Self Love

What is self love?

Self love is the process of acknowledging, validating, honouring, and respecting yourself!

So, why is self love important? The importance of self love can be traced back to the effects of nurturing yourself. When you nurture and support yourself, you are in a far better position to do the same thing for others in your life. It is basic human nature to support others. The early man lived in tribes where most things were done due to a collective effort! If you support yourself, you will get better at supporting others.

Self love should be separated from narcissistic love. Narcissistic love is self centred and seeks the benefit of oneself only. Self love on the other hand, lays the ground work of loving others.

One of the easiest ways to experience more self love is to start of by increasing your self awareness. Ask yourself questions such as “What would I do or say that will make me honour, respect, validate, and acknowledge myself more?” Please take your time with this question, and allow the answers to organically flow to you, instead of wanting to force them out! Just remember, there is no right or wrong in this.

Simply allow your awareness to express to you, the benefits of giving more self love to yourself! Would I be correct in saying that you do love certain people in your life right now? What would the outcome be if you gave the same love back to yourself?

The second step to expressing and experiencing more self love is to allow more self acceptance in your life. Put simply, fully accept the way that you are right now! Sure, there are and always may be certain things about you that you would like to change. However, you would be in a better position to make those changes if you started with self acceptance. Self acceptance is part of, or complimentary to self love because it validates you holistically, despite the certain things about you that you would like to change.

When you fully accept yourself for the way you are, and what you are, you are giving yourself permission to be yourself! Authenticity leads to more self love! Being yourself is an acknowledgement of your uniqueness. You are unique and special in more ways than one. Please remember, acceptance leads to empowerment. If you operate from a mindset which is empowering, you will be in a far better position to love yourself and love others more!

My daily mantra (which I put together) is "I am at absolute and total peace with everything that I am. It is all perfect according to the divine perfect order!’
By assuring myself of the above statement, I am creating more love for myself, for others around me, and for the world!

Self love is a liberation of yourself, because you are free to fully express love to yourself. I have seen people who are very uncomfortable with the idea of self love. These people may be carrying ideals with them, which dictate their mindset in a way that they get bogged down so deep that very little love is allowed inside them. The love that you have inside yourself can be balanced between the love that you give to yourself, and the love that you receive from others.

I simply love the way that Barbara De Angelis put it “If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren't even giving to yourself.” Once again, it comes back to having a right balance between self love, and the love that you give to others, and the love that you receive from others.

Some of my colleagues in the coaching industry are relationship coaches. The common denominator that they see in their clients is the need to improve on the relationship that these people have with themselves. My belief is that the most important relationship that you will ever have is the one that you have with yourself. Self love is a very effective means to enhance the relationship that you have with yourself.

Now, some people might think that self love is best expressed when buying a product or service for yourself. It is important to spend money on yourself when you feel the need to do so. However, self love can be expressed in more simple means, such as listening to your body! If you realise that your body is telling you to (for example) slow down from your hectic schedule, and take it slowly for the time being, please express self love to yourself by listening to your body!

Looking after your body is also part of self love. Nutrition and exercise play a vital role in the way that you look. So, please consider nutrition and exercise as a means of expressing self love!

Another important consideration when it comes to self love, is to pay particular attention to your self talk! For the next 24 hours, please make a mental note of the things that you say to yourself, about yourself. Some people are inclined to have self talk such as“I am so stupid, I cannot believe that I did that!” A more empowering statement would be “I forgive myself for doing this. As a human being, I can only learn and grow!”

Your self talk will have a massive bearing on your self love. People who are in tune with their self talk, are usually very nurturing and supportive of themselves.
A strong sense of self love will definitely be projected onto the outside world. I have seen time and time again in my clients that more self love leads to an enhanced self image and a powerful self esteem.

The most basic, yet very effective way to have more self love is to do the following exercise. All my coaching clients (be it university students for Life Coaching, or Corporate CEO’s for Executive Coaching) have benefited tremendously from the following exercise:
For the next seven (7) days, please look in the mirror for just 30 seconds upon waking up in the morning, and repeat the following words:
“Thank You, I love you, I forgive you, I support you!”

If this exercise is challenging for you, then please use the power of persistence to keep doing it until it resonates with you in a way that you feel more authentic while doing this exercise.
Thanking yourself and forgiving yourself automatically lead to more self love!

I have been doing this exercise for years now, and I have found it to be of extremely effective in my own life.
The power of self love is empowering, liberating, and encouraging. Once you start having more self love, you will start to attract more love from other people in your life!

Please do remember that self love is an ongoing process. The more you give love to yourself, the more you will enjoy this process!

Quote: “The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself.” Steve Maraboli

To your greater self love,

Ron Prasad (Author, Speaker, Life Coach & Executive Coach)

PS: If you are yet to order my book, please go to www.WelcomeToYourLifeBook.com. For $19.95, you get the book, thousands of dollars in bonus gifts from some of the best personal development experts in the world (such as Bob Proctor, Marci Shimoff, Dr Joe Rubino), and you get to give back to the community by supporting my charity! I appreciate your support