What is self love, really?
I'll tell you my perspective...
What are your thoughts like? Do you constantly criticize yourself? Do you beat yourself up, or do you have compassion for making mistakes?
Self love, to me, is truly liking everything that you are - flaws and all. I mean, you're human, aren't you? Name one person in the world that doesn't make mistakes!
I started my self love journey 15 years ago, and I did everything under the sun to find a way to have a super supportive voice in my head.
When I am anxious now, I automatically talk myself down into a safe space.
When I am hurting, I automatically nurture myself.
When I am terrified, I support myself and remind myself that I can do anything, and that it's okay to be afraid.
It's not about "thinking positive thoughts." It's about creating space for the negative ones. Allowing yourself to be upset, but then supporting yourself through it. You are allowed to feel everything that you are feeling, but when you resist it, it hurts. Beating yourself up is not a sign of self love.
Below are some of the biggest things I did to get to a place where I feel GOOD.

This list follows this checklist - don't forget to download yours to start working on these things for yourself.
What I Did To Get To This Beautiful Place
These are in no particular order - I did all of these over many years and a lot of them overlapped.
1. Looking back, I didn't own a television for 10-15 years.
How much time do you think you spent watching tv in the past 10 years? How would your life be different if you spent all that time hanging out with yourself?
A friendship takes hours and hours and hours of spending time together, learning about each other, and understanding why they are the way they are. A friend helps you recognize you're enough as you are, and helps you heal - simply by allowing you to be yourself.
That is what you need to do for you.
Spend time with yourself. Ask yourself the right questions. Get to know the inner workings of you. Allow it all. Allow your mistakes. Allow your emotions. Allow yourself to be exactly who you are. If you don't like you, that voice in your head is going to be tough to change. So go get to know yourself and discover how awesome you actually are.
2. Journaling Saved Me
A part of moving forward is healing from the past.
By definition, a trigger is: distress, typically as a result of arousing feelings or memories associated with a particular traumatic experience.
You will continue to get triggered by events from the past until you heal through them.
I started journaling in letters to help relieve me of all the crap I was holding onto. I couldn't get into journaling, as much as I wanted to, until I started writing letters. It became so easy because that emotion is still inside you, wanting to come out.
"Your body is not a graveyard for your pain. Put it somewhere else."
At the beginning of my most recent relationship, the guy I was seeing said something at a wedding that triggered me. I quietly walked off and cried in private until he found me. He kept apologizing for triggering me, but I kept assuring him it wasn't his fault. The trigger was mine. His words brought something up that was inside me. It had nothing to do with him.
Which brings me to the next topic:
3. Personal Responsibility
Another step toward loving myself completely was taking responsibility for my life.
If you continue to go around blaming others, you will never look inside yourself and heal the part of you that is hurting.
With the example I just mentioned, if I had just sat there and blamed him for upsetting me, I would never have taken the time to get curious about where that trigger came from so I could heal through it. Which just keeps the trigger inside me forever, so it can pop up over and over again.
Your emotions are your responsibility. They are no one else's.
4. Do Scary Things
I'm sure you've heard the saying, "Do one thing a day that scares you," and there is a reason for that.
This builds incredible amounts of confidence!
This doesn't mean you have to do enormous things - these things can be small.
Get up and do karaoke, go see a movie alone, try a class at your local gym, go to a networking event and talk to people, wear something bold you have always wanted to wear, ask your boss for feedback, ask for a raise, have an uncomfortable conversation, perform a random act of kindness, participate in a contest, ask someone out, and the list goes on.
When you're doing these things, it doesn't matter if you're terrible at them. The point is to show yourself you are capable, and that alone builds confidence.
This next one goes hand in hand with this one:
5. Celebrate Yourself
You will never feel like you're moving forward if you don't stop and acknowledge how far you've come.
Did a scary thing? AMAZING!!
Graduated from high school? NICE!!
Took a breath and paused when you were triggered? WOW!!
Journaled for the first time? DAMN!!
The little things are the big things. You are tackling way more than you realize. Be proud of that!
6. Get In Tune With Your Body
80% of your body's signals are sent from your body to your brain, so if your headspace is chaotic, your body is trying to tell you something.
I started doing this by doing daily body check ins. I would bring my awareness to my head and notice what was present, then my heart, my belly, and my root (hips). Notice your hands and your feet.
*I have a meditation to guide you through this that's probably 6 mins long if you'd like it - I'd be happy to send it to you* Just message me here.
I also used yoga to connect my mind to my body. When you live in your head with your thoughts 100% of the time, you can't notice what is happening in your physical self, and you need to know!
7. Adjust Your Environment
Once you can notice what's happening in your body, you can start doing things to shift how your body feels.
Are there any rooms in your house that you don't care to be in? It's probably because the energy is a mess. Take some time to walk through your home and notice how your body feels as you enter each space.
If there are rooms you're not a fan of, try these things:
Rearrange - Feng Shui is real! Energy needs to flow freely through each room
Clean/tidy - a cluttered home leads to a cluttered brain
Add a nice atmosphere - I use candles, salt lamps, palo santo, incense, and soothing music to keep myself calm
My boyfriend walked into my home office last week and said, "I need to spend more time in here!" And what he probably didn't realize, was that he wanted to be in there because it feels good in there.
It's the place I spend the most time, so I always make sure it is clean, the energy feels good, and has a nice ambiance.
It really makes a difference.
8. Find Nutrition That Works For You
Okay, this one is tough, because you may not like what you discover.
What you consume directly affects your energy levels and mood. When you're exhausted all the time (which I was for most of my adult life), there is no way you will have the energy to do any of these other things.
I started with an elimination diet (you can google this and find one that works for you.) and the first day I cut out dairy, I slept through the night for the first time that I can ever remember.
I also discovered almonds affect my sleep.
I discovered beans make my stomach hurt.
Red meat makes me nauseous and physically in pain.
Did I want to cut these things out? Not really. Cheese was my favorite food on the planet. (I had a boyfriend get me a huge block of sharp cheddar cheese for Christmas one year and I cried tears of joy.)
So if I can cut out dairy, so can you.
How you feel in your body directly affects your self esteem. If you feel well rested, bloat-free, and energized, imagine how that can positively affect everything else in your life.
9. Find An Exercise You Love
Alright, so here you are, full of energy, in a better mood, and feeling better about yourself. Now you can add some exercise. BUT....let's make it FUN.
I was a cigarette smoker from age 14-22. I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded. I did NOT exercise.
But then I tried weightlifting. I fell in love with it. Then I tried kickboxing. OMG I fell in love with that, too. I also like getting on my beach cruiser or taking a walk with music.
You might like swimming or hiking. Maybe dance classes are your thing. The point is, you have to try these things to find out. And can't force yourself to do it when you're exhausted and sitting at home in a space that doesn't feel good. So don't try this one first. This will come when you nail some of the other things on the list. Don't rush this.
10. Allow Your Reality - Experience Everything
So much can happen in life that we automatically try to resist. (without realizing it!)
Let's say you get a flat tire on your way to work.
How would you react?
If you're pissed, upset, frustrated, or worried, then you are resisting your reality - You are wishing it was different.
Resistance only brings pain - acceptance brings peace.
If you allow the experience, you may think things like, "I should call my boss and let them know I'll be late. I'm glad I brought a book! I can read while I wait for a tow truck to help me. This has never happened before - cool! I can experience something new."
Now, these thoughts may not be the things that come to your mind...so how do you get there?
I like to think of experiencing everything. Experience the emotions that come up in this situation. Experience the day with wonder. You can even remind yourself that you are a spiritual being having a human experience - so let yourself experience what it's like to be human!
This absolutely takes practice, and takes being aware of our thoughts and actively choosing to change them. The more you do this, the more you are creating new neural pathways in your brain to find the positive automatically.
What you think, you feel. Would you rather think, "OMG my boss will hate me!" (which will make you feel terrible,) or, "Yay! I get to read my book!" (Which feels a lot better!)
This takes consistency and practice - don't worry about this shifting immediately. Just start practicing now!
11. Get Comfortable Feeling Any Emotion
If you are comfortable feeling any emotion, there is nothing you won't do, right?
You'll get up on stage and do karaoke because you're okay feeling embarrassed or nervous. You'll have hard conversations because you're okay feeling fear and sadness. You'll be able to change your life quickly, because you'll move forward through fear and discomfort.
Learning how to feel, process, and release emotions is absolutely a skill. It's not something that can be done in your head. I'll do my best to explain it here, but I learned best by being guided (or starting with a guided journal like this.)
When you feel an emotion, pause. Close your eyes, and notice where you feel the sensations in your body.
With fear you may feel butterflies in your stomach, your hands may be sweaty, and your breathing may quicken.
Notice the sensations in your belly, and let go of the story about why they are there. Notice the physical feeling of them. How would you describe them to someone who has never felt them before?
Allow them completely. Remember, they are just sensations in your body - they are safe to be there.
Imagine opening your arms to them as if they were an innocent child. Let them be there as much as they want to be there.
Breathe into them without judgment for 90-120 seconds. You'll notice they disappear completely, or at least get a lot less intense.
Congratulations! You just let your body do what it knows how to do. (Our minds just get in the way of our healing.)
12. Learn To Say No (Set Boundaries!)
The more you work on this list, the more you'll see these things all overlap. It will be a lot easier to say no to things when you are more in tune with your body (and can feel a reaction telling you that you don't want to do something) and when you're comfortable feeling any emotion (because setting boundaries at first can be wildly uncomfortable.)
I had to learn to choose myself. I was giving all I had to everyone else and it was weighing me down.
I needed those nights on my own to paint until 4am with a bottle of wine.
I needed those weekends to sleep in and get some things done.
I needed to recharge, refuel, and refill my own cup.
Saying no to someone else is saying yes to yourself, and that is always okay.
13. Learn New Things
This one feels like it goes right along with "get out of your comfort zone."
I was 18, had moved to LA from a tiny town in Massachusetts, and remember distinctly how horrible I felt when I was teased for 1. not knowing how to make mashed potatoes, and 2. not knowing who Nelson Mandela was.
When you feel 'less than' or 'not good enough' you have two choices: You can let it beat you down, or you can use it as an opportunity to learn.
The more you learn, the more confident you are.
I went back to school after high school for ten years because I wanted to.
I was so ready to feel comfortable and confident in who I was. Yes, it took many years, but the more I put myself out there, the more I learned. The more I learned, the better I felt. And then I could teach others, too!
I have students look up to me all the time for all the things I have done. I was a firefighter, a yoga instructor, have 2 degrees, a personal trainer, a Reiki Master, a Life Coach and have moved 42 times in 13 years.
None of this makes me better than anyone else. I didn't have more opportunities than anyone else. I lived in my car for a period of time, and was wildly in debt for a lot of it, but I made it work because it was important to me.
You can make it work, too.
There are a ton of free online resources you can use to learn, and you now have the internet at your fingertips. (I spend every Friday in the library!)
Choose yourself, choose your growth, and (along with celebrating yourself along the way) you will find you are building more and more confidence in yourself. (Which is self love!)
14. Date Yourself
This was a fun one.
I was always seeking external validation...
So I chose to date myself.
If anyone ever approached me - "I'm taken! Sorry!"
I took myself on dates, I bought myself flowers, and I spent time with myself doing things I wanted to do.
It turned my focus from finding validation externally to loving on myself. It taught me what I wanted, what I needed, and what I deserved from someone else.
15. Work With Someone Who Is Farther Along Than You
I can not stress enough how powerful having a life coach has been for me.
My coach helped me release any and all shame I was holding.
She helped me work through my money blocks to be more abundant.
She guided me to do terrifying things I never thought I could do.
I will continue to have a coach for the rest of my life. They're farther along than you (not better than you) and can guide you forward in ways you never thought possible.
So, What Now?
If you are overwhelmed at all, pause and take a breath.
Start by printing out this checklist, and bookmark this page so you can return to it when you need to.
Choose one of the things on the list and focus on that for 30-90 days.
If you look at your life in sections of 90 days, you will get so much more accomplished than if you tried to do everything at once.
If you are serious about making changes in your life, it all starts with awareness. Try the Inhale Journal to do a deep dive into the inner workings of who you are.
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