The Journal of a Busy Mother 

Self-Love is the best Medicine

Happy Valentine’s Day Everyone! Keeping in line with today’s tradition – I thought I would make this month’s theme about Love. In saying that, writing about love is tricky as it’s a difficult emotion to define. At least when we look outside of ourselves it is. So where better to start talking about love than the love we have for ourselves. Cheesy yet?!

It appears self-love is becoming more acceptable nowadays than ever before. Fantastic hallmark on how we have grown as a society. Can it be taken too far? Absolutely. The kind of self-love that we want to encourage is that of help yourself first before being of service to others type of love, not the narcissistic skewed perception of self – love. To genuinely love yourself is to challenge your own ego. Not an easy thing to do seeing as looking at ourselves up close and personal can be a daunting endeavour.

But before we get into what self-love is and what it looks like. Take a few minutes to yourself and check in, ask yourself what do you think it is and what does self-love look like to you? Pay attention to any thoughts, feelings, or bodily sensations – try not to judge. Just let it flow.

It is a term I hear more frequently with my clients, and I am here for it. So, let’s look at what self-love is? Self-love is the ability to take full responsibility for habitual thought patterns, emotions, and behaviours with the intention of transforming traits to create a well-rounded, balanced and fulfilling lifestyle that ultimately leads to a positive view of oneself and their self-esteem.

So, what does that mean exactly? Our brains are hardwired for stress and negativity – protecting us from external threats. But we no longer have the same external threats as before, but our brain doesn’t know that. This is where the work comes into it. To love ourselves we need to learn to self soothe, to self-regulate.  When we feel our inner critic go to town on us, or our anxiety prevents us from living life to its fullest potential, it’s about being compassionately curious. What’s the thought, how does it make you feel? What do you need or want in that moment? How can you go about doing this? Self-love I am afraid to say is not just about taking a bubble bath or treating yourself – whilst it’s a lovely way to care for yourself when doing the work, these things alone won’t create a healthy relationship with the self.

I can hear you say, well if that’s not what self-love looks like then what does it look like? Here are a few examples of self-love:

• Positive Affirmations.
• Forgiving yourself when you make a mistake.
• Meeting your own needs.
• Assertiveness
• Setting boundaries.
• Establishing a healthy lifestyle.
• Process unresolved emotional turmoil.
• Validate your own feelings.
• Setting goals and intentions.
• Challenging yourself.
• Take responsibility for yourself.
• Accepting your flaws

That can seem like a tall order for someone starting out. It is possible, the hardest part of anything is the beginning stages. Of course, those examples are not to be used as a checklist, personal development is not a linear process. There are many twists, turns, ups and downs. To learn to be self-loving requires you to become steady on your feet.

As I have gotten older, I look back on all the ways I didn’t love myself. How hard I was on myself, how I lacked self-compassion, I tried to be a perfectionist. Not giving myself permission to fail and be vulnerable. Then when I became a mother for the first time? That inner critic lived for the moment, by the end of the day I would feel drained and exhausted, with that inner critic plugging away with all sorts of negative self-talk. When I slowed down, stopped expecting myself to do it all at once, my relationship with myself grew stronger. I learned more about myself; I challenged the ego- the one responsible for me being a perfectionist. I admitted to myself all the ways I am not perfect – not in a self-defeating kind of way but in the I am only human kind of way. That transition of being self-critical to being open to explore who we are underneath it all, is a bumpy ride (I recommend sea sickness tablets!). But aside from my kids and partner it is one of the best decisions I ever made. I still have the occasional hangup and I still regress into whole patterns of being but the commitment to grow, learn and evolve outweighs the times I don’t hit the mark.

If you take one thing away from this article let it be this – you are more than enough just as you are. Sometimes to learn something new we must unlearn the ways in which we keep ourselves stuck. Approach your thoughts and feelings with curiosity instead of judgement. Visualize what you would like to see different and put your focus into building that.

That’s all for this month.

Until Next Time.

Mind You,

Laura xxx