According to the pastel-coloured memes on social media, self-care is apparently taking a bath or getting a massage. I like a day at the spa as much as anybody, but that’s a day. You see true self-care is more than one day of pampering. It’s things like boundaries, saying ‘no’ and radical self-ownership. It’s about putting yourself higher up on your priority list, being decisive about who gets your time and energy.
I could have run a course on self-loathing. I had years of practice, and I was fantastic at it. I knew all the thoughts to think and all the ways of speaking to myself with disgusting and abusive language. Things I would never say out loud to another person.
If that’s the way you are feeling, I want to reassure you that there is an opposite to self-loathing. If you have had capacity for self-loathing, then you must also have within you somewhere the capacity for self love.
How do you get from the low end of the emotional spectrum to the higher end? The answer is that you do it in steps.
If you’re at the point where you’re really speaking negatively to yourself, the next step up is to self-like. Work on accepting who you are right now. Accept that all of you, flawed or otherwise, is you.
There’s always room for improvement of course, but the journey of growth is to identify those areas and then make shifts in that direction. If you met you, out at the shops, would you like yourself? Probably. For instance, if you’re a good person; you‘d hold the door open for people, right? As long as you keep taking steps forward, you’re moving in the right direction.
We know self-love exists because the opposite exists.
We spent enough time in that opposite end. So, if self-love and fierce self-love is something that fees far out of the realm of possibility for you right now, just take one step at a time. Break things down into small pieces that are achievable. You don’t have to achieve self-love in a randomly assigned period of time.
Let’s do a quick thought experiment. Imagine that you are the boss of your time and your energy. You have dumped all the crap that doesn’t serve you anymore. You have developed some new beliefs by writing down some rules around how you feel about yourself, how you talk to others, what you value in the world and what you believe.
Imagine you were able to love yourself fiercely for who you had grown into and who you had become. You respect yourself and treat yourself like your own best friend, instead of your own personal bully. How does life look? What do you want that to look like? What if that was your life in six months? What if that was life in three months? What would that mean to you?
I often have clients who say “Two weeks ago was a really good week, but then last week I didn’t have such a great week.” They tell me why they feel they moved backwards. I remind them that it is all part of the dance and that the dance is backwards steps and forward steps. Every step will get you further along to where you’re going, but it’s not a straight line forward.
Keep in mind the key elements of self-love are self-compassion and self-forgiveness. You can’t bully yourself into self-love. This is not an end-outcome focus. It’s a transformational journey, step by step. One that I guide and support my clients through.
One thing we look at together is ‘the power of proximity.’ You are the sum of the five closest people around you. How do the people around you speak to you? How do they speak to themselves? It’s important to be mindful and deliberate about the input you are allowing to enter your mind. Having people around you that set a good example can be a real advantage.
Another tip is to consume supportive media in the form of books, podcasts and courses. Find ways to educate yourself on your journey to self-love, through the life lessons of others. It can help to know that you are not alone on the path. Find a supportive tribe online and offline, to help keep you forward focused.
Work towards developing an unshakeable belief in yourself.
This comes as you rediscover or redefine who you really are and learn to embrace who you are. Treat yourself with the unconditional love and compassion you would a small child because you were one and are still deserving of that love.
Be curious and kind and watch what happens. Happy Releasing.
Lisa Westgate, Our Expert (Former)
Lisa Westgate is an Award Winning Mental Health Advocate, speaker, trainer, and best-selling author. Also creator of The Misfit Hub, support for weirdos, freaks and unicorns to live a life of zero f*cks.
- Lisa Westgate, Our Expert (Former)
- Lisa Westgate, Our Expert (Former)
- Lisa Westgate, Our Expert (Former)
- Lisa Westgate, Our Expert (Former)
- Lisa Westgate, Our Expert (Former)
- Lisa Westgate, Our Expert (Former)
