Self-Love: Why It Matters and How to Cultivate It in Your Life

Hey everyone! I'm finally back from a mini blog hiatus due to some rebranding! I hope everyone's okay! This week, I have the amazing Samantha on here and she has written a piece about how to cultivate self-love and compassion, and I'm very excited for it! Happy reading! :)

Photo by Kristina Paukshtite

Many of us aren’t necessarily taught what self-love is growing up. Perhaps we know what it means to have compassion for ourselves and are told not to go around beating ourselves up, but sometimes that’s easier said than done.

Without self-compassion and self-love, we can fall into patterns of not speaking to or treating ourselves very well, thinking negatively, and/or feeling like a victim to our circumstances and feeling powerless in our lives.

There’s no shame in realizing when you’ve fallen into negative patterns, but the truth is that it's difficult to feel good or get anything done from that place of victimhood and not feeling good about yourself. Being able to have compassion and love toward yourself are some of the foundations to feeling empowered, happy and fulfilled in your life, and being able to pursue what you really want.

Why It Matters

Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone fails and falls down sometimes. We all do things we look back on and maybe even cringe to remember. But we are all human! There are so many things that most of us relate to doing and experiencing in our lives, that maybe we wish we hadn’t.

Cultivating a sense of self-love in your life helps to make the failures and low moments a little less painful. When you start building a foundation of accepting and loving yourself, the challenges that life brings start to get a little easier. You start to become more resilient, and you can begin to take things less personally.

It also influences the way we act and behave. When you have a strong sense of self-love, you understand your value and tend to treat yourself better and take care of yourself better, too. And when you can do that and follow through on doing the things you say you want to, you start to build trust in yourself.

It all builds on itself. Because when we build our self-belief and self-trust, we can slowly stop relying on validation or answers from other people so much. This also makes it easier and more enjoyable to go after our goals and pursue the things we want in our lives, when we know that we can bounce back from things that are difficult and love ourselves through them.

How to Have Self-Compassion

The way you treat yourself matters. The way you speak to, and about, yourself matters. How you think about yourself matters, too. But the great news is that you can change all of this if you want to. You can change how you think about yourself, how you think about the world, and how you approach problems and challenges. It's never too late to learn a new way of thinking and behaving!

One way to increase compassion towards yourself in times of difficulty or failure is to ask yourself how you would treat a friend in that same situation. Often, we are so quick to be compassionate, caring, understanding and forgiving with others we love when they fall down, but we can be equally as quick to turn on ourselves when those situations happen in our own lives.

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich.

So, next time you’re faced with a difficult circumstance or start thinking negatively about yourself because of something that happened (or didn’t happen), pause and ask yourself what kind of things you would tell a friend or family member. Then, practice giving yourself the same kind of encouragement and care that you would have given them.

How to Practice Self-Love

One way to start increasing your self-love is to simply listen to and honor your body. You are worth taking care of and making a priority! How are you caring for yourself physically? What do you need more (or less) of in your life to feel good? Physical health has a huge effect on mental and emotional health, so it’s absolutely worth paying attention to.

Often, we get so caught up in taking care of other people that we sometimes neglect ourselves – even down to the basics. So, think about how you’re feeling physically. How can you “love up” on your body today – whether that’s rest, food, exercise, mindfulness practices, or whatever else comes to mind for you.

Another thing you can do is remind yourself of all the things you're proud of in your life. Write out a list. And use that list as a reminder of your accomplishments, achievements, and capabilities, whether they are big or small. This can help boost confidence and remind you that you've learned and achieved things before and can absolutely do it again.

Photo by Samson Katt.

You can also use visual cues in general to boost your confidence and remind yourself to have self-compassion. Leave a note on your mirror, write it in your journal, or set reminders on your phone with positive, empowering words for yourself. These can be affirmations, reminders of something you've done, or encouraging sentences that put you in a positive mood. What is something you need to hear? What is something you love about yourself that sometimes you forget, but is actually really awesome? Write that down and allow that visual cue to give you a little boost every time you see it.

Something else to pay attention to is how you speak to, and about, yourself. Try turning any negative self-talk that comes up into more empowering statements. For example, try turning thoughts like “I'm not smart enough to do this” into “this may be hard, and I don't know how to do it yet, but I've learned new things before, and I can try to do it again”.

Listen to and Honor What You Need

Self-love is built through thoughts, actions, and behaviors that support and accept ourselves for who we are. It’s cultivated by doing things that honor and support ourselves and our well-being, no matter the circumstances of our lives.

Everyone deserves some compassion and love, including yourself. And the truth is that learning to love yourself isn’t just about bubble baths and taking care of yourself physically – it’s also about being honest about what you need in your life, practicing treating yourself with kindness instead of judgment, and treating yourself the way you’d like to be treated, too.

If you experience failure, allow yourself to be disappointed, and then remind yourself that you’ve gotten back up before and can do it again, and that it doesn’t make you any less worthy. If you’re going through a tough time, show yourself kindness and listen to what your mind and body truly need in that moment – whether it’s rest, space to grieve, asking for support, or words of encouragement.

You deserve to feel loved and supported, and that can come from within, if you allow it to.

And if you’re wondering where to start on your journey of self-love, try asking yourself this simple question: how can I honor myself and what I truly need today? You might be surprised by the answer and how often we are quite capable of giving ourselves what we need, if we can make space to listen. And believe me, you are worth listening to. Sometimes it just takes some practice and setting an intention to treat yourself like the beautiful, capable, worthy human that you are.

About Samantha Buck

Samantha is a Certified Life & Empowerment Coach for women, specializing in confidence, mindset, and work/life balance. She received her training through the International Coaching Federation and has a bachelor’s degree in foreign language and education. Using a combination of her training, experience, intuition, and different holistic resources, Samantha helps women stop feeling stuck, overcome self-doubt, and end overwhelm so they can feel confident to conquer challenges and have more peace, joy and freedom in their lives.

Website: Empowerment Life Coach for Women, Boise & online (shethewarrior.net)

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