Building self-love: 3 daily practices
Self-love is more than just bubble baths, it’s more than a cute slogan on a t-shirt or a snazzy present to yourself. It’s a slow journey filled with understanding who you are, who you were and who you will be - and like all relationships it’s a constant work in progress.
Unfortunately that isn’t the story we’ve been sold. Self-love in the digital age looks like marriage with kids, doctored selfies, jet-setter holidays, luxury apartments and a full bank account. What if I told you that where you are right now is enough, what you’re starting with right now is enough? You probably wouldn’t believe me, and that’s okay. However, by the end of this article, I hope to have changed your mind. Self-love is free to incorporate into your life, but it does take determination and perseverance to not go back to that old relationship with yourself.
It is not vain to love yourself and see all the pieces. It is not narcissistic either. It’s a necessary part to building a healthy life, and all the elements that go hand in hand with that.
What I want you to do with these practices is to see and make peace with all the parts of yourself, and then slowly - over time - fall in love with yourself. Because you’re worth it, and if anyone should end up feeling lucky enough to spend the rest of their life with you - it should be yourself x
CHANGE YOUR PRIMARY VOICE
What does the conversation in your head sound like? Often, your default primary voice is the voice of a critical figure in your childhood. You probably go about your day being told a string of sentences that featured heavily in your life when you were growing up, none of them were true then and none of them are true now.
Your primary voice should be a comforting support system, the one voice in your life that cheers you on when you succeed and helps you continue when things are tough. It doesn’t ask anything in return, but it does require you to constantly push that critical voice into silence and pull that kinder one forward. If you struggle thinking of someone who supported you as a child, imagine your older self talking to your younger self and think of the words you’d have liked to have heard. Then talk to yourself with those words, all day every day.
Have your primary tell you it’s going to be okay, even when it feels like it’s not. Have it tell you how amazing you look even when your nose is all bunged up with hayfever. Have it tell you you’re doing great, even when you just got the answer wrong. Have it tell you it loves you, even on the days you feel unlovable.
Change your primary voice, it will change your life.
DATE YOURSELF
We spend a lot of our lives focusing on getting into, cultivating and continuing romantic relationships. They’re all over the media we consume, from the films we grew up on as children to the stories we now read, the adverts that sell us cars/perfume/sofas, and it’s usually the first question we get asked when we meet up with our closest friends.
Dating is the first step in the game of love, and you’re considered lucky if you can still say that you feel like you’re dating your partner a year on, let alone twenty years on. I’m going to argue that other people aren’t the only individuals we need to date, cultivate and continue the romance with. We need to do that with ourselves too.
So much of the time we spend in a relationship is wasted expecting someone else to be able to know how to love us. In fact most of us will often use other relationships as a crutch for the one we have with ourselves; dating yourself is the first step away from that crutch.
Walk out into the world and treat yourself to your favourite thing once a week that you would want a partner to treat you to. Watch a show, take a trip somewhere new, dress up and dance in your kitchen, eat in your favourite cafe. Whatever you look for someone else to do for you in a relationship, do it for yourself first so that you know how to love yourself and you know what to ask for when someone else asks how love you too.
SMILE
Every day you see yourself in the mirror. When you clean your teeth, when you stand in the changing room, when you go to the toilet at work, when you pass the bakery at lunch, when you fix your hair in your phone camera.
You’re everywhere you go, and unfortunately most people, (especially women) feel uncomfortable with their reflection. So every day I want you to wake up and the first thing I want you to do when you see yourself in a mirror, is to smile at yourself. Every day when you wake up, that’s the first thing you do. Smile even if you don’t want to, even if it feels silly.
We always smile when we see people we love; be they friends, family, pets, partners. And we think they’re beautiful when they smile back; we feel happy to see them, and we know that they are also happy to see us. So smile at yourself, because somewhere inside of you is a kid who’s a little bit hurt, a little bit unsure and all they want is to see you smile - so they know that you’re happy to see them too.
You can find Alexandra on Instagram @solemniko and every other week on her podcast Notes From A Small Room (having the self-love conversations they won’t put on a t-shirt). Alexandra is a writer, artist, coach and creator of the How We Came To Be Project initiaitve. You can find resources on her website for journaling and building a healthy, loving relationship with yourself; as well as business and creative services.
Image: tobetold (for heiter)
