Today we’re going to talk about self love. It’s something all us woman naturally do because we’re incredibly nurturing and caring, we carry and look after our children, run homes and on a daily basis we give a lot of love!
But what happens is we are very good at loving others but not great at loving themselves. Now I know this may sounds a little ‘new age’ but self love, the many definitions of self love are:
- Self Respect
- Self Knowledge
- Self First
and the understanding that we matter and that where we come from is that we give to everybody else in our lives.
I spend a lot of time working with people that are very or terminally ill and one of the interesting things is that when you speak with people like that and you talk about loving yourself they intellectually get it but they don’t know how to feel it; and the more intelligent you are the harder it is because we spend so much time in our own brains and we don’t quite connect with our hearts and we lose feeling.
Now I don’t mean walking into your office and you feel love because then you’re that creepy person that everyone avoids, but you need to get the the right stage where you understand what it means for us to love ourselves.
I have an exercise that I do with people to help them to learn to love themselves.
When I say “Love Yourself” do you feel an overwhelming rush of love for yourself? When you do that it shouldn’t be I’m beautiful, I’m sexy and my hair is great because those ant the things I care about in terms of loving yourself. I think about:
Do you love yourself as a human being?
Do you love yourself as a person?
Do you love where you’re coming from?
Do you love what you do?
When I spoke about this with coaches they said ‘You need to show more love to yourself’ I was like yes, I love myself but they made me to do these horrendous exercises where I had to stand in front of a mirror and say ‘I love you Geeta…blah, blah, blah’ and I felt absolutely stupid.
So, what I did instead is start by thinking about someone you love like a child, a family member or partner and think about them. My face softens, my heart expands, and my mind opens because i’m thinking about someone I love.
Think of someone or something but you can’t be doing this about a Channel handbag or your perfume.
Do you feel that expansive feeling, that growth? Now tell yourself, you love yourself! That growth would shrink, now think about someone you love and repeat the exercise do it 2,3,4 times a day until that link between love and yourself becomes established in your brain and in your body.
The next step in this exercise is to think about something you’re good at for example, I feel i’m a really good mother. Then when I think about myself and being a good mother this expands my heart again.
But what I did there is think about something where I love myself as a person and as part of my life as a person - But I still love myself and write down 1,2,3 where you show up in life where you love yourself.
Then I can love myself as a mother, a daughter, a CEO and write it down and repeat this a few times a week.
By writing it down it connects your brain and your heart. After you’ve done this for a few weeks stop and reflect, look around you and you will notice that your life has changed, the way you show up, the way people talk to you, the universe will respond to you more softer and kinder.
Try it, it’s the most amazing exercise and I really hope this works for you as it did me.
