After the joys & excesses of Christmas and busy arrival of the new year, the arrival of Valentine’s Day midway through February always feels like a much needed reminder of the importance of love. While the emphasis is usually on romantic love – it’s also a good opportunity to reflect upon our own levels of self-love and consider
Have you been kind & caring towards yourself lately or has self-care fallen to the wayside?
Either way, read on for 6 Simple Daily Practices you can use to turn the tide of care, compassion & kindness inward this month… filling yourself up with love!
So, What is Self-Love Anyway?
Self-Love describes prioritising your own well-being & happiness, including actions that support our physical, psychological & spiritual growth. However, at its core, self-love is a practice – one of putting ourselves first whenever possible, viewing our needs as important and showing ourselves kindness & compassion. It also involves an ongoing & conscious series of decisions regarding the things, people and situations that that feel healthy, authentic and that serve our true purpose. The science behind these seemingly simple practices is compelling: a self-loving mindset switches off the body’s stress response, putting the body in a state of safety and relaxation – therefore creating space for regeneration & healing.
Check out the ideas below, not taking this as an exhaustive or indeed comprehensive list – but choosing what feels right for you at the moment.
1. Harness the Healing Power of Touch
The way we live our lives can sometimes feel like an energy-draining hamster wheel. This perpetual cycle of constantly striving, doing & achieving making us more susceptible to stress. We therefore need methods to help bring energy back into the body. Massage provides a powerful self-care tool, which can help rebalance our energy & teach us how to provide ourselves with the physical and emotional nourishment we so deeply need. It similarly holds the power to improve mood through the release of oxytocin and natural endorphins.
The ancient teachings of Ayurveda highlight that this can be particularly powerful when we pair self-massage with essential oils – the practice of Abhyanga (or applying a particular oil to the body to match your needs) offers a simple way to give ourselves the physical and emotional nourishment we need. Delving a little deeper, the Sanskrit word for oil is, ‘Snehana,’ which translates to ‘love’ – highlighting the fact that, by massaging the body with oil, we’re giving it a dose of loving kindness too.
For a simple way to bring this into your daily life, check out this simple aromatherapy hand soak and massage ritual.
2. Find Your Happy Place
So much of our lives is spent focusing our energy & awareness outwards, which can easily lead to burnout. This highlights the importance of finding our happy place! It might be spending time in nature, going wild swimming, practising yoga, savouring your morning cuppa or simply being at home. Whenever you are feeling low or overwhelmed, take a moment for yourself – connecting with your happy place, either physically or mentally.For those moments when there just isn’t the time, try this one minute meditation to help tune out the noise & busyness and reconnect with your inner place of calm & ease.
3. Surround Yourself with Love
Although we’re not always fully aware of it, we live our lives in relationship with what is around us – the weather, the seasons, what we have in our homes and the way we arrange it. Ancient holistic wellness systems, such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, teach us that our homes can either be a source of positive or negative energy. To start inviting more loving energy into your space, you can begin by listening to your intuition. How does it feel to be in the rooms of your home? Is there plenty of space to think, move and ‘be’? Is there sufficient light, warmth? Are there items within your space that no longer resonate with you – what could you clear or replace to bring you joy?
Look closely at the items and areas in your home that bring you peace, pleasure & enjoyment – finding joy in everyday objects is in itself an act of self-love, as it helps us to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. This is the true art of mindful living.
If overwhelm strikes, try this grounding practice to feel more fully present and in tune with your body.
4. Quit Comparing Yourself
It’s so easy to focus on where we feel we are lacking – comparing ourselves negatively with others, rather than celebrating our strengths and seeing the abundance in our lives. Shifting our perspective from scarcity into an abundance (the belief that we are enough) is the first step in forging a more loving relationship with ourselves and enjoying life more. One effective way to adopt a more abundant approach is through maintaining a regular gratitude practice – making the most of what we have turns it into more. Or, in the wise words of Melodie Beattie,
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough,and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
If you find yourself scrolling through social media, comparing your body or lifestyle with others and finding yourself lacking – give this gratitude practice a go.
5. Nourish Yourself with Healthy Habits
Creating healthy habits is often one of the first steps when it comes to self-love. Start by building a good balance of movement & rest into your daily routine. Often when we think about the health of our body & mind, our first thought is exercise. This is, of course, really important – our body loves movement!
However, our body needs rest too. When we create a good balance between the amount of motion and stillness that we give our bodies, it has a profoundly positive effect on our physical, mental and emotional well-being. The amount of sleep we get each night also has an impact on our day to day lives – try this restorative yoga sequence to help you to relax into a restful night’s rest.
6. Try Mindful Eating
It’s impossible to talk about the importance of self-love and mention nutrition: nourishing your body with healthy food is a powerful form of self-love. This is an important aspect to focus on if you want to create a more loving relationship with your body and your whole self by extension. Food is energy. So, it makes sense that, if you feed your body with unhealthy foods, you’ll feel weighed down and stagnant, whereas fuelling your body with fresh, whole foods and plenty of water will uplift your energy & mood. To start feeling more nourished by your diet, start paying attention to what you’re choosing to eat: do you enjoy the flavour? How do you feel after eating it? As with anything, balance is the key: finding ways to nourish your body with cleaner food choices, whilst also allowing yourself the occasional indulgences.
However, it’s not all about what we put into our bodies – but how we eat it. Eating mindfully transforms eating from yet another daily task to rush through into an act of self-care and love – something to savour, enjoy with full attention and presence. Nutritionist, Rebecca Vincent supports the view that, “mindful eating not only helps to nourish us on a mental level, but also a physiological one. Being in a more relaxed and mindful state when eating allows our digestive system to function at its best, ensuring we can digest and absorb the nutrients from our food efficiently” and emphasises the fact that, “Our digestive system cannot function to its full capacity when we are in a state of stress.”
Try these mindful eating and drinking rituals that will leave you feeling calm & nourished.
Finally… Whatever you do, do it with love
Rather than letting self-care & love become a chore, or another thing on your to-do list – just go with what feels right and works best for you. Let me know if there was anything that particularly resonated with you – and I’d love to hear about the self-love practices that work for you!
With much love,
Katy Ananda x
