Self-love might sound like something we should do—like cleaning out the garage or eating more vegetables. But the truth is that once you commit to a gentle self-love practice, the astounding benefits can positively affect every area of your life. Then self-love becomes something you really want to do, because the rewards are so profound.
The following are some possibly unexpected bonuses of increased self-love, along with actionable ways to embrace the process. Having a consistent self-love practice can…
1. Improve your intuition.
A self-love practice, like practicing honoring and voicing your needs and desires in a partnership, helps you value yourself more. As you put more value on yourself, you’ll begin to organically value your own intuitive instincts more. As a professional intuitive, I remind clients that valuing their own intuition actually increases authentic intuitive hits.
2. Increase your compassion for others.
Self-love is not selfish. As you increase your baseline compassion for yourself, it could create new neural pathways that make being compassionate feel more natural in general. When you work on acknowledging and validating your own challenging emotions, for example, it will get you in the mental habit of acknowledging, validating, and empathizing with the challenging emotions of others.
3. Create more unconditional love for yourself.
When you don’t feel like loving yourself is usually when you need self-love the most. That’s why I wrote Love Notes to My Self, a collection of self-love mantras, reflections, and explorations you can consult any time to kick-start your self-love practice. As you meet yourself with soft, loving, forgiving thoughts when you let yourself or others down, this unconditionally loving response will, in time, become your default mode. Initiating positive transformation in your life is easier when you can hold yourself accountable while being able to love and comfort yourself at the same time.
4. Invite more healing around childhood wounds.
A consistent pattern in many childhood wounds is not feeling loved enough, specifically not feeling accepted, celebrated, protected, or valued enough. Simply expressing love for yourself by mindfully increasing your self-care, prioritizing your dreams, or creating more financial stability for yourself can be a way to give yourself something fundamental that may have been missing from your childhood. Instead of looking to wounded parents and caregivers for this affection, you’ve cut out the middleman.
5. Boost your confidence.
Part of feeling safe to take healthy risks is not being afraid you will abandon yourself emotionally if things don’t work out as planned. Increasing your self-love, through pep talks to yourself highlighting your strengths and how you have risen to the occasion and survived in the past, helps you feel safe to stretch yourself and have the confidence necessary to take a risk. When you know you are a safe container of love for yourself no matter what, taking healthy risks becomes much easier.
6. Accelerate healing in other areas of your life.
We don’t always have a lot of control during a physical, emotional, or financial healing journey.
Yet one aspect we can have more control over is our attitude or approach toward ourselves on the journey. Stopping to celebrate small wins and reminding yourself you’re proud of your commitment to a healing journey can increase self-love. This may prevent you from doing anything self-sabotaging to prolong a healing journey if you feel your past actions are somehow partly at fault or responsible. Self-love helps you forgive yourself, if that’s an issue, so you can more quickly create a new, healthier experience for yourself.
7. Make you less critical and judgmental.
A healthy sense of self-love can make you more accepting of yourself, and as your life is holistic, that gentle acceptance energy spreads to others in your orbit. Being overly critical and judgmental is one of the biggest blocks to deeper intimacy with others. So a strong self-love practice—like learning to accept the messiest, most imperfect parts of yourself—can actually help you form stronger bonds with friends, lovers, family members, and colleagues.
The takeaway.
Self-love is a practice and never something that’s executed perfectly. Celebrate any small moments you are able to meet yourself in a new, more loving way. These wins might seem tiny, yet they can have a huge overall impact on your quality of life.
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