How can self-love improve your quality of life?

Imagine having a constant ally who loves you unconditionally and offers unwavering support

Would you feel more confident taking risks and making decisions? Would you feel reassured and consoled when you meet a setback? Would you be more at ease in social situations? These are some of the ways self-love can improve your quality of life.

When you love yourself, you become better at establishing boundaries. You know you need to prioritise yourself and your needs so that when you give and share, it is from an overflowing cup. This prevents burnout, resentment and compassion fatigue.

When you invest in loving yourself, you make a best friend for life – the only relationship in life that you have control over, the only one that can show up for you 100%. You learn to resource from within instead of seeking external validation and reassurance. This improves the way you show up and form healthy relationships.

How much do you love yourself, on a scale of 1-10?

I invite you to pause and check in, where are you on this scale? Reflect on what self-love means to you.

Before healing, my answer would probably alternate between 2 or 8. High at times, when my ego tells me I’m better than everyone, and because I did not understand the meaning of loving myself. Mostly, I never felt good enough.

My internal self-talk was not kind. My inner critic was harsh on myself and others. I was extremely uncomfortable in my own skin. I relied on alcohol and cigarettes for confidence and ease in social settings and to get through life.

Despite my accomplishments as an entrepreneur, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being an imposter. In other aspects of life, I constantly felt inadequate compared to others who seemed able to adult with much more ease.

From fixing to loving

I used to apply the same “go hard or go home” attitude towards healing. I was desperate to fix myself and my inner critic would get frustrated telling me “I was not healing fast enough and I must be doing it wrong” when I did not meet my expectations of how my healing should look like and where I should be.

It was only through many cycles of self love practices, slowly my inner voice began to change. I stopped pressuring myself and released expectations. I started to accept myself as I was, where I was. Trusting that the process will progress exactly as it’s meant to.

My self-talk began to sound like “it’s okay sweetie, I know how hard it’s been and how much effort you’ve put in. It is frustrating isn’t it?” and I’d give myself a hug and cry it out. Over time, this took a huge weight off, I realise I was no longer at war within. I started to see how brave I was and I began to have so much love and admiration for her (me).

My Sweet Heart

A week ago, in the thick of a bout of depression, as I sat breathing with my heart, I gave myself permission to feel it all. Deep sadness, then anger and frustration. I did this for 4 days in a row and after much release, I suddenly felt the weight of meaning of the words – “my sweet heart”, it was like I cracked through another layer and my heart expanded.

With my hands on my heart, feeling her beat, breathing with her, I felt so much gratitude for my heart, my sweet heart, me, all aspects and versions of me, every bit that brought me right to this current moment. My sweet, sweet, heart.

After much release, I was able to hear my heart again and she was able to share her wisdom with me. I immediately felt lighter.

These days, the “why” is no longer important to me, I’ve come to trust that if understanding is necessary, it will reveal itself in due time. What holds greater importance to me now is allowing emotions – energy in motion – to flow freely, to be acknowledged, felt, and ultimately released.

“I love you Celeste, you are so amazing!”

These days I can even say this aloud, which I do quite often, and I mean every word 🙂

It’s a huge contrast to before, where the running narrative sounded like “You are f*%king useless and embarrassing. Wtf did you do and why did you have to get so drunk, you have no control, you must have looked like an idiot. Look at others your age starting families, growing up… and you’re stuck partying like a teenager!”

Self Love practices – the key to success is consistency

There are many self love practices but the key thing is consistency. Show up daily keep the promises you make to yourself. This is how you begin to build self-trust. Start with a small action that you can keep up with, instead of a big gesture that you can only do once.

Which would you prefer? A partner who is trust worthy, consistent in actions and words or one who love bombs and shows up with a grand gesture but is unable to keep his/her promises? Love yourself the way you want to be loved.

The self-love work I did:

I worked 1:1 with a pleasure coach and participated in her online workshop at the same time. For me, this work was all about building safety in my body. As someone who disassociated from young, I was disconnected and did not feel safe in my body.

This work helped me to build safety in my body and taught me self love practices, like the inner smile meditation. Subsequently, for 6-9 months after, I would continue with this inner smile meditation, thanking every part of my body.

More recently, my go-to is a ‘self-love, self-acceptance and return to wholeness’ meditation which I created. I shared about my explant and how it stirred up old wounds on unworthiness, it was this meditation that helped me shift back into acceptance and love.

The journey into you is one that is ongoing, constantly evolving and expanding. Nothing pays off more than investing in loving yourself.

The theme for July’s cacao ceremonies will be “My Sweet Heart”. We will explore the theme of self-love and listen to what our heart has to say.