Tips for Practicing Self-Love
You can create more happiness and fulfillment in your life by practicing self-love, gratitude, and self-awareness. In this post, I would like to talk with you about practicing self-love. Why self-love is so important, and how you can become better at it.
I am Lisa, a transformational life coach, and for me, practicing self-love was a huge step in my inner transformation and then in changing my life as well.
Table Of Contents
3 Best Tips For Practicing Self-Love
1. Practicing self-love starts with practicing self-acceptance
Accepting yourself helps you to feel that you are already good enough and not to waste your energy on blaming yourself, feeling guilty, or being angry with yourself. Being in peace with yourself makes personal growth much easier and helps you in practicing self-love.
My life is a good example of this. Many life-changing shifts happened to me right after I was accepting something about myself that I didn’t like and was fighting with before.
Accepting yourself doesn’t mean that you like everything about yourself and don’t want to change anything. It means that you value not only the good aspects of your personality but also the ones that you think need some improvement. You accept them both without judgment and without fighting.
One of the best ways to practice unconditional self-acceptance is to get rid of expectations. Expectations about how you should be, think, feel or behave.
The paradox is that change usually happens naturally when we allow ourselves to be who we truly are. Learn to say yes to everything you experience right now. There is nothing right or wrong with your thoughts and feelings. Stop judging or evaluating them, just be yourself. It will give you so much more energy that then you can use to move forward. That’s why practicing self-acceptance not only can help you to feel better but also create some changes.
2. Forgiving yourself is another part of practicing self-love
I have a video about how to forgive yourself. If you notice that sometimes you experience guilt, or have regrets, and it is difficult for you to let those go, then I recommend you to read it. This will be a good contribution to practicing self-love.
3. Become your own best friend.
Another way of practicing self-love is focusing on improving the relationship with yourself instead of trying to get approval, validation, or love from others.
When you love yourself, you treat yourself like a friend. It means that you are supportive and kind. You don’t criticise or treat yourself harshly. It helps you to grow your confidence and self-esteem. Because it is easier to start something new and to try doing something that you’ve never done before when you know that you have your own full support. You know that you will not judge or criticise yourself if something goes wrong. So, learn to be your friend, not an enemy or a judge.
When you feel upset or angry about yourself, or if you get caught on judging yourself, blaming, or feeling guilty, ask yourself this question: If this was not me but a close friend, what will I feel, say or do to support them? And then do it for yourself.
You should be your own best friend. By asking yourself this simple question, you can have important insights, and if you do it regularly, you will see how gradually your relationship with yourself will be changing. As a bonus, you will also see that your relationship with others is improving as well because quite often, other people treat us in the same way we do.
If you respect, support, and love yourself, then you’ll get the same from others. Also, it will be easier for you to finish a toxic or unhealthy relationship if you have one.
You’ll probably start to choose more carefully what kind of people and relationships you want to have in your life. Usually, it happens at the moment after you’ve learned how to give yourself all the love and support that you need and stopped trying to find it in other people.
Practicing self-love is a journey
Practicing self-love is not something that you can do once, it changes forever. Practicing self-love is an everyday choice. I would even say every minute. It can have its ups and downs, and it is completely normal.
My transformation began with this understanding: we can’t become who we want to be until we accept who we really are now. I remember how I started learning to accept and love myself when I didn’t like almost anything about myself.
I was very harsh with myself, and I had unrealistic expectations. But I managed to change it, and this means that you also can. Just be patient, let yourself be not perfect, make mistakes, and experience negative emotions. Remember that practicing self-love is a journey, and try to enjoy it.
And if you feel that you need some help you can always find a transformational coach.
Here you can check my list of 45 Best Affirmations For Self-Love.