What it Means to Truly Self Love
I recently completed my first Mindful Yoga Retreat
In a beautiful resort in Canada (Lake Louise). I was looking forward to a much needed peaceful “getaway.” To my surprise, this experience turned out to be much more than just a quick R&R for the weekend. This retreat opened my heart to connect with nature, other people, and proved to be a humbling opportunity to further connect with myself and provide self love.
As I’ve said in some of my previous blogs, in order to find the career you’ve always wanted to have, self love plays a big part in doing so. You teach yourself what you will or won’t settle for and you vibrate to attract more of what you love doing versus what you don’t.
The retreat allowed me to practice self love at a deeper level through mediation and practicing how to silence my mind (which runs constant with thoughts – feels like light speed in my head at times), as I returned home I realized that creating the deeper connection with oneself is something anyone can practice no matter where they are. The challenge though is “finding the time” and having the level of awareness of when you’re NOT practicing self-love.
When you’re stressed out of your mind with work, relationships, goals, fitness, social media (on and on) it’s easy to check out and not want to address uncomfortable feelings which then leads to self sabotaging behaviors like over-eating, not getting enough rest, neglecting yourself, and shitty low energy self talks.
What it means to truly self love is make the time to practice it daily
Allowing yourself to get out of the day to day grind, try 3 self love exercises listed below:
1. Get in touch with nature.
On the retreat we went for a “mindful meditative” walk in silence and it was so invigorating. Try it! Leave your cell phone at home or put it on airplane mode (if you absolutely need it) and go for a walk.
2. Practice yoga.
Yoga has become a more integral part of my life the last two years. I’m not a fancy yogi bending my legs around my head, walking on my hands or balancing on one finger. I practice because the movements open my heart emotionally and physically and it feels great. If you’ve never tried it before, check out a beginner’s class and don’t feel like you need to touch your toes at first. The goal is to connect with your body and practice listening to what it needs for that day and moment in time. Your body will tell you how to give it some love. ♥
3. Be mindful of what and how you eat.
At your next meal, become aware of what you’re eating and drinking. Notice how fast or slow or non connected you feel when you eat. Are you finding yourself in a drive-thru? Did you make your own meal, if so where did you buy the ingredients? Giving thought and awareness while eating has helped me connect to the self loving part. I was addicted to a well known taco fast food place for many years and people knew my love for this place. However what they didn’t know and I didn’t realize for many years was that I was emotionally killing myself by going there. Feelings of not being worthy or good enough would seep through my head while I was eating food from this particular place and I often found myself pulling through the drive-thru after another failed date, or argument with a friend or family member. It was just a distraction, keeping me off my path to being loving and happy with who I was. As I became more aware of what I was eating and the WHY, I made the changes. I no longer go to this place and have no desire to ever return there. Be aware and loving to yourself about why you eat what you do and take note if there are better choices you could be making.
At the end of the day, it’s a journey and YOU ARE NOT ALONE in taking the right self loving steps in order to manifest your goals and desires.
