How to love yourself… ah, what a trip. Real self-love is about respecting the entirety of your story, not just the good parts. If you're ready to feel better about your place on earth, read this. You might find exactly the thing that helps you fall in love with being alive again.

How can you honor the path you’re walking without honoring the person walking it?

How to Love Yourself: 5 Tips to Help You Get There

1. Seek the goodness that fills you up.

What fills your cup, makes you feel good inside and out? Make a list of all the things, people, places, hobbies, songs, sights that bring you joy, peace, flow, timelessness, and a bigger sense of wonder.

What grows love in you?

Keep it simple. Keep it sacred.

Have mercy on yourself, and all of your mistakes will serve a purpose.

2. Do more of what you love.

Make more space in your days for those things you just thought about. Let a little bit more of that into your life, every single day.

Write down how you spend your days now. Are there any time sucks, like browsing on social media, texting, watching television? How can switch things up, just a bit, to make more space in your life for what fills your cup... not just your time?

Make space in your life for what fills you up. There's room for everything under the sun, including your joy... including you.

3. Say nice things to yourself.

Say it to your face, behind your back, say it out loud or shout it from the mountaintops. However you say it, SAY IT.

Tell yourself about why you appreciate yourself, your decisions, the changes you're making. Start small, maybe with the color of your hair or how resilient you are (you're still here, after all).

Look in the mirror and choose kinder words. Ask your reflection how you can help *you* today.

If you'd like a whole bunch of inspiration, like the practice I call Mirror Gazing, and other ways to love yourself better, get my book Sleep Rituals for 100 at-home rituals that are all about you. And the life you really want.

“The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect.” – Brené Brown, Ph.D

4. Grow your self-awareness.

Be aware of how you talk to yourself and notice when you begin to fall into the self-pity pit. Acknowledge negative thoughts for what they are (hint: they're not you). See them, make your peace, thank them for their guidance, tell them you don't need their direction anymore.

Letting go of what no longer serves you is freedom. Through self-awareness, without judgment, so many things get the space they need to change.

To feel seen, heard, and valued by others, we need to feel seen, heard, and valued by ourselves.

5. Say nice things to others.

How often do you think something nice about someone else, but you don’t speak it? We all do it. Maybe we’re hesitant because they’re a stranger, or we don’t think they need to hear it, or we just don’t think to say it.

For the love of all that’s good in this world, say the nice things you think.

If you’re struggling to come up with something genuine, you’re thinking too hard. “That shirt looks amazing on you” or “You seem so happy/excited/relaxed” or “You're a talented _____” are all things worth saying.

Being good to others is one way to be good to yourself.

Loving others might be easier for you right now. Start there. Use this to your advantage. Proclaim your love for them: say it, write it, think about it. Then imagine that love reflecting back to you, floating from them to you.

After all, the light you see in someone else is a reflection of the light that’s also in you.

. . .

Tell me:

Which of these thoughts did you really need to read today?

Tell me in the comments. I read every single one, and I’d love to know!

With love,

Jen

P.S. Never forget how valuable you are, how far you’ve come, how much potential you have. Go visit my shop for the (im)perfect poetry print that celebrates you in your fullness, in your mess and magic and everything in between.