If I could champion just one thing for the Mums in my community it would be to love themselves.
Self love is often conveyed in the vein of filling up your cup first so you can pour love into others. For me this is a great side effect of self love but it is not and should not be the motivational factor driving more self love.
I whole heartedly believe that the driving force should be to champion the relationship you have with yourself, because at the end of the day that is the most important one in your life.
Self love is not a physical thing that you have or a part of you that you need to fill up like your brain with knowledge or your stomach with food.
Self love is a mental place, a headspace.
When you have love for yourself, for who you are, what your values are, when you do the things that light you up, that is self love. This mindset becomes a foundation for you, your bedrock to use as a springboard to explore and enjoy the things outside of yourself.
How can you tap into what self love feels like?
If you are a spiritually minded person you may belief that we are the embodiment of pure divine love and so can tune into the energy of this and the feelings that accompany it.
This can be a difficult concept to get your head around particularly, if like me, you’ve not experienced pure unconditional love. I’m still learning about what love means to me, how I show it to others and how I show it to myself. You might be the same, this might be a part of your growth journey right now or an area you’d like to embrace and lean into more. I hope this helps…
To tune into this mindset of self love I ask myself ‘What can I do, be or feel that will build me up and help me feel full, content and more in tune with myself’. The way you phrase this and the language you use might be different, so I encourage you to play with that sentence to find something that resonates with you.
What can I do to create a self love mindset?
This is the part where you can get curious, explore and get creative. There is no limit to the ways you can show yourself love and experience that feeling of fullness and groundedness. Here are some of the ways I invite you to try:
An interrupted morning drink
Exercise – in all forms – Walking, hula hooping, yoga, pole dancing… whatever calls to you
Therapy – Coaching, counselling, hypnotherapy, EFT, talking therapies…
Womens circles
Alone time
Meditation
Journalling
Eating well and nourishing your body
Connecting with a higher power – Religion, spiritualism, the universe…
Gifting yourself things – Whenever I buy my coffee (I buy fancy coffee beans) I attach a gift note with a note to myself about how much I love myself and deserve this treat of quality delicious coffee. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.
There is no substitute for self love.
If don’t love the person you are and you don’t reaffirm the love you have for yourself no amount of love, care and attention from outside of yourself will change that.
I invite you to bring some of these ideas into your headspace and start looking at how you can have more self love.