patch between your friendships or relationships, rather than jumping to the first thought of ‘this is all my fault’ or ‘they no longer want to be friends/in a relationship with me’, take a minute to think about how you feel and if something isn’t serving you any longer, simply let it go. If it is something you want to work on, address your feelings and take them into consideration – your feelings are most relevant to you and you have to put yourself first. Once we have listened to ourselves, we have the choice on whether we allow ourselves to listen to others.

It’s so easy to peer into the lives of others either in person or online and instantly criticise our self for not doing enough, not being healthy enough, or not looking/dressing a certain way. But you are not them. You have no idea what they are feeling inside, they could have so many problems inside their head but on the outside to you they look like they’re doing just fine. Jealousy or self-criticism is just our ego’s way of filtering the world through fear-driven emotions that tell us we are not good enough. However, once we challenge our ego by growing in self-love, we no longer feel bitter towards others and our relationships with others can grow so much healthier. Rather than striving to have lives like the influencers or the celebrities on our screens, or even the people we see in the street or at work/school/university, we can accept that our lives are supposed to look the way they do because this is our path and any challenges that come our way we can enter on the premise of self-love in order to make it a better experience. Your appearance is fine too, we are all beautifully unique and one day you will learn to love your imperfections just as much as somebody else does.

As well as listening to the mind and our thoughts, it’s just as important to listen to our bodies. I have been on a bit of a roller-coaster recently, trying to balance jobs, assignments, travel planning, exercising and a social life! My stress levels have been so immense recently that it’s taken a toll on my health – and this is not a good example of self-love. I pick up sickness bugs more easily, I over-sleep and I don’t have a great routine when it comes to eating which has made me feel weak. But how can I ever expect to succeed in anything if I’m not going into it with a healthy body and mindset? Often, we have to take a step back from the dizziness that is the every-day life and do the things we need to in order to feel better, such as having a night off from everything or practicing self-care strategies (like my all-time favourite Lush bubble bath). A key practice of self-love is meditation, something I’ve been actively trying to get into recently. Just five minutes a day spent doing nothing but existing, breathing and clearing your mind is enough to alter your mindset for the rest of the day. Forcing ourselves to be happy and be doing everything all of the time is not realistic and is not genuine or useful. Being honest about what we feel while remaining calm and aware is the real work (a passage from Inward). Allow yourself to take time out, to skip the gym, to take a sick day off work, to say no to things even if that means cancelling plans. You are the most important person in your life, and things will only work in your favour if you allow them. There is no need to be in control all of the time, let go and let life happen, trust your instincts. These are all practices of self-love.

I’m going to leave you with a little quote from Yung Pueblo’s book, about how practicing self-love collectively makes the world a better place, something that I think the world is desperately in need of at the moment:

"Ego is not the just the idea that we are better and more important than others; it most often arises in the form of fear-driven emotions that grip our mind when we no longer believe ourselves capable of great things, when we look down on ourselves and treat others harshly.

Ego makes us see the world through fearful illusions; it makes us give the same punishing treatment we give ourselves to other people.

Ego is a cloud that surrounds consciousness and disturbs its clarity. When we grow our self-love, our ego diminishes; when we purify ourselves and let go of mental burdens, the ego loses it’s power, as we learn to heal ourselves, we do not hate our ego, nor do we become complacent with the limitations it imposes on our lives. The highest happiness, the deepest sense of freedom, an unshakeable peace is possible when the ego no longer reigns, when the love of consciousness can flow without interruption.

The world itself is currently shifting from being ruled by the fear of ego to being liberated by the love of consciousness; what we face internally is a microcosm of what humanity faces globally – this is why growing our self-love is a medicine for our earth.

As always, thanks for reading. If you want to talk to me personally, my inbox is always open.

A x