The term “self-love” seems to be everywhere. Yes, wonderful, great. Who doesn’t want to love who they are and accept themselves flaws and all? But in reality, it can be so elusive to actually do just that. So how do you fall in love with yourself, when that loud critic in your head is always judging, pushing, comparing and you’re coming up short. It seems to be so much easier to do with someone else—which is why we always focus on falling in love with a partner.
We’ve been conditioned to think that that wonderful feeling of being “in love” requires another person to feel it. What if you could create that same magical, all-is-right-in-the-world feeling without needing anyone else? You absolutely can, friend, and what’s more, if you fall in love with amazing you, all your other relationships around you will inevitably improve … they just do. And it doesn’t have to take years, it can happen in small ways, every day. It takes practice, intention, and patience. And the payoff is huge, game-changing, as you’ll feel happier, centered, and have an overall better outlook about everything. Here are 10 simple ways to fall in love with yourself:
1. Praise: Find ways to spotlight the good you’re doing throughout your day. Notice how thoughtful you were to a loved one, how kind you were to a stranger, or how hard you pushed yourself out of your comfort zone. Take that moment to call out everything to yourself. Take nothing about you for granted. You will start to like this person who is brave, wise, and interesting. But you have to be aware of these attributes first.
2. Do something new: Flex your muscles and try something you’ve wanted to do for a while now and have put off. Nothing grows out self-esteem like becoming more of the person you’ve always wanted to be with that new hobby, activity, or experience you’ve conquered. Bonus points if it scares the Bojangles out of you.
3. Get to know yourself: Journal your thoughts and feelings by processing your day, so you deep dive into who you are and feel current in your life, instead of stuffing complicated feelings down, creating disconnection from yourself. It’s easy to love someone you know intimately.
4. Treat people how you want to be treated: Try to authentically bring connection, kindness, and joy to those around you. It elevates your own state, and people inevitably mirror that back to you. You like who you are, and others are confirming that belief you already have about yourself: you’re uplifting to be around.
5. Meditation: To help you drop past all your busy-ness, thoughts, and feelings and move right into being. Start an easy practice of 10 minutes of silent breathwork, noticing thoughts as they come and moving your awareness back to your breath, so you can remember you’re a spirit having a human experience, and presence in meditation reminds you of that truth.
6. Acceptance: Let everything around you be as it is, stop railing against how you think it should be instead. Practice having more patience and tolerance, trusting how things are playing out, knowing they inevitably change. You’ll be able to roll with what’s unfolding and find more peace.
7. You’re the one you’ve been looking for: Only you can love yourself fully and completely. There’s no one coming to rescue you or magically fix your life. It’s you. Constantly reminding yourself of this will make you your own savior in your amazing life story. It’s empowering to remember this truth when you want to fantasize that someone else can be that solution instead. They can’t.
8. Forgiveness: Forgive yourself for things in the past. If you need to seek forgiveness or make an apology to someone, do it, so you can feel lighter. If you hold a grudge toward yourself, remember you did the best you could at the time with the tools you had. You can truly fall for yourself when you let yourself off the hook. Self-loathing morphs into self-love, voila!
9. Gratitude: Before bed, list three things about yourself you did well that day, and three that you might do differently tomorrow. Who can’t be in love with that person moving the needle forward, steeped in their personal development?
10. Body care: Fill that beautiful vessel with nutritious food, sunshine, oxygen, hydration, and supplements! Let it rest, push the heart rate, slough off dry skin, moisturize, bathe and nurture it. The more you love your body, the more it loves you back.
It’s a journey, friends, to fully embody self-love, but it’s yours to claim, and all these small ways add up to a shift in seeing yourself in a more favorable light. Your whole life then starts to calibrate around you, reflecting back how you feel about yourself… Talk about upgrades: relationships, finances, opportunities. It’s the secret sauce to an abundant life.
Ryan Haddon, ACC, CH, is a certified Life and Spiritual Coach, as well as a hypnotherapist. She works remotely with clients globally, helping them create their best life. You can follow her on IG @ryanhaddoncoach or visit her website www.ryanhaddon.com.
