A series of steps meant to guide you to improve your sense of self-worth, to increase your self care, and to understand the importance of loving yourself fully.

This series is all about teaching you how to practically learn to love yourself more – from the inside out, without having to rely on the outer world. In order to do this however, we need to take a step back. This might be difficult. This might be painful. But you need to have that breakdown in order to experience your breakthrough.

Step 1: Digging Deep 

This first step is kind of like, the pre-work to learning more self-love. First, we are taking a look at what is holding us back. This is where it will become painful and difficult. What is it that is causing you to look down on yourself? What is it that is making you escape your mind to find things in the external world that will make you feel better?

Is it pressure that you have felt from your parents growing up? Is it love that you did not receive as a child? Is it that toxic relationship that is slowing tearing you down, day by day? Is it the shitty job you’re stuck in? Is it your flawed relationship with exercise and food? Take out your journal, sit back in a quiet space – somewhere with no distractions and just write.

Ask yourself ~ what is holding me back from fully loving exactly who I am at this moment?

Step 2: Feeling Your Feelings 

The first step was probably a difficult one, and many emotions should have come flowing in. That’s what was meant to happen. Now, I just want you to FEEL. Feel it all and let it take you over. In order to truly learn to move past what is digging at your soul, what is holding you back from loving and being your true, authentic self… you need to feel it.

You need to hit the storm dead on, instead of sailing away from it. This was something that I had to learn the hard way. I suppressed my feelings, I pretended I was okay, I faked it all. That was until I noticed I started attracting shitty jobs, shitty people, and shitty experiences into my life. When the pandemic first hit, I was forced to be inside my own head, and find out what was truly bothering me. It wasn’t until I looked my feelings right in the eye, that I was able to move past them.

Remember that it is okay not to be okay. It is okay to cry, to scream, to curl up into a ball. You are safe, you are supported, and you are loved – by you ❤ and that is the point here, to realize that you are your own hero, you are enough. 

Step 3: Forgiveness, letting go, and moving on 

The next step to cultivating self-love, is forgiveness. If you need to forgive others, remember you aren’t doing it for them, you are doing it for you. You need to forgive in order to let go, in order to finally allow what is holding you back, to leave. Forgiveness is hard. But it is absolutely necessary. I’ll say it again, forgiveness is for you – whether you are forgiving someone or forgiving yourself. No one else needs to know about this. Forgiveness is an internal system. It is up to you how you choose to use it. But like I said, it must be done.

Only once you forgive, can you let go, and move on and past what it is that is holding you back. Take a moment to journal and figure out what exactly it is that you need to forgive and let go of using this prompt:

Who do I need to forgive right now, in order to let go and move on from _____ (write what came up for you in the past 2 steps)? 

Step 4: practical tools that can be used to help cultivate more self-love and increase your self-worth.

Meditation and Visualization

Cultivating self-love is a journey – and you need to do the hard work in order to start that journey. These tools will only work for you if you get down to the root of your issues and work them out. Just a little reminder.

I wanted to start with meditation and visualization, because I like to use them together. I find it easier to visualize as I meditate, and vice versa. Using the meditation to clear your mind, to visualize the life that you want to create, helps so much. Sometimes visualization and meditation can be difficult on their own, but using them together works magic ❤

Start off with 5 minutes each morning or night ~ whichever works better for you. Clear your mind, listen to music or find a self-love guided meditation, and picture the life of your dreams. Visualize how you would love to feel about yourself, get specific about every single detail. See how this makes you feel. Practice being as consistent as you can. 

Affirmations and Journaling

These are some of my favourite tools for cultivating self-love! When I journal and write/speak out my affirmations, I always feel so empowered and uplifted.

Journaling

✨ There are so many different ways to journal, but in terms of self-love, I find gratitude journaling one of the most helpful tools. Spend a few minutes each morning, and write out what you are grateful for and WHY, that specifically relates to you. For example: “I am grateful for my kind and caring personality, that helps me to spread more love to others”

✨ The second thing I find most helpful when journaling is following self-love journal prompts when I am needing to feel some more love. I find this amazing because it just helps my writing flow so much easier/with less resistance. 

Affirmations

✨ Affirmations can be SO powerful. But the trick is you need to believe what you are saying to yourself. Affirmations won’t work if you stand in front of the mirror and say “I love myself more than anything else in the world” if that isn’t your truth yet. I highly recommend tailoring your affirmations to what feels best intuitively for you. So instead I love to say “I am cultivating a stronger sense of self-love”

Conscious Movement 

Okkkk guys… you have heard me speak on this topic many times before BUT I’m going to reiterate it again here because exercise and taking care of your body is SUCH AN IMPORTANT STEP to loving yourself more. However what is most important isn’t getting to that 200 lb squat, or running 10 km without stopping…. What is most important is that you are doing something that makes you feel good when you do it. When you move your body in a way that you love, that feels good for you, you are showing yourself that you care for you, and that you love yourself so much.

Showing your body love is such a great way to increase your self-worth, by listening to what it wants. To radiate love, from the inside out will help you cultivate more love for yourself.

I have learned this all through personal experience. I used to go to the gym and hate my life. I literally would sit in the parking lot and have to make myself move. It was a horrible experience. I finally learned how to listen to what I wanted to do, and now I feel so much love for myself when I workout!

I blast my music and do HIIT exercises in my basement, I go for long ass walks by myself, I do yoga as much as I can and practice my breathing. However, conscious movement is going to look different for everyone – because as I’ve said, it is what makes YOU feel good! 

Intuitive Eating 

This is another topic that I’ve spoken about on my instagram many times, but I wanted to provide some more insight today on how intuitive eating relates to self-love. This is another tool that will allow you to heal yourself from the inside out. To not only heal your body, but your mindset as well. Fuelling your body with the things that make it feel good, help you to cultivate a higher sense of love for yourself. This is just like what I spoke about with conscious movement. This is going to look different for everyone, literally depending on what your gut is telling you! Some people need meat and don’t thrive off of a vegan diet, and some are the opposite. Some people can eat dairy and some are allergic. We are all different.

The one thing that is the same here though is that we all need to eat as much nutrients as we can. Our bodies need carbs, fats, and protein. It needs vitamins and minerals. As much as I’d love to eat fast food every day, we can’t survive like that. However that is not to say that fast food can never be eaten. Sometimes I truly feel better when I eat a Big Mac than when I eat a bowl full of veggies. And that is exactly what I mean by intuitive eating. Eat what your body is craving. Realize it’s okay to have a piece of cake at a birthday party. But remember to fuel your body with as much nutrients as you can. This is a little plug for my whole food products ~ I take these each and every day so that I know I am fuelling my body effectively, and I know I’m making my gut happy ❤ 

As I mentioned, self-love is a journey. It is a journey of painful realizations, difficult breakthroughs, but also of beautiful growth and personal empowerment. I hope this blog post serves some value for you in your own journey to cultivating a higher sense of self-worth. And don’t forget to download your free Love List E-book so you can create your own list of tools for your journey to a higher sense of self-worth.