The importance of self love

Love is in the air - February is a month of love, roses and chocolates, declaring and celebrating your love for others, or is it? Because there is nothing wrong with putting yourself first and working on self-love.

All too often when we start to get to know people on our programmes and workshops, they start by self depreciating or sharing their lack of self-belief and insecurities.  We create a safe space where we can all work on these areas and advocate working on self-love and self-belief before all else.

The good news is you can work on this yourself and there are massive health and wellbeing benefits. It’s not about being self-absorbed, selfish or narcissistic; practicing self-love can get you in touch with yourself, your wellbeing and ultimately your own happiness. Why wouldn’t you want to live a more positive and happy life?

Before a person is able to practice self-love, we need to understand what it means.  It’s a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological and spiritual growth. Self-love means having a high regard for your own well-being and happiness and means taking care of your own needs and not sacrificing your well-being to please others. Not settling for less than you deserve.

We all have different ways to take care of ourselves and our mental health so finding out what self-love means for you personally is important as it’s different for different people.

Here’s a great article on what it can mean:

https://www.bbrfoundation.org/blog/self-love-and-what-it-means

Our favourites are :

• Prioritising yourself
• Giving yourself a break from self-judgement
• Trusting yourself
• Being true to yourself
• Forgiving yourself when you aren’t being true or nice to yourself

• Listen to your body, eating healthily, but sometimes indulge in your favourite foods
• Take breaks from work and move/stretch.

Self-love motivates you to make healthy choices in life, when you hold yourself in high esteem, you’re more likely to choose things that nurture your well-being and serve you well.

Finally, to practice self-love have a look at these 30 ideas of ways to practice – choose 5 priority areas for you, that resonate with you now and set yourself some goals.

https://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/30-ways-practice-self-love-and-good-yourself.html

Start by being kind, patient, gentle and compassionate to yourself, the way you would with someone else that you care about.

If you would like some help for you and your team, get in touch with us about holding a well-being and resilience workshop for the team or you could start with some coaching sessions to explore what gets in your way and identify what actions you can take to support some self-love.   Remember, you are worth it!