How to Love Yourself

I work with victims of domestic violence. Once a week, I meet with our clients who live at our Women's Shelter and I teach them how to pick their lives back up so that they can someday find love again. I'm not always talking about love of a partner -- I have a whole lesson that I often teach which completely focuses on learning to truly, deeply love themselves. I have been teaching this curriculum for two years and every time I teach it, I learn more about it.

I sit with my girls around a table when I teach to keep it feeling comfortable, like we are friends chatting around breakfast. This helps them to open up, and I have the privilege to have deep conversations with them that they may never have with anyone else. I have also worked similarly with young teenage and adult victims of abuse and sexual assault.

While I am not going to go into detail about this part of my job, I have deep conversations with people every day who feel that they have reached rock-bottom. Oftentimes, their self-love is nonexistent. Other times, they love themselves so much that they feel deserving of happiness and something more than what they have previously experienced. I learn everything that I know from these amazing people, from my own experience, and from my extensive training in my social work position.

Here is a condensed version of my How to Love Yourself steps. This is my challenge to you: Pick one and work on it for two weeks diligently. Write it on your mirror, set it as your phone wallpaper, set reminders on your phone throughout the day so that you keep thinking about it... whatever works for you. After two weeks of working on this every day, pick another and work on it for two weeks. Do this over and over and I promise you that your self-love will not be perfect, but it will improve and so will your happiness.

The beautiful thing about this is that you do not have to be perfect to love yourself. In fact, these steps give you the grace to make mistakes and to be imperfect while still seeing the unconditional value in yourself. They are not silly, cliche tips, but deeper, science-based methods to changing your mindset. Whatever your struggles are -- Body image, addiction, a breakup, or just a day-to-day struggle to feel good in your own skin, this can heal a great lot of your pain if you commit to it.

1) Stop criticizing yourself.

Every thought you have, action you take, and thing you say, you are changing. You are changing for the better or for the worse every second of the day and you are never stagnant. It is not what happens to you that makes you change, it is your decisions. When you criticize yourself, you are changing for the worse. Stop. There is no point. Stop wasting your time with self-criticism.

2) Stop being afraid of failure.

We are naturally afraid of failure. But when you learn to face the possibility of failure with bravery, things change all around you. You take risks, and sometimes, you actually succeed. You live more fully and you become a stronger person overall.

3) Love your mind.

When we hate ourselves, we are actually only hating the thoughts in our heads. Even if you hate yourself because of your actions, every action begins with a thought. You can change your thoughts, however difficult it may be. Simply put, when you let negative thoughts wander through your mind often, your brain creates a roadway for those neurons, and those negative thoughts become habitual, easily traveling down those roadways over and over. But this is not permanent. With persistence, when you try hard to think positive thoughts consistently instead of negative thoughts, it will gradually get easier with time as the unused roadways for negative thoughts collapse and new roadways for positive thoughts are built. This is an actual biological occurrence.

4) Be loving to your negatives.

This is not a "love the things you hate about yourself" step. I actually don't completely agree with loving the negative things about yourself. Some of your negative things should change, such as being rude to others or carrying unhealthy habits. Rather, I want you to think of something that you hate about yourself that can be changed (a habit, a behavior, a defense mechanism, etc.). Now trace that in your memory back to where that negative thing began. I guarantee that, in most cases, it started for a reason (perhaps to cope with something difficult). Now, it is not needed and it is hindering you. That's why it is a negative thing in your life. You don't need it anymore, so lovingly let that part of you go. That is what it means to be loving to your negatives.

5) Support yourself and be independent. 

This could mean something different for everybody. To support yourself is to do whatever you need to do to be independent and to have a good, close relationship with yourself. You should not need anybody in your life except for yourself and God. This means that any person you keep in your life is there because you want them to be, not because you feel unsteady without them. This is a very powerful step in life. Once people realize that they need to treat you well to stay in your life because you don't need them, your relationships become healthier. People realize they cannot walk all over you and you learn a new level of self-respect. When I reached the point in my life where I could go to the movies alone on a Friday night and feel perfectly happy, I felt a newfound close relationship with myself and God.

6) Take care of your body.

I don't just say this because I am a health nut. There is a science behind the correlation between treating your body with respect and loving yourself. Learn about nutrition. Exercise regularly. You get one body in life, and your body is your home until the moment you die. Treat it well. Raise it with love. Respect what it is capable of. Challenge it. The human body is such a beautiful thing because of what it can do. Learn that for yourself.

7) Nourish your spirit.

This is another thing that may be different for each person. If you believe in God, learn about Him. Develop a close relationship with God and learn about your own divine nature. Pray daily and study your faith diligently. If you do not believe in God, do yoga, spend time in nature, or write in a journal daily. Spiritual health is just as important as physical and mental health, but it is one of the most neglected. Even if your mental and physical health are good, if your spiritual health is suffering, you may feel that something is missing but you will not quite be able to put your finger on it. In fact, if your spiritual health is good, your mental and physical health often naturally follow. Your mental processes become healthier, leading to healthier habits physically.

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I hope this helps you to begin your journey to self-love. Like anything, these steps take practice. Though I teach these, I am not perfect at them, either. Some days you will be great at it and some days you will fail miserably. What matters is that you keep trying until you get it, like riding a bicycle.