You should go and love yourself!

The concept of self-love was not something I was aware of, until I desperately needed it. I didn`t pay too much attention to my own thoughts, emotions and certainly not my breath. I just existed, floating along pretending to be always having a great time and avoiding confrontations or any real emotions. This lead to years of suppressed emotions and tension. So, as you can guess, it all came back to bite me in the bum.

Our bodies have a truly remarkable wisdom and they will try to communicate with us what we need to hear. The trick is though, we need to be listening. I was certainly not listening to my body and it had a very strong message to tell me, so it needed to get louder and louder for me to hear. One day, my world literally started to spin under my feet, I could not breathe and I went to hospital thinking I was dying. If anyone has ever suffered an anxiety attack you will have guessed straight away, I was having my first anxiety attack. A truly awful experience. What`s worse is, it happened again and again for nearly two years. I was afraid of everything. I took my body and my breath for granted, for too long. I had to begin to listen deeply to myself and my journey of self-love began. My body and my soul wanted to teach me how to breathe again, so I could live in the present moment, authentically.

We are in a relationship with ourselves for our entire lifetime. We listen to our thoughts every day. Self-love is essential for our sustainability and growth as healthy balanced humans.

What do we think of when we hear the words self-love? Is it a positive or negative feeling that arises?  Perhaps we are confused by the notion of self- love or we may possibly feel guilt. When I first started to think about this idea of loving myself, all of these memories from school were sparked in my mind, one of the biggest insults to a girl was to be called “Big-headed” or “She loves herself”. This was not something to strive towards. There is difference of course between being kind and loving towards yourself and being egotistical. As we become older, we realize this and we find out it is actually very important to love yourself. Once you begin to become aware of what kind of relationship you have with yourself and begin to tweak certain patterns, your whole life can be transformed.

Here are some guidelines on how we can send more love our way.

Notice how we speak to ourselves

We have conversations or thoughts in our own minds every day. Begin to bring awareness to some of those thoughts, listen to what you are saying to yourself and notice is it positive or negative. Become aware of how you speak to yourself, are you encouraging and complementary towards yourself or is your conversation laced with self-doubt, judgements or certain distorted beliefs we may have about ourselves.

Once we have started to become aware of some negative self-talk, we can switch it up and say something positive to ourselves. Changing our harsh inner critic into a kind loving voice will be one giant step to our self-loving goal. When you look in the mirror, tell yourself, that you are a bright shiny force and that you can achieve anything you want!

Practice daily positive affirmations is another great activity. We can support ourselves with exactly what we need to hear right now. If we are feeling anxious, we might create an affirmation like “I am fearless, I am safe”. If we are feeling ugly, we can tell ourselves “I am beautiful in every way”. We can use our own words to create affirmations that resonate deeply. Affirm it into your being. Our thoughts precede our emotions and they become behaviors. So be kind to yourself.

Show the universe that you do love yourself through acts of self –love. Buy nutritious food and prepare a beautiful meal for yourself, sit down and savor every bite knowing that your body deserves to be nourished. Keep your home clean and clutter-free so you have a relaxing environment for yourself to easily rest in. Surround yourself with positive people, who treat you well and make you feel good about yourself. Make or buy a delicious bath oil and bathe in it and massage yourself. Yes, you deserve it!

Make time for daily self-love practices like meditation, deep breathing, Yoga, Tai Chi, walking. Create a ritual that works for you, to nurture your body and mind. These practices will help you to release old negative patterns so you can create space for new positive feelings and emotions. This will help you to connect to your true self, you will shed all the layers of negative stuff like judgements and fear so you can emerge like a butterfly, confident and bright in your new skin.

If you don’t have a self-love routine already, put these tips into action today! Start to love and care for yourself. You mind and body need to be nourished to exist as a balanced, healthy and compassionate human being. The more self-love we practice, the better our society will be.

“There is nothing noble about being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.”

– Hindu Proverb

Sinead Mc Kiernan (E-RYT, RPYT, YACEP) is the founder of LoveYoga.eu She is a full-time Yoga teacher based in the West of Ireland and hosts Yoga retreats in Europe. Sinead is an artist, committed tea-drinker and only a 60% Yoga stereotype. Find her at www.loveyoga.eu or @loveyoga.eu on Facebook or Instagram

Comments