How Do You Know If You Are Loving Yourself?

What does loving yourself mean to you? Does it mean that you treat yourself the same way you treat those you love? That would be my first definition of self love. And within that definition leaves the room to explore the ways you treat yourself. For example, what kind of self talk do you engage in? So often we don't even realize how terribly we talk to ourselves. If we make a mistake or do something "stupid" we tend to be very hard on ourselves, even calling ourselves names and saying things to ourselves that we would never say to a loved one. Checking in on your self talk is a great step. When we begin to do that we can catch the beating up on ourselves.

How about taking time for yourself? Do you see that as a measure of self love? Because it is. We often get so caught up in our work and our family care that we either forget to take time out for ourselves or sometimes even conclude that we do not deserve it. Nothing could be farther from the truth. You absolutely deserve to take time for yourself to do the things that fill you up, that bring you joy, to rest, to exercise, to eat well...you get the picture.

I sat down to meditate before a client session the other day and I really gave it my all to clear my energy of anything not serving me so that I could be free and clear to focus fully on my client. And I realized I hadn’t taken the time that day to clear it for my own self. It was an indication for me that I was not fully loving myself. I deserve to feel good and be free and clear too, so I may live as my best me. I deserve to do that for myself.

It's things like that that prove to be worth taking notice of. What is the ratio of things we do for ourselves versus what we do for others? Is it 20/80, with you doing for others 80% of the time? Or even 10/90, with very little notice on how it feels to be self loving? Once you figure out where you are think about where you would like to be. 

Sometimes this can make us uncomfortable, feeling like we are being selfish. But in all of the teaching us not to be selfish, where was the learning on self care and self love? It's such an important part of our being yet we somehow can feel like it's wrong to take care of ourselves. But if you think about it, and you are loving yourself as much as you can, you open yourself up to not only be more loving to others, but to be able to receive more love from others. When you cannot love yourself you are not able to let others love you either.

And a blog post about self love would not be complete without me touching on forgiveness. Forgiving yourself is loving yourself. I know it can be a difficult thing to do, but when we can forgive ourselves and others we are giving our own hearts, minds and physical beings a great gift. Letting yourself off the hook from past mistakes enables you to be able to grow and be the kind of person you desire to be. And when you get to that place you have another reason to love yourself, it goes hand in hand. Forgiving others is also a gift to yourself, it frees you from anger and blame and those types of poisonous emotions. It's not about the other person, it's about you clearing your own energy so that you can live a happier and healthier life.

So take some time today and ask yourself what you can do to love yourself even more. And pledge to take action on 1 thing every day this week that shows self love!