02 | Self-Love
Transcript
Hello and welcome. It’s great to have you here today. I’m Mandy from Incremental Health by Mandy, where we help you move from overwhelm to wellness. I’m a bit of an information junkie and a huge fan of health and fitness. I’ve been weightlifting and doing yoga since I was in my teens and running since my 20s. I’ve always been that weirdo that brings their homemade lunches to the office and I’ve been meal prepping since well before it was really trendy. If you are looking for more after this podcast, you can find me at incrementalhealthbymandy on either Instagram or TikTok.
In today’s episode, we are going to be talking all things self-love. What it means, why it matters and how you can practice it. It’s about ensuring that you take care of your own needs. Self-care is not just want you do but it is what you think and feel about yourself as well.
As a recovering people-pleaser, I’ve always struggled to put my own needs ahead of those of others. For me, self-love is a continued daily practice like eating healthy and staying active. I have to work on self-love. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a deep appreciation for myself. I am actually really happy with who I am. I like myself as a human.
Self-love is an overall positive feeling of yourself. There are times when I tend to put others first, often to my own detriment. I’m on this journey just like many of you are, and I continually practice. There are days when I don’t get the balance right. I pick myself up and I start again. But I am happy to be a work in progress.
I know deep down that self-love is not selfishness It is not about being inconsiderate or vain or taking from others. Rather, it’s something much deeper than that. True self-care is actually selfless. It’s about having healthy boundaries to ensure that your needs, not necessarily your wants, are met. Self-love allows you to take care of yourself so that you can be of better service to others. As they say, you can’t pour from an empty cup.
Self-love is about ensuring that you are nourished, well hydrated, and in peak physical condition which means that you can take better care of those around you.
There are four aspects of self-love
Self-awareness
Self-worth
Self-esteem and
Self-care
Self-awareness is being aware of your thoughts, how they affect your emotions and how your emotions impact your actions. They key to self-awareness is emotional intelligence.
Self-awareness might be allowing you the space to remove toxic people from your life or avoiding situations where you know you will create undesirable feelings. If that’s not possible, then self-awareness allows you to redirect your energy in healthy ways so that you can be helpful to yourself and protective of those around you.
Self-awareness can be improved through reflective practices such as journaling.
Self-worth is your internal state of being good enough. Every individual is worthy of loving and belonging. Self-worth is separating “I did something bad” from “I am bad”.
Self-esteem is our concept of ourselves It’s what we think, feel and believe about ourselves. Self-esteem is rating our confidence in our own abilities.
Self-care is the practice of taking actions to preserve or improve our own health. The World Health Organisation includes the prevention of diseases as a part of their definition of self-care. Self-care may also include things like healthy lifestyle choices, nutrition, exercise, environmental factors, social habits, self-management such as hygiene, basic bathing, hand washing, brushing your teeth for example. Self-care also includes risk avoidance. Things like avoiding drugs, practicing safe sex and driving carefully.
So, why does self-love matter?
I think the key for me with self-love is improved mental health. It keeps depression at bay, helps control anxiety and the acceptance of oneself tends to lead to reduced self-criticsm. You know, that negative self-talk that happens in the background.
Self-love generally leads to higher self-esteem. A greater sense of self-appreciationwill improve your life in general. You will be more likely to see yourself as a strong, capable person. And, as a result, you’re more likely to be able to achieve the goals that you have set for yourself.
People with strong self-love generally have the tools that allow them to love others well. So it leads to stronger relationships. It also gives you greater agency, You’ve got more control over your own life because you have the strength to change the things that you need to and the ability to accept those you cannot change.
Self-love has proven to have a positive correlation with better performance in school and at work.
Simplly put, adequate self-love allows you to thrive.
With such a broad definition of self-love, it is not surprising that many people have a slightly different definition. For me, self-love is living in accordance with my values, holding myself accountable to the standards that I have set for myself, making healthy choices (the majority of the time at least), chasing my dreams and celebrating success. For others, it may be saying positive things about yourself, meeting you own needs before others, being assertive, showing compassion, having a positive self-perspective. As Brianna West puts it “True self-care is not bath salts and chocolate cake, it’s making the choice to build a life that you don’t need to escape from”.
“True self-care is not bath salts and chocolate cake; it’s making the choice to build a life that you don’t need to escape from”
So, how do you practice self-love?
Again, this will be different for every person out there. One of the ways to do it is to listen to your body. Breathe, really concentrating on the out breath. Exhaling for longer than inhaling which soothes the parasympathetic nervous system and tends to calm the body entirely.
Eat well. Load yourself up with fruits and veggies. Stay hydrated which helps you to be able to tackle even the simplest of tasks. Take a nap when you are tired. Accept yourself for who you are. Focus on positive self-talk or at least let go of negative stories about yourself. Practice mindfulness, meditate.
Spend time with people that elevate you, people that are supportive, people that are honest, people that are uplifting, people that will call you out on your bullshit and hold you accountable to your values.
Move your body. Whether it is yoga, walking, swimming, surfing, rowing, basketball with friends, running around with your kids at the playground; it really doesn’t matter. Just move.
Manage your stress. Cortisol is such a bad enemy for your body, causes inflammation, predisposes you to immune conditions, it reduces the ability to cop with even the slightest deviation from your plans.
Celebrate success. When you accomplish something, whether it be small or large, take the time to acknowledge it and celebrate it in a way that’s meaningful for you. Celebration can be as small as taking the time to enjoy a cup of tea for completing a challenging document or going out to dinner with friends to celebrate a new promotion or a job that you just got.
Find your happy place. Whether this is a corner of your lounge room or at your local park. It doesn’t really matter. Find somewhere that you can go that you know you will be comfortable.
Implement acts of self-care. Again, this is very different depending on the person. It might be making a cup of tea and sitting and enjoying it while it is hot. Perhaps it is writing in your journal every day. Perhaps it’s eating more fruit and vegetables. Maybe it’s putting moisturiser on your hands before you go to bed. Maybe it is making time to put a face or hair mask on once a week.
Declutter. Cleaning up gives you the freedom to do the more important things. When everything has a place and is put back in it, it’s easy to find stuff so you don’t waste time running around trying to locate your keys before you rush out the door.
Make time for your hobbies. My dear friend, Bryony, makes jewellery. She painstakingly sews beads into intricate shapes. Find something that you enjoy if you don’t already have a hobby, There’s lots of options out there that are very inexpensive. I know there are lots of people out there now that are really concentrating on cost. There are loads of hobbies that you can do that utilise the things that you might have around your home or are quite inexpensive to set up. Most importantly, have fun. Find some way every day just to inject a little bit of fun into your life.
So, what are the ways that you can implement self-love today?
You can let go of perfection. We are not robots. Humans make mistakes. Let go of trying to be perfect. Focus on progress. That’s where the real benefits lie. Stop comparing yourself to other people. As my favourite US president, Theodore Roosevelt says, “comparison is the thief of joy”.
I know we are socialised to be competitive but the truth is there is only one you. Comparing yourself to others is just going to lead to disappointment and the truth is you don’t know what other people are facing into. Very rarely do we have an insight into the inner workings of someone else’s life. So, if you’re comparing yourself to someone else, you’re likely not comparing yourself to their full self.
Live life to the fullest. Chase your dreams. Give it a shot. You might surprise yourself.
Let go of other people’s opinions of you. It’s almost impossible to please everyone. In fact, I think it is impossible to please everyone. So don’t waste your time trying to. Forgive yourself when you make mistakes. Like I said, we’re human. We’re bound to stuff up. We’re bound to make mistakes. We’re bound to trip ourselves up on one thing or another. It’s part of being alive. Forgive yourself.
As I have stated before, recognise that your value doesn’t lie in anything that you do. You are worthy simply being born. Your value doesn’t lie in what you say, how you look, how much you earn, where you live, what you wear, your job title, who your partner is, or whether or not you have children. You are valuable. Just for being you.
Most importantly, believe in yourself. Show yourself a little compassion. I know this is a challenge that many people face into and I believe that self-love is a journey. If we harness the enthusiasm and self-confidence of a toller, we would all be in a really good place. But, somehow, the world impacts us over time. We lose our ability to love ourselves. But it is possible and it’s a practice. It’s something that you need deliberate attention but it is totally worthwhile.
