Self love. What a simple idea with so many layers to understanding it. Of course it’s about looking in the mirror and feeling good things about yourself, but it also runs much deeper than to just leave it at that.
Self love is also about allowing yourself, it’s about trusting yourself, it’s about being true to yourself, and it’s about being nice to yourself. It’s about setting healthy boundaries and forgiving yourself when you don’t get any of the above right. It’s also about so much more than this, because often getting there takes a lot of deep inner work and reflection. And tears and life changes if you’re anything like me.
Lately though, my self-loving is looking a lot like self care. I’ve been trying to go back to the basics of listening to my body. Taking breaks from work to stretch and move around. Putting the phone down to connect to myself and do something creative. Eating a ton of veggies, but sometimes eating the chocolate too. And baths. Lots of baths – sometimes with red wine.
So, on my quest to bring a little more goodness into my life, I asked 12 amazing women, “What does self love mean to you?”. Read on for their answers that will hopefully bring a bit more into yours too.
“Self love to me means accepting yourself as you are in this very moment for everything that you are. Your shadows, your light, your better qualities and your more difficult ones. It means accepting your emotions for what they are, and your life for how it has unfolded, as it is all a reflection of you.”
– Sia
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“Self-love is my unequivocal trust in listening and leading life from my heart. This means loving and strengthening my self-awareness and ability to hear, trust, and act from my intuition and heart-centre. It’s the practice of coming home to myself, of truly knowing and remembering myself and being guided by a force beyond the me, toward the we.
This kind of self-love reminds me that I can’t find the answer, the inspiration, the will or the path on Instagram, not on Google, or through a friend — but right inside my very own being.
Do this and watch your life, spirit and love transform.”
– Tonya
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“Self-love to me is putting your physical, emotional and mental well-being first. It is our responsibility to take care of ourselves. Make dates with yourself to do only what truly nourishes your soul. When we feel in our element and put forward our best selves, that is when we have the most love and light to share. Don’t be afraid to love YOU!”
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“Self-love to me is a balancing act between patience and trial and error. Self-love isn’t something you just wake up and acquire. It’s an ongoing process that honestly never ends, and there’s no right or wrong way to love your self. I used to glamorize self-love but I’ve learned that most of the process is ugly, gritty, and painful. But much like sexuality and emotion, self-love runs on a spectrum — which means the journey isn’t always upwards or forward. Self-love means self-reflection, there’s no way to love yourself entirely if you don’t get to know yourself first!”
– Keiko
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“Self love to me is being kind, patient, gentle and compassionate to yourself, the way you would with someone else that you care about. I try to care for myself the way I would someone else that I care for – that is how I think about it. Doing things that make me feel good, and knowing I am deserving is all part of self-love to me.”
– Sarah
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“To me, Self-love is an on-going process of deep-looking, tender care & quiet cultivation. It’s learning your own language—both the emotional and physical languages. There is a fine art to discerning your gut turns, and learning them leads to a deeper understanding of your intuition. Self-love is taking the time to understand your cycles, needs and power while simultaneously calling in people who understand their own cycles, needs and power. We must extend grace to ourselves often & trust that there is an opportunity to learn something about ourselves when we’ve made a mistake. It’s remembering that our mistakes do not define us. Self-love is the ability to hold all of yourself and love that person for everything they are.”
– Azia
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“Self Love to me is looking into the mirror and seeing the areas that need improvement but also seeing areas that you are damn proud of you. It is being okay with settling into a night by yourself and enjoying your own company. It’s taking yourself shopping, or out for a drink. Self love is knowing you are not perfect and never will be but so PROUD of who you are, and what you have become. Self love will come and go, some moments will be harder than others. However, at the end of every day I will look into the mirror and remember that I am here because I never gave up on myself.”
– Sam
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“Self love to me means listening to yourself – properly listening to what you need every now and again. Sometimes my heart might be saying, “I need creativity!” Other times it might be saying, “I need a quiet space”. Sometimes it’s hard to get the things that you need as a mother because you can’t always do what you want when you want, but for me I feel like it’s OK to prioritise those needs once in a while because it’s exhausting putting everyone else first. You don’t need to “earn it” (you always have already), it’s OK to just do it. Self love is listening to yourself, hearing yourself, and acting like you would if a friend was talking to you. You’d do anything to help her. So help her :)”
– Chloe
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“Self love to me means being gentle and forgiving with yourself, and also maintaining strong boundaries and committing to doing your best in the world.”
– Annabel
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“To me, self love has meant discovering who I am without needing the approval or love from others. I admit, I have always been a people pleaser. I have always worried about if my friends like me, or if some guy thought I was attractive, or if my family thought I talked too much. I have especially always been worried to lose people if I stood up for myself when they treated me wrong. In elementary school I needed to have friends to hang out with at recess, and in high school I thought I would be complete if I had a boyfriend. Then I realized that “people” will never fill the void of love that I needed to give to myself. I started focusing on what only I liked to do, what music only I liked, what felt right or didn’t to me, listening to only myself and my intuition, saying no, and realizing that choosing myself was not selfish. Instead of trying to seek out what I thought I needed in other people, I created the perfect relationship and friendship that I have always wanted, all on my own.”
– Nicole
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“To truly love yourself you have to look deep into your soul, meet all those parts of yourself you do not like and face them. Self-care helps manage the symptoms and makes life manageable. Self-love is meeting all the parts of yourself you do not like and unlearning behaviors you have taken on to survive and get by. Loving yourself is unlearning and relearning. Find that person you were meant to be. Be your own hero and embrace yourself. Scars and all.”
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“Self love is a never-ending journey into the deepest parts of myself. It is a willingness to surrender all for divine will and divine love, and to embody that so passionately, so freely and so purely. It means letting that unrelenting frequency of the most intense devotion to love pour out of me to send ripples of this beauty within, out into the world. Ripples of freedom. It is the deepest most heartfelt gratitude that has me infinitely bowing to the god and the goddess for their faith in me to be here, in this body, and at this time to be in service to the pure divine hearts of this world. Amen.”
– Sarah
