When it comes to your self love journey, we all have different starting points.
Maybe you’re someone who has always loved and appreciated yourself just the way you are or maybe you’re only just beginning your journey of self discovery and self acceptance.
Either way, there’s always room for improvement when it comes to self love. After all, loving yourself is one of the most important things you can do in our life.
In this blog, we will explore practical steps you can take to build your internal foundation and begin your self-love journey, including getting to know yourself, engaging in self-care, setting boundaries, cultivating self-awareness, and forgiving yourself.
With these steps you can begin to cultivate a more confident and loving relationship with yourself. If you’re ready to embark on a journey of self love, read on!
What is self love and why is it important?
Self-love is an essential ingredient for a fulfilling and meaningful life. Self love helps you maintain a healthy relationship with yourself so you can in return have better relationships, experience greater self-fulfillment, and increase your mental well being.
Self love is the internal foundation. It is the internal attitudes and mindset we have with the relationship towards ourselves.
How to Start Your Self Love Journey
To cultivate more self love it’s important to understand the four aspects that make up a strong internal foundation. These four aspects are self discovery, self acceptance, self care, and self respect.
By strengthening each of these aspects you are setting yourself up for a better relationship with yourself and more self confidence.
Self Discovery: Get to Know Yourself
One of the first steps to build a strong internal foundation is diving deep into self discovery. Self discovery is the process of taking an open minded approach to understanding your values, your needs, wants, and limits.
Self discovery is about getting to know yourself on an intimate level and really, genuinely having an unconditional love for yourself. A simple way to get to know yourself is through journaling.
Journaling allows you to reflect on your thoughts, feelings, and experiences and can provide clarity and perspective. It can also serve as a marker to measure your progress.
Wondering what you write in your journal?
- Ask yourself questions as getting to know a friend
- Keep note of things you do and don’t like
- Notice which situations you are and aren’t comfortable in
Self Awareness: Forgive Yourself
Self acceptance is the act of accepting who you are in all your facets whether it be “positive” or “negative”. As you should be the most important person in your life, it’s imperative that you give yourself the same kindness and grace you give to others.
Being able to accept yourself ultimately increases your self confidence.
When you accept yourself, you accept your flaws, mistakes, and past choices too. We all make mistakes yet how often is it that you forgive yourself for those mistakes. Be kind to yourself and practice both self acceptance and self forgiveness.
Self Respect: Practice Setting Boundaries
When you respect yourself you are able to make aligned decisions, have more self confidence, and trust yourself. Boundaries is one of the golden ways to INCREASE YOUR SELF RESPECT. When you set boundaries you communicate that you value and respect yourself and expect others to do the same.
Self Care: Put Yourself First
One of the best things you can do for yourself is to commit to doing something nice for yourself every day—no matter how small it may be.
Self care is the practical actions you take to care for yourself to improve your mental and physical health and increase your innate self value. When you put yourself first you are reinforcing your self value. And the more you put yourself first the easier it becomes.
What are some ways you can start putting yourself first today?
Self love is one of the most important things we can do in our lives—and it doesn’t have to be complicated! You are worthy of love and respect, and you deserve to live a life where you feel good about yourself.
By prioritizing self-love, you can create a positive and nurturing relationship with yourself that can lead to a greater sense of happiness, fulfillment, and well-being.
If you’re ready to begin your self love journey, focus on these internal layers as a starting point and create a self care routine.