Everyone talks a lot about self-love as a concept but honestly.. I find it to be more of a practice. This is because it doesn’t really come natural to everyone to show themselves love. Some of us have been stuck patterns of actively disliking ourselves for as long as we can remember. So suddenly starting to love yourself is hard. But listen babes: as hard as it is, it is definitely possible.
Today, I thought I’d share some simple and practical ways that you can start incorporating a lil self-love into your life without it feeling too overwhelming. These are things I regularly do myself and they have really changed my own relationship with myself.
keep the little promises you make to yourself.
The biggest step to building love for yourself is building trust in yourself. Trusting yourself that you will do whatever is best for yourself and whatever helps you reach your highest potential. Imagine if someone in your life always broke the promises they made to you, even the little ones – that would really make it hard to trust them and rely on them.
Well, that concept works exactly the same with yourself. So, from today, start keeping the promises you make to yourself. If you say you’re going to wake up at a certain time to get ready for work, actually do it. If you say you want to finally read that book that’s been collecting dust on your bookshelf, pick it up and start it.
These things may seem inconsquential but they are massive. Following through on these little plans and promises builds on your trust in yourself and when you actually trust yourself, that’s when the magic happens.
spend time with yourself.
I am a huge advocate for enjoying time with yourself. It is one of the biggest things that changed everything for me and that includes the love I have for myself. We all need a little alone time every so often. That time to rest, reevaluate and recalibrate before rejoining everything else going on.
This doesn’t immediately have to be grand solo dates, it’s okay to start smaller. One really easy way to do this is to romanticise the time you already spend alone. Start with something like your bath / shower time and make it a full experience with music you love, a few candles and not rushing through the process.
By spending this time with yourself and making even the smallest moments feel full of self-love has such a positive impact on your relationship with yourself.
audit your surroundings.
Sometimes the things around us (people, social media, what we watch) can have a huge affect on how we view ourselves. If you are constantly consuming negative content or around negative people then of course this is going to impact our inner world.
A gentle audit of the things you see, hear and take in can be pivotal in changing the way you see yourself. Once I stopped engaging with people and content that made me feel crappy, it became a lot easier to actually feel positive about myself.
Now, this isn’t me saying social media is evil and you should ditch all of your friends but it is good to just have a look at what goes on around you and audit if or how this affects your relationship with yourself. I talk about this a little more in my post about how to stop letting social media steal your joy.
learn to notice your energy and support accordingly.
One of the most loving things you can do for yourself is actually pay attention to yourself. Not ignore your needs. Not push through exhaustion. Not force yourself to operate at 100% every single day.
Start noticing your energy and what your mind and body are trying to tell you. Some days you are going to feel motivated, social and productive. Other days you might feel overstimulated, emotional or drained and that’s okay too. Self-love isn’t about expecting yourself to feel perfect all the time, it’s about learning how to support yourself through every version of you.
Instead of punishing yourself for low energy days, try asking yourself what you actually need. Maybe your body needs rest. Maybe your brain needs quiet. Maybe you need comfort, movement, fresh air or a good cry and an early night.
I think a huge part of healing your relationship with yourself is realising that you are not a machine. You are a person and people naturally fluctuate. Once I stopped fighting my own energy and started supporting myself through it instead, I became a lot kinder to myself. The more you listen to yourself, the easier it becomes to trust yourself too.
get to know yourself better.
I truly believe that a lot of people struggle to love themselves because they don’t actually know themselves very well outside of survival mode, expectations or who they’ve had to be for other people.
Getting to know yourself is such an underrated form of self-love. Learning what you genuinely enjoy. What inspires you. What makes you feel calm. What drains you. What your values are. What kind of life actually feels good to you.
Spend time exploring yourself without judgement. Journal your thoughts. Try new hobbies. Notice what kind of content leaves you feeling inspired instead of insecure. Pay attention to the moments where you feel the most like yourself. The more you understand yourself, the easier it becomes to care for yourself properly because you stop treating yourself like a stranger.
⊹ ࣪ ˖ cosy curriculum task ˖ ࣪ ⊹
- Write three little promises to yourself that you’re going to keep for this week.
Keep them realistic and gentle — things that support you, not punish you. Then, at the end of the week, reflect on how it felt to actually follow through for yourself.
Love ya, Cait xo
