Self-love isn’t a feeling, vague or even just a trend

The five parts of self-love

Self-love is a hype, which is great but only useful if anyone is able to tell you how to practice this. To go beyond the hype and define the topic I like to divide it into parts.

I believe self-love is existing in five parts:

1. Knowing how to forgive yourself for not handling a situation like you wanted to.

2. Knowing your boundaries AND being able to hold and express them.

3. Filling your own cup, by doing things you like.

4. Stopping with talking down on yourself. Throwing that critical voice out of the window.

5. Be kind to yourself, when you mess up.

I already did a blog on the first part (click here), including a practice to look into forgiving yourself.

Boundary setting

As a child we learn what boundaries are and how they work, by:

• Seeing adults setting boundaries even with ourselves

• Having room to say no and have an adult trying to understand, listen and empathize with us.

We need both of these to learn to set boundaries properly.

If you lack the skill of setting boundaries, you often saw a caregiver sacrifice everything in taking care of you or your no’s weren't heard. There is a chance you do the same with your kids, if you have them.

A boundary is often felt by a slight annoyance or irritation. It is your body signaling something does not feel okay. If you get mad, your boundary probably got crossed or you are triggered. Take a breath and see what comes up. Ask yourself: do I need to set a boundary right now?

To be clear. A boundary can be: “no, I don’t have time to help you” or even “no, I didn’t think that joke was funny” (especially if they attack you in a way).

Filling your own cup

If you want to fill your own cup, you need room to start saying yes to your wants and needs. Boundaries are part of this, every no to someone or something else is a YES to yourself.

You can start small, take that stroll or hike you wanted to do, make a delicious drink for yourself (preferably non alcoholic) or go buy that sweater you loved the other day.

If your day feels full already, make a list of all the things that occupy you. What are the priorities of these tasks? Are there things you agreed to while you wanted to say no? Are there things you can cancel or give to someone else?

You can see money as a blockage of doing things for yourself. Like buying that lovely sweater. Start with saving if you are short on money, and would like to buy yourself gifts. You can also look into your finances to see if you are paying for anything that you don’t need or use. This money can go to your savings or into a new hobby you like to do.

Look into less expensive gifts, you can do weekly, like flowers or a coffee. Sometimes you can find really nice things in thrift shops or with online secondhand shopping. There are also hobbies that only require a little investment and are free to do afterwards. Another option is to find free things to do that you like.

The critical voice

Think of someone you love dearly and think the world of them. Would you be able to be mean, condescending or disrespectful to them? Probably not, so why would you do that to yourself?

If you are critical and mean to yourself, there are two things you can try:

1. Give this voice a real stupid name you can’t take seriously.

2. Write down what this voice says to you. Can you rewrite these things to some positives? Or more kind ways you can speak to yourself?

Learning how this voice sounds, when it comes up and what it says is crucial. Especially since this voice isn’t always so loud.

For example, a silent criticism is guilt-tripping yourself for feeling good while someone else is in a bad place. This insight came to me just two months ago. Most empaths will experience this, but do not recognize it. Guilt is an emotion that will lower your vibration significantly. It will make you feel able to empathize with someone especially if you recognize their story. But what if it will not help them and it will not make their or your situation better? You help them by staying where you are, if you shine the light, they finally can find their way again. It will be easier for them to find hope and clarity. You can still empathize but do so from this loving and kind place where you feel radiant and good.

Be kind to yourself

This is all the steps coming together. If you mess something up, if you didn’t react the way you wanted, even if you didn’t say no when you really wanted to. Give yourself grace. It is a learning curve and it will go slowly. Be kind to yourself and see this as a lesson for next time.

Try repairing. Can you repair this connection where you may not have been on your best behavior. Can you repair your boundary by saying no to a request you already agreed on?

The only thing that counts is you keep on trying. Know you can only fail when you give up.