How to Practice Self Love: 7 Practical Ways to Love Yourself
How to practice self love when things are not going your way? In this article you will read about some best practical ways that will help you to understand and embrace self love.
Self-love is the best gift you can give to yourself in this life. It can magically change your life. Some people think self-love is about being selfish and thinking about ourselves only, but we can only love others if we love ourselves.
When we start loving ourselves, everything around us starts to change. Good people, circumstances, and events magically appear in our lives.
The best book I can suggest on self-love is Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It by Kamal Ravikant
Below are 7 self love exercises to put you on a self-love journey:
“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”— Lucille Ball
Each habit we have, has a neuron pathway in our brain. If we don’t love ourselves there will be some patterns in our mind for that. If we want to love ourselves, then we need to replace this old pattern of anger and hate with a new pattern of self-love.
Self Love affirmations can be a great way to consciously reprogram our mind for self-love.
“I am in love with you John”. Replace john with your name and repeat this as many times as you can. Try to incorporate the new feeling of self-love whenever you repeat it, because feeling is very important to change our behavior. If you repeat this sentence with old feelings it will not help.
Whenever you feel you are going in a negative direction, repeat this sentence, and come back to the feeling of self-love.
It will take time to replace old habits with new ones, but don’t give up. Gradually you will see the change.
You need to be greater than your mind, whatever happens, you need to be in a positive state all time. Read the book I mentioned above it will help a lot.
At the end of post you will find a video link to Kamal Ravikant’s self-love story
2. How to Practice Self Love Through Mirror Exercise
Seeing yourself in a mirror and saying “I Love You” can be the best way to express self-love.
In the morning or during the day whenever you come across a mirror just say “I love you, Jenny”. Replace your name with Jenny. Do it every day, make it a habit.
If you love someone deeply, how will you feel when when you say them I Love You.
Feel the same feeling for yourself
Just remember, feeling is the most important thing, feel the bliss of pure love when you repeat it.
Only pure love is the truth, everything else a lie your ego is saying to you.
3. How to Practice Self Love Through Meditation
When we try to change a mental pattern in a conscious state of mind, It takes extreme will power to go against our own old mind.
Meditation detaches us from our old self, so in a meditative state, if we send something to our inner mind (Subconscious mind), it goes directly to the subconscious because in that state no contradictive thoughts are present.
There are a lot of guided meditations you can use. Remember consistency is the key to success. But to use guided meditation properly you need to be good at meditation and concentration.
Check this article to know how to meditate.
At the end of post you will find a link to a Self-Love Meditation.
4. Write Thank You List
What you appreciate comes more in your life. Say thank you for each good thing happening in your life.
Celebrate your small or big wins & appreciate yourself.
keep a gratitude journal with you and write 10 things everyday, you are grateful for. Like:
- I am thankful for this beautiful morning
- I am thankful for my body
- I am thankful for the hot cup of coffee I had this morning
- I am grateful for being able to love myself throughout this day. It feels amazing to love myself
5. Gift Yourself, Take yourself on a Date with Self
When we gift someone we love, we feel too good. But when it comes to ourselves we think we should not waste money on this.
You are the first person in this world, you have to take care of everyone else comes secondary. It’s not selfishness, you can only take care of other people if you take care of yourself and keep yourself happy.
Set a date every month when you will gift something to yourself. If you can not do much just give a red rose to yourself.
Take yourself out on a date once every month. Have some good food in a beautiful restaurant. If you wish you can take other people with you but keep in mind that this is a party you are giving to yourself.
6. Take Care of Self and Your Environment
When a guest comes to your house you make everything clean for his visit.
Do it for yourself also, keep everything clean around you. Wear clean clothes. Feed good food to your body.
These small habits will tell your mind how much you love yourself.
Once your mind is convinced that you love yourself magic starts to happen
7. You are Not Responsible for Other People Experiences
Many people don’t love themselves because situations and people around them are not fine.
We all have come on this planet to live our individual experiences and learn our lessons.
So never feel guilty for loving yourself in such conditions. You are not responsible for what is happening with other people.
If you go with the same negative feeling neither you can help others nor yourself. ‘
But if you go with self-love, improve your life then you will be able to help others.
For now, trust in the higher power and surrender everything to him and focus on self-love.
Higher intelligence can take care of everyone and everything better than you, if you can 100% trust him and let go.
Final Note
Everything outside is a reflection of our inner world.
You may think you have no value, but the creator has given a unique identity to each person in form of a unique face, unique fingerprint, retina, voice, and so on. That means every person matters on this planet.
Love yourself and the whole world will start loving you.
Do share your experiences with self-love and your valuable feedback on these techniques on how to practice self love.
Important Links:
- Kamal Ravikant’s Self-Love Story
- Self-Love Meditation
