When you are on an airplane, you are always told to put on your own oxygen mask first, before you can help others. The same principle applies to self love. If you don´t love yourself first, you are not able to give out love unconditionally and without expectations to others.

Therefore self love is the most selfish AND the most humanitarian act of love there is..

..but make no mistake, learning to love yourself is not for the faint hearted and will take some serious courage and commitment.

But despite all that, learning to love yourself is the best gift you can ever give yourself. It is the key to unlocking your full potential and to living a truly fulfilled life..🗝️

Now, you have probably heard the advice: ‘don’t care about what others think’, or ‘just be nice to yourself’. We all know that we shouldn´t, but yet we still do.

As easy as this advice may sound, most of our thoughts and behaviors are unconscious patterns. Self love is not a rational process, it requires more than just your mind. Taking that into account, here are 10 steps toward self love that will help you transform on a deeper level 🤍

1. Understand What Self Love Is

Firstly, it is important to understand what self love actually is. Self love is often mistaken with a fake sense of self-esteem that is driven by the ego. Don’t fall for this! 😈

The ego is driven by fear, while true self love comes from a place of love. Self love means to follow your inner guidance (your soul’s true North), while the ego will trick you into following what others do, in order to feel accepted.

Read my post The difference between self love and a strong ego for more details and examples.

2. Meditation

Your whole world is created by your thoughts. Regardless of all external circumstances and events, you always have a choice in how you react to them.

Your thoughts may feel like a part of you. Maybe you feel that you cannot control them, but that really is a false belief. Just another thought.

By disconnecting who you are from the stories you tell yourself (your identity), you are holding the key to a happy life full of love.

Because this is not a rational process, you won’t get to this point through rationalization (that is why advice often does not stick).

[Read that again..☝️]

The way you can learn to disconnect from your thoughts, and see your patterns for what they are, is meditation. Meditation is a practice that you will become better at the more you do it. I promise that it is absolutely worth it! 🙏

>>> To get started, check out my Guide to Meditation and try this meditation for Self Love.

3. Ask Yourself This Question

To practice self love on a daily basis, you need to make it conscious and make it into a habit.

With every small decision you make, ask yourself: If I truly love myself, what would I do? Most of the time, your intuition will instantly know the answer. Go with that.

There will be situations where you run into choosing between what you want and what someone else wants. You can handle this by asking what your soul’s needs are, and how you can handle the situation from a place of love.

Decisions that go against your gut, and that are against your core values, are the important ones. Are you sabotaging yourself on a deep level? That’s no good!

Decisions about who will vacuum the house, or an ask for help from a person you love, can be resolved from a place of meeting in the middle and from a place of love (both for yourself and for the other person).

4. Work With Your Root Chakra

A lack of self love is in many cases related to a disbalance in the root chakra. The root chakra is the chakra that is located around the bottom of our spine, and it is related to our sense of safety and security.

If you have experienced (and are experiencing) feeling of lack when it comes to physical safety and acceptance by others, this needs your attention.

Practice healing and stabilizing your root chakra through food, exercises, meditation, grounding exercises, affirmations and visualizations. This will be the root (literally) and basis required for you to love yourself.

In my Complete guide to the 7 chakras, you can find all the information about how to work with your chakras, and with the root chakra in specific.

5. Pay Attention To Your Energy

Your energy is everything, and everything is energy. To learn how to love yourself, it is important to create an environment that sets you up to feel more upbeat. This is a conscous choice that needs your awareness and attention.

👉 Write down 3 emotions that you want to feel every day, and think of small things you can do to feel them. For example:

• play your favorite song
• listen to uplifting music while you are working
• smile to a stranger
• practice gratitude
• do some stretches
• dance
• go outside
• etc..

Check in with how your body feels multiple times during the day, and do something small to lift up your energy in that moment.

6. Realize That You Are Not Your Thoughts

This is probably THE most important realization you can ever make. You are not your thoughts.

Even though we often feel prisoners of our own thoughts, we don’t have to be! By becoming aware of what you are thinking, you can see your thoughts for what they are and consciously decide to replace them with more positive ones.

Everytime you make a decision, try to think what is driving you to make that decision. Is it from a place of self love, or is it because of fear (of a certain outcome)?

Decide how you can replace that negative thought with a more positive one, and how you can take a decision out of self love.

7. Take Your Power Back

To learn to love yourself, you need to realize that you don’t have to be fixed, because you are not broken. You are perfect as you are in all your imperfection.

Are there things you don’t like about yourself? Probably! Every single human carries both good and evil inside. So do you. Be aware of that, embrace that, and also realize that you always have the free will to choose your response.

Maybe you were not aware of this in the past, but now you are. So be kind to yourself, and understand that any ‘mistakes’ you may have made came from a place of fear and hurt (visualize hugging your inner child! See the meditation below 🙂).

No matter what happened in the past, you are living right now. Take your power back and decide that, from now on, you will choose to make decisions only from a place of love 🤍

Try this meditation to heal your inner child:

8. Become Aware Of Your Stories

What are the stories that you tell yourself about your life? How do you see yourself? What is your identity? What do you like about yourself? What don’t you like about yourself? Write this down.

These stories that you tell yourself about your life, your past, your identity and your possibilities in the future, are just beliefs. They are completely subjectif. It is not who you are at the core.

This also means that you can see your stories for what they are, and decide to not let any of them hold you back in life!

If you are not feeling that you can disconnect from these ideas, get into meditation. It will really help you change your perspective 🙂🙏

9. Your Past

Your past is another story that might hold you back from getting what you want in life. Often our past becomes our anchor. It slows down everything in our life.

Decide that you are not a victim, you are not your stories, you are not your past. You are just you.

Every choice you make matters. From this moment on, decide to choose from a place of self love and guidance from your soul. Let go of expectations from society, other people or fear that should really be in the past. (Try to visualize releasing this weight to the earth. See point #11))

Sometimes old fears become such a heavy burden that we cannot see them for what they are, nor let go of them. Letting go of fears can take serious work and can require a lot of courage (because of the fear of getting hurt again).

👉 For some tips, you might also like to check out my post How to not let fear hold you back.

If this is something you are really struggling with, you may want to consider to get help from a professional.

11. Visualizations

Visualizations are my absolute favorite way to work with the mind. It is a great way to replace your negative thought patterns with more positive ones, and it is a great tool to practice self love.

I strongly recommend getting the book Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain. It’s a small book with very clear explanations and fun exercises to practice visualizing with! (This is one of my favorites, hands down)

12. Choose You

If you strongly feel that a certain situation or event is not good for you, decide to choose you. Having negative thoughts and being surrounded by energies that are not good for you has a greater effect on your wellbeing than you may realize.

Negative vibes create thoughts, which distract you from what is truly important in your life. Choose from a place of authenticity and always consider your own wellbeing.

If this results in a clash, try to look for a solution that works for everyone from a place of love. If a certain relationship is toxic for you, you need to seriously consider getting out of it, to protect your energy.

When you make a choice, ask yourself: what if I choose from a place of fear, and what if I choose from a place of love?

13. Practice Compassion And Forgiveness

To fully love yourself, you will need to include all parts of yourself. The good and the bad. Be compassionate toward yourself, just like you would be to a friend.

Only through compassion, we can get to real understanding. Only through real understanding, we can forgive. Only through forgiveness, we can fully love 🤍

That does not mean it is easy, but it is the only way to full self love and lightness of the heart.

You can also practice compassion and forgiveness through visualization (see point 11), or by doing a meditation like this one:

14. Dive deep

To clean up all your mental bagage, get ready to dive deep.

Everytime you feel triggered by something, take note of it, and then ask yourself the question: Why is this triggering me?

If you are fully ok with yourself and acting from a place of self love, you won’t have to be triggered by the bad behavior of others. You can simply use your own triggers as a lesson to improve yourself and grow stronger mentally.

That does not mean that you need to accept everything from others, but it means that you can make the decision to not get mentally triggered, and to not let it drag you down energetically.

When you learn to take control of your own mind, you will see the world in a completely new way. From a place of inner peace 😌

Want To Know More?

To get started, consider getting the following books. All of these are gems:

>> Clean up your mental mess by Dr. Caroline Leaf

>>> Meeting the shadow: The hidden power of the dark side of human nature with short lessons from various authors

>>>> The Miracle of Self Love by Barbel Mohr

💜 Never forget that you are amazing and worthy to be loved! 💜

The post was all about steps to self love that actually work.