8 Healthy Practices on What Self-Love Means

Bust the myths to Self-Love to discover what it actually means with 8 healthy practices.

When I first came to realise that I needed to love myself, I had to confess that I didn’t quite know how and what it truly meant.

At first, I found out that I had many misconceptions about what self-love involves. These are some of the things I had discovered…

Self-love is not about going for massages.

Self-love is not self-indulgence with food.

Self-love is not about buying some designer bag to help pull me out of depression.

Nor is self-love meant to be kept vague (because till this day, many people still have little idea what self-love truly involves).

What Self-Love Actually Means

Instead, I discovered that Self-Love is something that needs to be worked on. It’s a commitment to ourselves and an everyday practice. My discoveries led me to writing Self-Love Secrets. From my book, I’d like to summarise the 8 areas on what self-love actually is and involves…

1. Setting Healthy Boundaries

Self-love is knowing when to stop people pleasing, in the need for approval and validation. Setting healthy boundaries allows us to conserve our energies and prevents us from getting exhausted for taking care of others excessively over ourselves. We learn to recognise that our needs are important too.

“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others. “— Brené Brown

2. Healing Our Inner Child

Healing our wounded inner child is an act of self-love. We work through any unresolved trauma in the past where she or he may have felt abandoned, uncared for or alone. Through an integrative process, we reclaim the parts of ourselves that we have neglected or rejected previously. Healing our inner child restores our heart center back to wholeness.

“The inner child in us is still alive, and this child in us may still have wounds within.” Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh

3. Stop Criticising and Practice Self-Compassion

If we love ourselves, we would stop criticising ourselves inwards. However, for the most part, we are in the habit of saying nasty things about ourselves. We reject ourselves due to our imperfections and we are our own harshest critic. To practice unconditional self-love is to accept ourselves fully, be compassionate and to be gentle with ourselves.

“You have been criticising yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” — Louise Hay

4. Self-forgiveness and Letting Go of the Past

Self-forgiveness is an act of loving ourselves unconditionally. We are willing to forgive ourselves even if we have made mistakes in the past. Keeping the past alive is to keep ourselves trapped. We work on letting go of the past and freeing ourselves from pain, blame and judgment.

“Forgiveness is the greatest gift that you can give to yourself.” — Maya Angelou

5. Being Authentic and Owning Who We Are

We work on dismantling our false selves and give up on trying to be who we are not. It could be that we accept that we are introverts, have heightened sensitivities or certain peculiarities that are often deemed undesirable by society. Hence, instead of rejecting our personalities, we learn to accept ourselves as we are. We are willing to be vulnerable and we show up courageously as our authentic selves.

“If you are your authentic self, you have no competition.” anonymous

6. Connecting to Our Spiritual Self

Loving ourselves with all human imperfections is to see ourselves through the lens of our Spiritual Self. We recognise that we are spirit in a human experience and that we are here on Earth to experience the alignment with our soul essence — Love. Through meditation, we discover that we are Divine Love finding itself over and over again through the human experience.

“The cosmos is within us, we’re made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” Carl Sagan

7. Making Healthy Choices

Self-love is making healthy choices because we recognise the importance of taking care of ourselves. We make self-care choices that nourishes our body, rather than abuse it. Instead of drugging ourselves, we choose to be awake and alive. Even though some of the choices may not appear to be pleasant, we make decisions that ultimately serve us in a healthy and balanced way.

“Be healthy and take care of yourself, but be happy with the beautiful things that make you, you.” Beyonce

8. Investing in Our Growth

Self-love is honouring our innate desire to grow. If we are stuck, our energies get stagnant. We stifle ourselves if we don’t give ourselves the chance to expand. Our life energy becomes blocked. Investing in ourselves shifts us into expansion, giving us the chance to align with our potential and to live in purpose. It is when we shine with our greatest brilliance.

“Self-love is the greatest investment you can ever make in yourself. It pays dividends in your well-being at every level.” — Author

What Self-Love Is: A Wholistic Perspective

To sum up, bust any superficial meaning of what it means to practice self-love. While going for a massage or buying ourselves something nice makes us feel good, let’s recognise that these temporary feelings don’t last. We can go for a massage or get a new designer bag but we can continue to feel broken if we cannot forgive ourselves, for instance.

Self-love is to love ourselves wholly (in the mind, body, heart and spirit). Everyone deserves love, it is our birthright. So why deny it to ourselves?

Magic happens when we incorporate all the above mentioned elements in self-love practices. We are in divine expression when we operate from our spiritual heart center. Strong and authentic self-love helps us to align with our highest potential and to live our best life!

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