Self-Love 365

Today's FUN way of infusing self-love into our daily lives is through what we choose to read. Reading for self-love can be either: Reading something you love to read (notice + name it as part of your self-love practice) or reading something you consider to be about self-love. In this episode, Lee Lee shares 3 of her favorite self-love books, Out of Love: Finding Your Way Back to Self-Compassion by Marianne Ingheim; Hunger by Roxanne Gay; and House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. If you're looking for new books about self-love, look them u!p And make a plan to read them, either by ordering them from a bookstore (buy black-owned!!) or from the library, and/or by adding to your nightstand shelf.

Every now and then, life gets hectic and we plan a vacation. Or maybe we plan one in advance because we know life's going to be hectic for a while and we'll need a break afterward. A vacation acts as a regeneration of the relationship with whatever it is we're focusing on for that time period, whether family, our spirit of adventure, or our need for downtime. Good news: we can follow the same process when we need to reconnect with ourselves. We can research, plan, and anticipate a Self-Love vacation (or staycation) anytime we want, provided it fits into our budget and lifestyle. Take a moment today to dream about what this would look like and how great it would feel--to spend time just connecting with yourself. It can be a day, an hour, an afternoon, a weekend, or a whole week. The scope & specifics is up to you! Dream about but don't stop there: go ahead and schedule something in so that you can look forward to it the same way you do a "regular" vacation.

There's nothing more important in a healthy self-love practice than regular intimacy with ourselves. Just as you would establish and foster a time & place for intimacy in a loving relationship with another person, you can also foster intimacy with yourself. This is both a physical act (acquiring tools and storing them lovingly) and a mindset shift; namely, replacing shame & secrecy around self-touch with specialness, joy, and curiosity. Do a bedside table (or drawer/shelf) makeover... What does your bedside table say about your desire for intimacy? Is it full of dirty tissues & old chapsticks you no longer use...? Or is it clean, neat, organized, attractive, and filled with the things that foster rest & pleasure? If not the latter, ask yourself why that is the case. Do the mental work first, and then setting up the physical space will become more ease-full. Alternatively, go ahead and set up your physical space to support self-intimacy and then, in the appreciation and, frankly, in the convenience, your mindset will shift over time. The secret is out: most adults pleasure themselves on a regular basis. Let's stop hiding it, and showcase our toolkit--or, at the very least--honor it and place it appropriately & lovingly nearby the place where this intimacy happens.

Today's way of infusing self-love into our lives is by infusing self-love into our homes. Use a critical lens to search around your home and find things you DON'T love (or don't love to use) and... Get Rid of Them!! You can choose to hire a professional and go through KonMari or some other organizing strategy with moral support, but you don't have to. You can also just investigate your home on your own. The criteria for keeping things is that you love looking at it, it makes you feel loving, or you love using it. Otherwise, it's not contributing to the feelings you want to have and it's not supportive of your overall Self-Love practice. I recommend starting with the one place in your home that you DO absolutely love. Make a list of everything about it: describe it in detail, including its size & shape, its location in the home, what's on it (if it's furniture) or in it (if it's a room). Be specific and get all of the details on paper because this list is going to help you determine what to change about other spaces in your home you don't love to this degree.

You know what's fun? Eating what you love. Importantly, if we are practicing self-love--yes, even in our eating habits--then we don't just get to eat what we love; we get to eat what we love and NOT feel guilty about it. Yes, please! The practice of giving yourself a "self-love feast" at every meal begins, like many other areas we've talked about, with noticing. What do you feel like eating? What sounds good in the moment? What is available and/or easy to prepare? Listen to your body and give it the food it's asking for. Next, pause before you actually eat and notice the plate: how it looks, what it makes you feel, how pretty or colorful or aromatic it is... Then, EAT IT (obvi). And then, pay attention once again. How do you feel after eating? Does lethargy hit you an hour after this meal? Maybe you consider having it at another time of day when you crave it again in the future. Do you have so much energy you're bouncing off the walls? Maybe that's a better meal for breakfast than it is for dinner! Listen, here's the thing the media and diet culture doesn't want you to know: YOU are the expert on YOU. You know what tastes good, and you know how different foods make you feel. You simply have to stay aware and stay flexible. There's no wrong way or right way to eat, unless you're eating with guilt. That's no bueno. We can't have a Self-Love Feast with a side of guilt. So, say good-bye to shame & secrecy, and invite in communication & self-talk instead. Listen. Pay Attention. Eat Well.

This week is all about the F-U-N of being in love with yourself. We start off with our wardrobe. A healthy self-love practice means we only wear what we love to wear. Style trends be damned. Love wearing stripes? Wear them! A fan of polka-dots? Buy clothes with polka-dots! The rules are simple: if you love wearing it & if you love the way wearing it makes you feel, it stays. And if you don't, let it go. Pass it along to someone else who will love wearing it. Once you've pared down your wardrobe to only things you love, it will be much easier to abide by this rule when shopping. However, remember to also check in with your values & your budget. Staying within budget and supporting the types of stores you want to see thrive will mean your love for the items you buy will thrive only that much more! Get started with this practice today by throwing ONE thing out that you don't love to wear. Wouldn't it feel great to never see that item staring at you again???

The final day of our Self-Love Reset! In this episode, I tell you about my 3-question "test" that I can hold any action up against to determine if it's Self-Love or not. This tool can be used throughout your Self-Love practice, whether as an official part of a reset (like we're doing here) or any time you're feeling unsure. The three questions are: Is it true? Is it loving? Is it me? In other words, for an action to be part of your Self-Love practice, it must be honest, loving, and authentic. That's it! If you can say yes to those three questions, then it counts as Self-Love! Try it out and see what you think...

Day 6 of our Self-Love Reset is all about assessing our current self-care practices. (Remember: Self-Care is the acting out of our desire for & feelings of Self-Love.) Take a look at your current schedule and how busy or free you are, and then compare that to your current self-care habits. Do they balance out? Do they mesh well together? Do you need or have time for more self-care, or do you need to shift some of your practices into different iterations. If you're feeling short on hours & time, maybe a daily bath routine becomes a spa morning every other week. If you have more time in your day, perhaps you start a creative project that feels good. You don't have to completely get rid of habits that mean a lot to you, but you may have to shift them--make them shorter or longer, depending on where you're at in your daily life. Aim to adjust, not to obliterate! And by all means, this should be a restorative exercise that brings you more EASE. If you're getting stressed out just by doing this exercise--time to elevate the self-care!!

Sometimes, we get stuck in our hopes & dreams for a beautiful, inspiration, compassion Self-Love practice and we forget that love is actually all around us. We don't have to make it "hard" because we've built a life that consists of myriad outlets that provide us with love. When we feel depleted, overwhelmed, are anxious about something in particular--or we just don't feel that great--that's the time to stop planning, dreaming, and doing, and just start noticing where love already exists. Perhaps you have some books that remind you how to love yourself. Revisit them and pull out your favorite quotes. Maybe you have a playlist that makes you feel loved: listen to it. Take a drive around your neighborhood & look for symbols of love--a couple walking hand-in-hand; cutout hearts in windows; trees & any form of nature, really... All of these (and more!) speak of love and are there for the visual taking-in, if only we start to pay attention. Self-Love doesn't have to be hard! Take the easy way out for today, and just notice the LOVE that's already present in your life.

We move forward in our "Self-Love Reset" to, in a way, a second-guessing of our own preconceived notions about self-love and its healthy habits. Yesterday, we wrote a definition of Self-Love and today we're deconstructing that definition. Importantly, deconstruction is not about tearing something down--about Destructing it--but about investigation. Approach the task of deconstruction with a willingness to think differently about the topic, and a willingness to look at all sides of an issue. As you deconstruct your own definition of Self-Love, you can look at the different parts of it and see how they hold up next to each other; you can assess it as a whole and try to "poke holes" in your own ideas; or you can investigate the actions that go along with the definition--how well are you performing those actions? how often? how balanced? how aligned? This isn't just an exercise to have an exercise! Deconstruction allows us to challenge assumptions to ensure we are loving ourselves with authenticity, clarity, and compassion.

We're on Day 3 of our Self-Love Reset process, and it's time to bring it to the present. How are you feeling about Self-Love--and your practice of it--right now? If you had to define Self-Love--in your own way--what would you say? It's very helpful, actually, to have a working definition of Self-Love, not just for the reset process, but also so that you have it to weight your own feelings and behaviors against during times of stress, transition, or just when you're feeling like checking in. Throughout our journey, we're staying in constant conversation with ourselves, so this is one more conversation you can have when you're looking for something to talk about! 

During a Self-Love Reset (like the one we're doing this week!), it's important to take stock of how far we've come. Give yourself credit, as the authoress Alison Rachel says. Because we're so intent on building a healthy Self-Love practice, sometimes we can get too mired in the "process" of it all. Am I doing this right? What can I do better/more/intentionally/differently? That dedication will only be elevated by reminding ourselves of the hard work we've done, of the progress we've made, and of the changes we've enacted. Think of how good it feels to give or receive praise for a "job well done." Or how good it feels to be noticed when we do something selfless. Well, we want to experience those feelings within our Self-Love practice as well! Notice yourself today. Pat yourself on the back. Give yourself credit. YOU ARE MORE THAN ENOUGH. YOU'RE AWESOME! Celebrate!!!

Getting overwhelmed? Stressed in your daily or work life? Feeling anxious about the state of the world? The last thing in the world you should do is to take a Self-Love BREAK. Instead, give yourself a Self-Love Breather and work through the feelings. In fact, if you feel you need a break from Self-Love, then it's likely you need to give yourself time off from all the other things in your life that are making you feel stressed, overwhelmed, tired, and anxious. Self-Love is the cure for those feelings, not the cause! Because life can (and will) get hectic, it's actually wise to schedule in Self-Love Resets as part of your healthy Self-Love practice. Start by taking a breather--meaning, take a day or a week to notice how you're feeling and how you're behaving and whether those feelings and behaviors track with what you know to be true about a healthy Self-Love practice. If not, adjustments can be made without losing steam or focus. Breathe. Check-in. Pause. But don't take a break from Self-Love!! Continue to love yourself, no matter what.

If you have ever been at a point in your life when you were running the other direction from love, that's a challenge to consider when building a healthy self-love practice. If we weren't brought up to seek out loving relationships, then we may still be enacting this pattern unconsciously. Be very intentional about who you surround yourself with. Take a look at your relationships: are they loving? do they support your own self-love relationship? If not, evaluate what to do so that you can practice self-love within a community of love. Self-Love is independent but it doesn't happen in isolation. Also, Self-Love doesn't stop. It's constant, consistent, and is practiced on a continuum. Days where you "forget" to love yourself are signals that you're facing the challenge of a lack of love, or a penchant towards a lack of love, and it's time to reevaluate!  

Today's challenge is the Very Big Topic of Addiction + Abuse, or bad habits that border on becoming addiction or abuse. Like many of our other challenges this week, addiction, abuse, and even bad habits, can mask other feelings, make us act out of character, cause us to prioritize wants over needs, and just leave us out of balance in general. This leads to a spiral downward that is very tough to get out of, and very had to "love" yourself out of. For that reason, this challenge is vitally important to have strategies in place for--because this type of challenge isn't typically a "one off." Most addictions hang around for a long, long time...if not forever. Don't hope that it's not going to show up again! Have a strategy in place that you can rely on in the event that it does come back around. One strategy is to put a support network into place, and to make sure people in that network can identify (not just sympathize) with what you're going through. For this strategy to work, we must practice honesty, vulnerability, and self-compassion. Remember: self-love is a practice! Not a single act of becoming perfect. :)

Today's challenge is depression--either situational or a general feeling of sadness--and isolation, which typically results from overwhelming feelings of sadness. Depression gets in the way of our self-love practice because, while feeling depressed, we tend to focus on only that one feeling. All other feelings get shoved aside, including hope and happiness--two very important feelings that engender authentic loving acts. To put it another way, rather than focusing on our need for self-love, which can be met in a variety of ways, we focus on just the sadness. This means we can't "see a way out" back to loving ourselves. In my experience, I've found that setting up a support person for various specific situations I find myself in during a bout of depression is the strategy that works best against this challenge. Importantly, this strategy requires pre-planning and communicating to the support person what their role is--all done while we are NOT feeling sad! 

Disclaimer! I'm not a medical professional nor am I licensed to give any type of medical advice. The challenge and strategy talked about in this episode are framed from my own perspective and born out of my own experiences. Please, if you are feeling like your depression is not manageable on your own or with that trusted support person, reach out to your therapist or doctor. 

Overconfident/hubris - strategy is authenticity & growth

Self-Love is not a spring; it's a marathon! We practice healthy self-love in order to build up lifelong habits and a perpetual mindset of showing love towards ourselves. If you're paying particular attention to your self-love practice, you may want to add it to your "to-do" list as an intention or goal--or you may want to add daily tasks of self-love in order to build the habit--but self-love isn't negotiable based on mood or other tasks that need to get done.  It can't be carried over from week to week--something you'll get to when you have time. No matter what, self-love must remain a priority. As you focus on this practice, set a "Self-Love reminder" in your phone or calendar to go off at the same time every day. This will both remind you of your priorities and serve as a way to cheer yourself on in your self-love marathon!

Do you have anxiety, or are you often worried? Are you often uncertain, which leads to anxiety and/or worry? While this is totally normal given the unprecedented times we live in, being anxious, worried, and uncertain don't lead to a healthy self-love practice. When we're in these states of mind, we are expending all our mental energy on THEM...not on loving ourselves. The strategy for this challenge is to ground ourselves in reality, to remind ourselves of what is true. One way you can do this is by checking in, non-judgmentally, with your sense: what can you see, smell, hear, taste, and touch? Those things are true. Thoughts are not always true! When you're anxious, practice a strategy that brings your mind back to reality. And show yourself even more love, patience, compassion, and understanding until the anxiety/worry/uncertainty has gone away.

We live in a world that expects us to go-go-go, and do more-more-more. In reality, though, there are only so many hours in the day--and some are needed for downtime. If we start to feel pressed for time, we start to feel stressed. Then, we start rushing. But rushing or working harder/faster doesn't bring more hours to our day. In fact, it makes time pass by more quickly! And we certainly don't enjoy those hours. If you start feeling stressed and overworked in your daily life, then it's going to affect your self-love practice. You may feel like you don't have time to love yourself. (In fact, taking breaks is an integral part of a healthy self-love practice.) So remember that time is finite, there's no benefit to rushing, and you're only one person. For your mantra today, remind yourself: I deserve to take a break. Move slowly today, and see how it feels.

Just when we think we've addressed all the cultural barriers to a healthy self-love practice, someone accuses us of being "selfish" when we prioritize our own needs. Say no to an expectation you didn't agree to in the first place? You're seen as selfish. Stay home instead of attending an event that you don't have time or energy for? You're seen as selfish. Choose loving yourself over any other activity? You're seen as selfish. This type of this-or-that thinking is typical of a society in which nuance is a rarity. But we know better! Self-Love isn't selfish. Not now, not ever. In fact, if you need a "test" to see whether or not your actions are selfish--ask yourself if they're rooted in love, and if they're going to engender more potential for love. If the answer to these 2 questions is yes, then you're not being selfish. Also, being self-obsessed isn't being selfish either! Just make sure you keep your blinders off so that if someone else needs your time, attention, or love, you can take a break from your lovefest with yourself to attend to them!

In typical fashion of popular culture, we're receiving two very different messages on a frequent basis. One message says that we should be totally independent and do everything ourselves; the other message says that we don't know what we're talking about, we're not the expert, and we need to look to others to tell us what to do--or even to do it for us! Wow--confusing, huh? The truth is that we don't need to be totally independent, nor totally dependent. Our species works best when we're INTER-dependent. One way you can challenge this #loselose culture is to ask for help when you need it, which works better if you first cultivate the types of relationships in which help is both given & received. Also, expressing a need doesn't mean you're expressing the desire for someone to "solve" that crisis. If we practice a more nuanced version relationships, then we can help each other by providing encouragement or talking about our own experiences without solving anything for someone else. Try this on your own by expressing a need to someone close to you AND doing so without expectation of them taking over. The solution is within Y-O-U. But maybe you need help uncovering it.

The fifth type of culture that acts as a barrier to a healthy self-love practice is "Superhero/Shero" culture. When we glorify only strength, ability, endurance, and masculinity, we're neglecting the range of emotions and states of beings a human naturally exists within. Things traditionally seen as weak--like being vulnerable, delicate, or mistaken--are actually completely normal. If we ignore those parts of our selves, or worse--if we disparage those parts of our selves--then how can we love our full selves? Not everyone is meant to rise to the top; in fact, most of us are healthy and sane existing right where we are. Shrug off your cloak of invincibility, and admit that you need rest, you make mistakes, and your abilities are limited. Because we don't need another hero! And we don't need ANY Self-Love Superheroes.

We live in a world dominated by the self-help industry, which is a machine that preys on the doubt of its audience. As an antidote, we can keep our thoughts based in REALITY. Doubt does not come from love, and doubt does not equal reality. Reality is trusting your intuition; knowing what's good for you in that moment; relying on the abilities and knowledge you do have to help you made decisions; and being willing to learn by doing something (aka, not needing to know everything before you begin). Once we do actually become "expert" at doing something, or we acquire a certain amount of knowledge, it's natural & healthy to want to share it--but we can then share it in a loving, helpful manner. We share out of love & a desire for others to experience what we know to be true. What is something you're good at? Who can you share that with today?

In "secret" culture, a hierarchy is set up in which some people know and are allowed to dispense knowledge, and others are there only to learn, listen, and receive. This creates an unsustainable and unhealthy power dynamic, regardless of the situation. Many of us, however, grew up in this type of culture and are so accustomed to it we don't even notice it, nor the damage it does to our relationships, group dynamics, and our capacity for honesty. Fortunately, we are living in a time when truth-telling & fact-finding is at the forefront of everyone's minds. We all desire to tell and be told the truth. In a self-love framework, it's critical that truth-telling of any sort be paired with compassion. Otherwise, we risk veering too far to the opposite side of secrecy into harsh, uncaring, and often brutal honesty. Compassionate truth-telling is the antidote to residing on either side of this spectrum; it is the nuance our society lacks, and it is the primary way we can be honest with ourselves in support of a healthy self-love practice.

Shame is the opposite of LOVE. In a culture that promotes shame in regards to anyone who is embodied (especially children!), it's very difficult to feel okay with loving yourself. Self-love, like any loving relationship, involves the body. It involves touch and physical love. If we're disconnected from our body and even from the idea of showing physical love, then we will be disconnected from our ability to love ourselves. One antidote to shame is witnessing embodiment, which can be a powerful reset of what you *think* is true about the body. Another antidote to shame culture is consent culture. This is something you can practice as a way of reducing the shame and/or judgement that surrounds human touch. Even in non-sexual physical interactions, consent is useful and--it's fun! When both parties are on board with the physical touch, there's no opportunity for shame. Similarly, if you check in with yourself as a form of consent prior to giving physically touching yourself, then you will alleviate the need for shame before, during, or after that physical interaction.

Living in a shallow culture is a major barrier to a healthy Self-Love practice. When we're being influenced by others--whether through advertising, popular TV, social media, or the opinions of friends & family--we're no longer being intentional about our decisions. If we're not being intentional, then we can't know whether our self-love practice is working in our favor. So the antidote to Shallow Culture is really Intentional Living/Loving. A quick way to bring yourself back down to reality, so that you can be intentional, is to get grounded. I recommend a "get grounded trigger" that you put into place and can grab quickly when you're feeling out of sorts, influenced, heady, airy, cynical, or otherwise ungrounded. Getting grounded actions can be anything from digging in the dirt, to walking around barefoot, to moving/rearranging furniture in your house, to phoning a friend, to listening to a certain song that brings you back down to earth. Put the trigger into place NOW so that you don't have to think of a way to combat "shallow" when it arises in the moment. Be intentional now, practice-practice-practice, and the antidote will be your go-to without having to stop and think, "Great! What am I going to do now!?!"

Here's a secret: if you're not the person with the final say over your life, your body, your future, your health & wellbeing...then, you're not the person with the final say over whether you love yourself or not. Autonomy is a non-negotiable in the practice of self-love. If you're looking to someone else to make decisions or to tell you what to do, then you're going to be asking them whether or not it's appropriate for you to love yourself. And guess what? They're going to answer, "Sure, right after you love me first!"  This dynamic will not make for a healthy or even sustainable, let alone enjoyable, self-love practice. Autonomy isn't something we are given; we must claim it. You might need to make a grand gesture, or you might just need to start setting healthy boundaries and remaining firm on them. Tap into the resources you DO have and use them in your quest for true autonomy. Only when we are fully in charge of our self, can we fully love our self.

We've been raised in a culture that teaches us--whether for good or bad--that we "work" 5 days and we take the other 2 days off. Repeat, repeat, repeat. While having a dedicated work ethic will benefit us while focusing on our self-love practice & habits, we do NOT get to take days off. We're loving ourselves 24/7! Not that we're "practicing" habits, rituals, and routines of self-love 24 hours a day, but we are loving ourselves all day, every day. A self-love ethic, then, adopts a 7-day mindset. Put routines into place that support this 7-day mindset, and you'll gain more confidence about your ability to practice self-love every day as you go along. The more you do it, the better your are at doing it. Remember, we're not doing something for the sake of doing it--we're doing something we want to do, that brings us joy, and fulfills our desire for love. Be patient and compassionate. Put routines and rituals into place. Adopt healthy habits and a mindset that reminds you of your right to claim self-love for yourself.

The fifth basic of a healthy self-love practice is space, which encompasses both a physical space where we can be alone to focus on (and figure out how to meet) our needs AND the emotional boundaries we create, communicate, and enforce. In my own life, I find claiming a physical space to be something I'm very adept at, and, once claimed, I hang on to these spaces quite well also! However, setting emotional boundaries is much more difficult for me, especially when it comes to communicating those boundaries. There's no "closed door" with an emotional boundary! As part of my self-love practice and just general growth as a human being, I have decided to let me ability to claim physical space influence and inspire my desire to create and communicate healthy emotional boundaries. What about you? Where do you have a space in your home? Even a corner or a desktop counts--it's not about the size but it IS more than a symbolic thing. We need an actual place where we can focus on and grow our self-love. Where's yours?

The fourth basic of Self-Love is energy--as in having some! All too often, when our energy is low, our self-love practice wanes. Even though self-love is a restorative practice, we haven't received the message to prioritize our needs; thus, self-love & self-care are often the first things to suffer when we're feeling low on energy. Ironically, when our energy is low, we need self-love even more! Start to notice and name the times when your energy lags, and the behaviors or external factors that cause this lag. For me, two red flags are managing other people's behavior and avoiding tasks that require a greater amount of energy. (Once again--the irony is that I spend a lot more energy & time avoiding the task than I would sitting down to do it!). What are the ways in which you sabotage your own energy levels? If you can start to notice and name them, you can start to keep track, and eventually we'll work together to re-wire these behaviors.

Wouldn't it be great if we looked forward to "self-love time" just as much as we did to dinnertime? or to date night? or to the time when the kids are safely on the bus and off to school / out of our hands? Good news! We can look forward to this time, if we manage our time in such a way that self-love IS important and valued and prioritized and comforting and fun. On the other hand, if we're always feeling in a rush and pressed for time, it will be a challenge to set aside the time we need to love ourselves. Time management is certainly a privilege, and if you are lucky enough (as I am) to have the time to manage your time, then I urge you to pay attention to how you're spending your moments. Also, to get yourself in the mood for self-love time, consider enacting a ritual that signifies your readiness to begin; for example, an alarm on your phone or the lighting of a candle.

Alongside cultivating a life with stability, safety, and security, we can cultivate a support system to turn to when challenges (or chaos!) arise. Do you have a select group of people you can turn to when you need help? Are you even able to ask for help when you need it? Asking for help is not a weakness! Still, for many of us, we've been conditioned or molded into "independent" thinkers who see asking for support as being weak. Needing support is normal + human, though it does require vulnerability. Asking for support, though, will be much easier if we cultivate systems of support in which there is reciprocity. 

For our self-love practices to thrive, there are certain non-negotiables we need to put in place--the "fundamentals" or basics of self-love. For me, these begin with safety, security, and stability. When I am living in an environment that is safe, secure, and stable--both physically & emotionally--than I am better able to love myself, which means I am better able to pass along that love to those who cannot access the fundamentals at this time. What are your non-negotiables for living your ideal, loving life?

What would be different about your life if you loved yourself unconditionally? If your self-love was the purest, richest, most rewarding love in your life? Can you picture it?  Paint it? Dream it in to being? Dreaming about the "perfect" self-love relationship is just like all the dreaming about "falling in love" that we did when we were kids or teens (or now!). Dreaming is manifesting the goal into being. It's an authentic and necessary part of the realization process. The good news is we are perfectly equipped to fulfill our own dreams! We don't need to rescue or be rescued; we just need to get familiar with our desires and meet our own needs. We just need to love ourselves, in whatever way that love needs to be given.

Alongside adopting habits of Self-Love, we must also reconcile with and reckon with our past experiences--our "story." If we don't accept all that we've become and all that we've experienced then we can't truly love our present selves. One challenge is accepting even the pieces of our story that we didn't engineer--those parts of us or experiences we've had in which we didn't choose for it to be that way. In these cases, we don't have to LOVE the incident or the aspect of our personality/body/etc, but we can still reconcile with those things, in order to fully appreciate who we are, and to love ourselves unconditionally.

The next Self-Love habit we're going to cultivate is recognizing our own beauty. Now, unless you have been born with "traditional" beauty features, this will necessarily involve re-defining what is and isn't beautiful. If you buy into patriarchy's definitions of beauty, and you don't fit into those parameters, then it's pretty hard to call yourself beautiful and believe it. So, this habit also involves challenging traditional beauty norms and finding the beauty in your "flaws" or "scars," or whatever makes you Y-O-U. 

Music by Henri Lew

Custom graphics by Little Legends Design Studio

In addition to talking to ourselves, another important habit to cultivate in our self-love practice is paying attention to ourselves! We're both the child in need of attention, and the parent willing to give it. What's nice about this is that we can meet our own need, which is often both a present longing & a deep-seated desire to be noticed. No more looking outside of ourselves to be noticed! We can be our own observers. We can give ourselves the attention we need and deserve. Spending time with ourselves is part of a self-loving relationship. So get started today!

Music by Henri Lew

Custom graphics by Little Legends Design Studio

What relationship have you enjoyed without talking to the other person? I mean, we even talk to our animals--and they don't even know what we're saying half the time! It's only normal + natural (and necessary) that we talk to ourselves, if we want to be in a loving self-relationship. Try narrating an action you're doing, or having a dialogue with yourself about a particular decision you're making. Do it in the moment, and keep it neutral. Right now, as we practice the habit of self-talk, we just want to normalize it and feel comfortable doing it. Just as we have to talk to others for our relationships to remain healthy, we have to talk to ourselves if we want to stay in love!

Music by Henri Lew 

Custom graphics by Little Legends Design Studio

Self-Love is a practice, and practices require patience. If you set perfection as a goal, you'll become frustrated more often than not. Instead, show yourself compassion and kindness, which are both integral aspects of a loving relationship. No one is perfect. No relationship is perfect. So, let's not expect perfection in our self-love either. Aim low, and show up. You'll surprise yourself!

Music contributed by Henri Lew

Custom graphics by Little Legends Design Studio

For most of us, loving ourselves is going to be a new practice we're adding in to our already full lives (and already full brains!). It's important, then, to choose self-love habits that are actions we both desire to have as part of our lives and that we enjoy doing. Even so, new habits are often challenging--simply because they're new. The easiest way to set ourselves up for success is to schedule our self-love habits. Grab your calendar, or set a reminder in your phone, and schedule your self-love! Be specific, and realistic.

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Music by Henri Lew; Custom graphics by Little Legends Design Studio

Follow us on Twitter @365_self

Get our weekly digest every Sunday at 365daysofselflove.com.

We made it! The week of "Self-Love 101" has reached its conclusion. In this episode, I share more of my personal self-love journey. I hope it inspires you to choose self-love, now and for always.

Custom graphics by Jessie Leiber of Little Legends Design

Custom music by Henri Lew

The ripple effects of a self-loving relationship are large & long-lasting. When your self-love practice is healthy, every interaction becomes a loving "ripple." And just like the ocean, self-love ripples come back to you just as strong. By loving yourself, you're helping to heal the world! 

Custom graphics by Jessie Leiber of Little Legends Design

Custom music by Henri Lew

We're spending 365 days of building a practice of self-love to investigate what it IS and what it ISN'T...but Self-Love in and of itself is not, in theory, complicated. It boils down to: "I love myself." Taking care of basic needs and figuring out exactly what we can't live without in any given day counts as self-love!

Custom graphics by Jessie Leiber of Little Legends Design

Custom music by Henri Lew

Who do you love that you don't even know? I bet that answer is nobody! In order to love someone, you get to know them. And in order to love yourself, you get to know your SELF. Who are you? What do you like? What do you hate? What are you apathetic about? What's your favorite ice cream? What do you do first thing in the morning because it just feels right? Are you even a morning person? There's so, so much to get to know! Why not get started today?!

Custom graphics by Jessie Leiber of Little Legends Design

Custom music by Henri Lew

Self-Love can (and should) be nourished - every single day. We must tend to our self-love relationship just as we would any other, with compassion and patience and a sense of responsibility. We must give ourselves space when needed. We must show up for ourselves when needed. Just like any other loving relationship, self-love cannot exist on its own. It takes tending to!

Original Music recorded by Henri Lew.

Original Graphics designed by Jessie Leiber of Little Legends Design Studio.

Self-Love is the feeling; Self-Care is the expression. They're different but intertwined. If we know that self-care is an expression of self-love then we know there's No Negotiating on Self-Care!! And we know that there's no shame allowed when we're giving ourselves care. So go ahead and take that long lunch!!! 

Our music is created and produced by Henri Lew.

Follow us on Twitter (!!) @365_self, and get our weekly digest on Medium at 365daysofselflove.com.

Self-love is a type of love! That means, we carry all our preconceived notions and past experiences of love with us into a loving relationship with ourself. Defining love, and noticing the ways in which we love ourselves, helps us to understand and practice a self-loving relationship.

Music for this episode was created & recorded by Henri Lew. 

Follow us on Twitter (!!) @365_self.

Hi, and welcome to SL365! I'm your host, Lee Lee. This episode is an introduction to the podcast. In it, I share a little bit about myself & why I chose to do a podcast on self-love. I also set some intentions for the podcast, and I share a couple of disclaimers. Hint: I'm not a medical professional! Give it a listen, and I'll see you first thing Monday morning for DAY 1.