Ignite Your Inner Glow: 7 Tips on How to Cultivate Self-Love

Self-love is the key to your personal happiness and well-being. Get ready to transform the relationship with yourself with these 7 powerful ways how to cultivate self-love.

The most important relationship you will ever have in this lifetime is the relationship with yourself. But let’s be honest, most of the time, this is the hardest one.

We are raised in a society of perfectionism and from an early age we get judged by these standards. As a result, we end up constantly comparing ourselves to the people around us.

By constantly comparing ourselves to the people around us, there is always a lack. And subconsciously, this lack is running our lives. It guides our decision-making process and it determines how we show up in this world.

But it’s not just society, we also have to keep in mind the circumstances of our upbringing, any trauma that we might have experienced in life, ancestral healing, relationships that have left behind a feeling of not being good enough or being unworthy, etc. All these experiences move us further and further away from self-love.

One of my very first yoga teachers always said: ‘It all comes back to self-love’. And yes, that might sound cheesy, but it’s true! Whether you love yourself or not has a huge impact on your daily life and how you live your life in general.

Self-love certainly brings more happiness and well-being into your life. It also encourages you to live a more purposeful life as deep down you know that you deserve it and if you know that you deserve it, you won’t settle for anything less. And that’s a fact!

Wanna learn more about how to cultivate self-love?

Self-love meaning

Self-love is a state of being in which you are able to unconditionally love, value, and appreciate yourself fully for who you truly are. All your strengths, weaknesses, imperfections, and flaws are included.

If you practice self-love it means that you make yourself and your own well-being a priority, physically and mentally.

You treat yourself with kindness and compassion and you speak nicely about yourself and to yourself.

And last but certainly not least, self-love also means that you acknowledge and listen to your dreams and desires.

What are the benefits of self-love?

There are so many benefits of practicing self-love. Below you can find my personal top 4 reasons why practicing self-love is important:

Improved Mental Health: When you practice self-love, you develop a positive self-image this will boost your self-esteem as well as your self-confidence. Self-confidence changes everything and opens you up to inviting more happiness into your life.

Improved Physical Health: When you love and appreciate yourself, you are likely to take better care of yourself e.g. regular exercise, a healthy diet, regular sleeping patterns, etc. and if you feel better physically, you also feel better mentally.

Better Relationships: When you love and accept yourself, you are aware of your needs and you know how to communicate them which allows you to set healthy boundaries in your relationships thus you are building relationships that are true and have the potential for growth.

Greater Fulfillment: When you love and accept yourself, you feel worthy of living the life that you desire and this self-love will drive you forward to make it happen. You won’t settle for anything that does not align with your values.

How to cultivate self-love

Below are 7 self-love practices and self-love exercises to help you grow self-love from within and show you how to cultivate self-love.

Some practices on how to cultivate self-love might resonate more with you than others, but the self-love journey is a very diverse one and it’s good to have different tools to choose from.

There are certainly more self-love practices and self-love exercises out there, but these are the ones I have worked with along my self-love journey and these were the most effective ones for me so far. Hence these are the ones I am sharing with you today.

And now, let’s find out how to cultivate self-love to bring more happiness and well-being into your everyday life.

How to cultivate self-love #1: Look after your physical health

This is a great one to start your self-love journey with!

If you are looking to cultivate self-love, the first thing to do is to make your personal well-being a priority.

On a physical level, this means:

• regular exercise – go for a run, sign up for some fun workout classes, go for a hike, etc. whatever it is that you enjoy doing when it comes to exercise, turn this into a regular healthy self-love habit
• healthy diet – ensure you get all the vitamins that you need with your diet; check if there are any areas of improvement, maybe consider cutting back on sugar, adding more vegetables to your diet, etc.
• get your beauty sleep – ensure good sleeping patterns; think about creating an evening routine and maybe even a morning routine to help you stay on track with your sleeping patterns
• stress management – do you have a work-life balance? How busy is your social calendar? Do you have enough time for yourself to rejuvenate?

If you are looking for healthy self-love habits that you can establish in your daily life, make sure to check out my blog posts Healthy Lifestyle Habits and How to Start a Healthy Lifestyle and Stick with it.

How to cultivate self-love #2: Bring more awareness to your actions

Behind every action that we take is an intention, ‘why’ we want something.

Most of the time, we take action from autopilot mode. But by being more aware of your actions and knowing ‘why’ you want something, your actions become more intentional.

Taking intentional action means you consciously choose how to respond before you respond as you know that every action that you take creates the reality you live in.

And by doing so you make sure that your actions are aligned with your personal core values, your life goals as well as your dreams and desires.

You step out of the victim mode and take responsibility for yourself. Taking responsibility for yourself is an expression of self-worth as well as self-love.

How to cultivate self-love #3: Make self-care a priority

Self-care is everything you do for your physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.

I like to think about self-care as an energetic cleanse and a full-body recharge.

Being with your own energy, without distraction from the outer world, allows you to deeply listen within and see clearly what you/your body need/needs at this moment in time.

By taking care of yourself and listening to your needs, you are demonstrating that you value your own well-being and that you recognize your worth as a person.

Self-care is self-love.

If you are looking to up your self-care game, check out my blog posts below for further self-love habits as well as self-love exercises.

• 12 Ultimate Self-Care Ideas for Spring
• Splish, Splash – 12 Fun and Exciting Self-Care Ideas for Summer
• 12 Feel-Good Self-Care Ideas for Autumn
• 12 Self-Care Ideas for Winter
• How to Practice Self-Care at Work

How to cultivate self-love #4: Set healthy boundaries for yourself

Boundaries protect our physical, mental, and energetic space.

By setting healthy boundaries in your relationships with family, friends, and love relationships as well as at the workplace, you give yourself permission to prioritize your own needs, which can help to reduce stress and ease anxiety.

In addition, knowing how to practice self-love in a relationship allows you to build relationships that are true and have the potential for growth as people clearly know what to expect from you and you know what you can expect from them.

Overall, setting healthy boundaries in relationships means that you respect yourself, that you value yourself, and that you are true to yourself. In fact, it’s a win-win for both parties.

How to cultivate self-love #5: Stop negative self-talk

Negative self-talk is the inner dialogue that we have with ourselves. It’s the voice in our head that feeds us self-limiting beliefs such as ‘I am not good enough’, ‘I am not worthy of XYZ’, etc.

But all these negative beliefs that we keep telling ourselves over and over again at some point turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy and create our reality.

Negative self-talk holds us back from living our true potential. We lose trust in ourselves and apart from that, negative self-talk can have a huge impact on our mental health too.

Words are so powerful, especially the ones that you speak to yourself. Be aware of how you talk to yourself and about yourself.

How to cultivate self-love #6: Discover your purpose

Having a purpose means having a sense of direction and meaning in your life and that you are clear about what you want for yourself.

When we live life in alignment with our purpose, we feel more connected to ourselves as well as the world around us.

But finding your purpose is a commitment to yourself which requires self-love. So yes, this one calls for a chicken-and-egg situation.

In order to find your purpose you must already have cultivated some kind of self-love within and that self-love will be your motivation to keep going.

You won’t settle for anything less. And you shouldn’t. You are the creator of your life.

How to cultivate self-love #7: Practice Gratitude

Gratitude is a beautiful way to cultivate self-love within.

Practicing gratitude brings more happiness into your life and it can boost your mental health and well-being in general.

By focusing on the positive aspects of your life and appreciating yourself and others, you are creating a strong foundation for greater self-love and acceptance.

Want to learn more about how to practice gratitude? No worries, I got you covered!

• How to Start a Gratitude Journal
• 5 Ways to Practice Gratitude Daily
• 44 Daily Gratitude Journal Prompts – Unlock your Inner Joy

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Bonus tip: cultivate self-love with yoga

Another option on how to cultivate self-love is yoga. I know, as a yoga teacher I might be a bit biased, you got me! But my self-love journey started with yoga and yoga taught me A LOT about self-love.

Yoga is an internal practice and one of the biggest lessons yoga teaches us is acceptance. Acceptance for who we are as a person with all our strengths and weaknesses, flaws and imperfections alike. And acceptance is a huge part of the self-love journey. It goes hand in hand with developing more kindness and compassion towards yourself.

Every time you step on the mat you practice self-love. But there are a lot of yoga classes specifically tailored around the theme of self-love such as: ‘yoga for self-love and compassion’, ‘self-love yoga’, ‘yin yoga for self-love’, ‘yoga for self-compassion, etc.

If you are ready to flow and grow self-love within, check out my weekly schedule, I would love to see you on the mat.

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The self-love journey is a journey of unraveling and unfolding. It is a beautiful journey of getting to know yourself but, be prepared for a few surprises along the way.

Along your self-love journey, you are likely to come across a few things that you didn’t know and might not like about yourself, and accepting these flaws, loving them, and allowing them to be, maybe even forgiving, might take a little bit of time.

Take all the time that you need, be patient with yourself, and be curious. Self-love is an opportunity for personal growth, and rest assured, every minute you invest in yourself will pay off.

Is my self-love journey finished? My honest answer would be ‘no’.

Self-love is a topic that goes very deep and the more you dive into this journey of self-discovery and self-love the more there is for you to discover and unravel.

Self-love is a daily job. It is your job and no one else will do it for you.

Is it worth it? Hell Yes!

I am curious to hear about you…what are your thoughts on self-love? What are your self-love habits? What is your personal self-love therapy? Feel free to leave a comment below, can’t wait to start the self-love conversation.

Thank you for your time and your space beautiful warrior,

Nicolle

Featured image: Photo by Chermiti Mohamed on Unsplash