How You Can Love Yourself (A Little More)

It can be challenging to love yourself fully if you are not really honest with yourself. Honest about the things you have done, the people you have hurt, including the behaviours that have hurt you in the past or hurt you still today. This is not to add stress or tell you that you’re wrong... Learning to love yourself again takes time and effort like any relationship, and it’s the most important one you will ever have in your life.

A good place to begin is with self-compassion. It's here you will grasp a better understanding of how and why even the darkest, ugliest parts have served you (and may still be serving you). Self compassion is a key ingredient when learning to love yourself more. It's acceptable (and encouraged) to learn to be grateful for our anger, ego & our “sassy” sides, as they have protected us, stood up for us and in some cases... They have saved us.

People say you write the book/article/blog you once needed and it's important to mention that what I’m offering here are just some of the ways that really helped me, in hopes they benefit you too. I believe that while everyone’s process looks a little different, the journey “home” is the same for all humans here on this spinning round rock called Earth. So, the big question remains...

How do I cultivate self compassion? Firstly, know that you are allowed to celebrate where you are today. You are allowed to be excited about where you are headed, even if you don’t know where it is or what it looks like. By reflecting on what you have been through can help with cultivating self-compassion, even if you are going through really hard times now.

Pro Tip: Journaling helped me here. Writing it all down was great for my own personal reflection and introspection and I now go back and read over those pages whenever I need a reminder of how far I have come!

Writing letters to myself and to those that I hurt is what helped me forgive and accept myself over and over again. I gained a higher level of understanding of myself when I wrote the pages of why I felt a certain way, why I did a certain thing. It by no means excused any behaviour, but gave me permission to feel what I needed to feel, face parts of myself I liked to keep hidden. I also realised that forgiving myself was more important than forgiving others, which is sometimes really hard to do.

You could try starting with “what would you say to your younger self (inner child) to help them through a tough time they went through?”

Next we can explore basic needs and self-care, then learning to trust ourselves again, which will help develop a higher level of self acceptance and self love.