“Be your version of smiling” we have heard this quote quite often, right? But why is it important? Because it gives you self-confidence and self-worth and more trust in yourself. And being confident leads to more happiness and joy in your life. Now the question is how to start loving yourself or pushing yourself to care for your needs and not sacrifice your well-being to make others happy.  

Self-love is vital in various aspects of life, so low self-esteem can also be a severe problem. Let’s take an example of escape games like Riddler’s Escape. If you don’t believe in yourself, you have low confidence in putting your views or thoughts among your teammates in the game; you will not be able to solve puzzles within a set time limit. It is necessary to work on your self-esteem as it impacts your decision-making and overall well-being, and this will come when you start loving yourself. Here are 11 ways to practice self-love and how to be good to yourself – 

1. Firstly, stop comparing yourself with others. Stop trying to be perfect. Be yourself. Don’t let others’ wrong opinions affect you; don’t care about what they say or what dirt they have in their head for you. Believe in yourself.  

2. Admit your flaws or mistakes and work on them to improve yourself, taking the necessary actions. Accept yourself as you are. Process your fears and bad decisions to understand at which point you went wrong in your head.  

3. Trust your decision and your feelings and love yourself. Having self-trust means staying true to yourself. With this, you can survive any difficulty in your life.  

4. Celebrate small things, celebrate yourself, and take time to be grateful for all that you have and for your life. Sometimes, these little celebrations can make a person happy and loving. Enjoy the simple things and treat yourself.  

5. Learning to say ‘’No’’ is a part of improving yourself, and it is an essential skill, but you must know where and for whom you should put your precious time and energy. It will enable you to set boundaries and clarity for others on what they can expect from you.

6. Make a list of the things you’re grateful for, like, your family, friends, health, pet, job, the environment, or anything you feel thankful for. Showing gratitude for the things around you affects you a lot in your life. It makes people feel more positive vibes.  

7. Prioritize things that are important in life. Put yourself first in life. Self-love or self-care is crucial. Prioritizing things helps make essential decisions and identify what’s truly needed in life. 

8. Focus on positive aspects only. Let go of negative self-talk. We focus so much on the negative that the positive loses its place in our hearts.  

9. Be willing to change and move forward in life to experience new and exciting things. It forces us to grow and work towards our goals.  

10. Self-expression is also essential in developing a sense of belonging to the world. It will make you feel better about yourself. Show up your complicated feelings when life gets tough.  

11. Live in the present. Stop thinking about the past. Live your life consciously. Living in the present means no longer worrying about what happened in the past and what will happen in the future.  

Self-love is an unconditional acceptance of yourself. Being kind to yourself lowers anxiety, depression, and stress and helps build self-respect and the ability to keep going in the situation. Don’t just be good to others. Be good to yourself too. Don’t be afraid to let go of toxic people in life. Permit yourself to be kind to yourself. When a person loves himself more, he immediately changes his outlook on the world and encourages himself to pick up good habits. Know yourself. If you stay true to yourself, you’ll gain a sense of who you are and will never have regrets. Surround yourself with people who cheer you up for your well-being. Live your best life and love yourself.  

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An easy way to invite more self-love into your life is to connect with yourself through your senses. Traditionally we know of five senses: smell, taste, touch, hearing, and seeing. There is also a sixth sense, called proprioception, which relates to being aware of your body position and how you interact with the physical space around you.

Here are some ideas to harness your senses to cultivate more self-love throughout your day.

Smell.

The sense of smell is one of the strongest senses that links to memories and emotions. You can practice more self-love by surrounding yourself with smells that you adore. Smells that bring back good memories, and that encourages specific emotions. Integrate different smells into your daily life, and especially into those times where you consciously practicing self-love. Combine the smells that you surround yourself with the memories, the feelings on the emotions that you want to experience.

Taste.

Invite self-love into your life through taste. This is an excellent opportunity to engage in conscious and mindful eating. Indulge in your favorite food and give not one thought to any conditioning that you’ve experienced around it. For example, chocolate is often referred to as a guilty pleasure, but cacao has been part of sacred rituals at least since the Mayan times. Take your time to prepare and eat the food that you enjoy and refuse to feel guilty or accept judgment. Open up yourself to new experiences and try things that are novel to you. You can find as much pleasure in the texture and taste of a crunchy salad as you could from a creamy and luscious dessert. The question is: what do you like? Consciously pay attention to the tastes that you experience. Show yourself more love by guilt-free eating the things that you enjoy and exploring self-love through your senses.

Touch.

Give yourself some lovin’ by touching your body. No, I don’t necessarily mean sexually… But I do mean sensually. There is a lot of power and, in fact, empowerment in engaging with your body sensually and exploring self-love through your senses. Touch the bits that you don’t often give attention to, like your elbows or the backs of your knees, the spaces between your finger and the small spot behind your ears. Get to know your body and show it some love through the sense of touch.

Hear.

Surround yourself with sounds that you like. Play your favorite music or listen to healing sound vibrations. Harness the healing power of sound to help you change your inner vibrations. Pay attention to the sounds around you, sounds that you usually block out or ignore. Find the joy in the voices of those that you love, your family, your friends, your children, your partner. Pay attention to the sounds of their voices, the vibrations they create, and allow yourself to be surrounded by those vibrations. Lean into them as if they were a physical embrace and soak up all the good feelings that come up.

See.

Celebrate your self-love by looking for the beauty in ordinary things. Practicing mindfulness meditation is a wonderful way to enhance this skill. Start to look at mundane things through new eyes, really pay attention to them. Notice how the light changes how something looks. See the reflections in a glass. Notice all the different colors of the hair that covers your dog or the flecks of color in your lover’s eyes. Surround yourself with things that you like to look at. Things that make you feel happy and inspired. Things that motivate you and raises your vibration.

Proprioception.

Practice self-love through becoming aware of your body. Take a few minutes throughout the day to check in to see how your body feels, pay attention to any spaces of stress or tension, and release them. Become aware of your physical body in the physical space around you. Notice how you are able to create changes in the space around you in an instant. All you need to do is have a thought, and you can reach out and pick up that apple or push in that chair. Pay attention to how you are the creator of your own life and your own space. It might not seem like much, but can you see how you are the vessel through which change happens?

Small steps. Small steps to a very big, unconditional and unwavering love. That is what we are doing here. We are consciously looking at and changing how we interact with ourselves. We are consciously starting to pay attention and to take better care of ourselves. This self-love affair is the most important relationship that you will ever have. Let’s work on nurturing and growing it together.

Here is a self-love infographic that can help to remind you…

Find out how you can increase your self-love through Remembering Your Worth.

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