In our everyday lives, we constantly compare ourselves to others, which is the opposite of self-love. Naturally, we begin to hate everything we have and everything we are. We criticize our appearance, we crave new wants, and we desire to be someone better. But you’re something miraculous and marvelous. You have so many traits that people wish they could have. Every single person brings something to the table: especially you. So, if you’re looking to practice self-love, you can start with a guided meditation for self-love.
What Is Meditation for Self-Love?
Meditation gives us an opportunity to look within ourselves. What are the negative thoughts circling through our minds, making us practice self-loathing instead of self-love? Is our inner critic stopping us from loving ourselves? And of course, you can think about how you can be kinder to yourself.
A self-love meditation is often similar to a loving-kindness meditation as it encourages you to practice loving yourself.
When our brains are spewing out negativity at us all day, it’s time to retrain our brains to be more productive. Science shows that the left hemisphere of the brain controls our thoughts. A little trick to silence that loud, chatty left brain is to activate more of the right brain. The cool thing about meditation for self-love is that it’s a double dose of right brain action. Meditation is a right-brained activity you can do. And being compassionate is another right-brained activity. So when you combine a meditation for self-love, now you’ve got a fully activated right brain. Other right brain activities you can do are acts of kindness, drawing, painting, theater, and any other creative activity.
Meditation is all about becoming aware of your thoughts, so you can replace critical thoughts with loving ones. Self-love is only a few thoughts away. The more you practice meditation, the easier it becomes to be more loving towards yourself. So stop beating yourself up for what you’ve done wrong. You are not your mistakes and you are not your thoughts, either.
Guided Meditations for Self-Love
The following practices are for meditation for self-love. You can find meditations of various lengths, so you can easily commit to a time frame that works best for you and your schedule. The more you practice a guided meditation for self-love the easier it becomes to love yourself naturally. After all, meditation is merely the training for the moment. You don’t need to commit too much time, even ten minutes a day can be transformative. Take a few moments to allow yourself to experience self-love, so you can fully accept yourself as you are.
Meditation for self-love
This 10 minute guided meditation will help you evoke feelings of self-love and feel better in your own skin.
Find more practices like this one in our free guided meditation app Declutter The Mind.
How to Meditate for Self-Love
1. Find a comfortable seat
Take a seat in a chair or on a meditation cushion that you feel comfortable on. Use this time to scratch any itches. Find the meditation posture that feels good to you.
2. Open the Declutter The Mind app
If you don’t already have it, download the Declutter The Mind app on your phone. On the app, you can search for “self love” to find a meditation for self-love. You can also try “loving-kindness” for a similar variation.
3. Visualize a loving person you know
In your mind, picture a loving person you know. Think about the qualities this person has that makes them loving. Reflect on the qualities you have that also make you loving. Take a moment to wish this person happiness by saying “May you be happy” in your mind. Next, say the statement to yourself: “May I be happy.”
4. Practice loving yourself
After practicing your guided meditation for self-love, it’s time to practice loving yourself. Brainstorm the things you can do to show yourself love. A good place to start is in your mind. Replace intrusive thoughts with happy thoughts about yourself. Make changes that allow your brain to function at its peak to prevent any future relapses.
The Benefits of Self-Love
1. You’ll live a stress-free life
The stress we cause ourselves in our minds often stems from a lack of self-love. By doing a meditation for self-love, you’ll be practicing for all those tough moments where people insult you or make you feel worthless. As you increase your self-love, you’ll be better able to stand up for yourself against critics, especially the one in your head. You’ll do all the things that people who love themselves do, such as taking care of yourself, working on your brain, and doing good deeds. And it’s really easy to live a stress-free life when you do all those things.
2. You’ll achieve personal growth
Learning to love yourself is no easy feat. However, it’s one milestone in life that everyone should achieve. The ability to self-love allows you to achieve so much personal growth. After doing it, you’ll overcome how you think. If you were a negative thinker, that won’t be the case anymore. You’ll also likely change your behavior. Things you did that showed a lack of self-love, such as not going after your dreams, not taking care of yourself, or causing self-harm will be replaced with going after what you want, investing in self-care, and stopping all self-harm.
3. You’ll attract better things in life
A guided meditation for self-love will help you recognize how amazing you are. And when you realize you’re worth loving, you know what happens? You start loving people more. You begin to see all the people who are in the same kind of pain you were in, and you start helping them love themselves too. The more people you uplift, the more good people are drawn to you, which helps you feel better about yourself too. When we feel good about ourselves, we help others feel good about themselves too. However, when we self-loathe, we criticize others far more without realizing it. So, love yourself first, so you can make a difference in the world with your love.
4. You’ll let go of toxicity
Those who practice meditation for self-love will quickly know their worth. They’ll quickly say goodbye to toxic people in their life who bring them down. It’ll be easy for them to let go of their past because they grew from it. You can only love yourself when you get rid of the things in your life that make you question why you’re not lovable. If people cause you pain, there’s no need to stick around, especially if they don’t even want you there. As for yourself, you’ve got to get rid of all of those thoughts that tell you that you’re not good enough. You’re enough. And you should give yourself a chance to love the imperfections and wonderful traits you possess.
Other Ways to Increase Self-Love
1. Minimize time on social media
If spending time on social media causes you to compare your life to others, it’s time for a social media detox. Everyone has a different life journey. Instead of worrying how your journey compares to theirs, reflect inward and determine how you want to live your life. What are the things that you enjoy? Who do you like spending time with? Create a path for yourself that fulfills and enriches you. Not Amanda on Instagram or that celebrity dog on TikTok. Your ability to love yourself and your life will boil down to creating the life that makes you happy. And if you’re happy, you won’t care about how other people’s lives on social media compare to yours.
2. Practice gratitude
When was the last time you did a gratitude list for yourself? What are the traits, values, and strengths you possess that you feel grateful for? Taking a few minutes every day or at least once a week to come up with things you’re grateful for, allows you to appreciate everything you have. It’s much easier to self-love when we realize we’ve got a lot of great things going on in our lives. And knowing that you’re trying your best, even though you sometimes slip up, is such a crucial part of self-love. It’s knowing we’re imperfect but growing from experiences.
3. Practice self-care
Typically, when we don’t love ourselves, it’s due to the things we see. For example, if we look at our bodies, we’ll nitpick some weight gain. However, often a lack of self-love starts in your brains, which is something we don’t see or think about regularly. Are you eating the foods that nourish your brain to prevent you from feeling sluggish? How often do you exercise to get the blood flowing in your brain? Drink a ton of water. And take your supplements too. The more brain power you have, the easier it is to love yourself. And don’t forget to practice that guided meditation for self-love because that helps the brain too.
4. Say no
Attending a family event after struggling with a personal crisis feels like an obligation. On the one hand you love your family, on the other hand sometimes you just gotta say not this time. Saying yes to every event can be draining. And when you’re feeling drained, you’re not getting the care you need so your mind goes rogue. Self-love is all about doing the things that feel good for you. It’s not about people-pleasing. It’s about making yourself happy. So, if you don’t want to go to a baby shower while struggling with infertility say no. If a family member drains your energy and criticizes you every time you see them, limit contact. You don’t need to show up for things that make you question yourself.
5. Seek psychotherapy
Not knowing how to practice self-love often stems from childhood trauma, abusive relationships, or a lack of role models. Find a therapist who can help you learn how to rewire your thoughts to allow you to think more positively about yourself. It can also help you unlearn things about yourself that have stayed with you for far too long. Sometimes, the mean things people call us stay glued in our minds even if they’re inaccurate. We believe them because we replay it in our minds so much. In between therapy appointments, you can practice a guided meditation for self-love to help you improve your ability to love yourself and be more self-compassionate.
6. Recite positive affirmations
Replacing negative thoughts with positive self-talk is often taught in therapy to help people rewire their brains. So, not surprisingly, reciting positive affirmations works. That’s because the more you tell yourself something, the more likely you are to believe it. So, if every day you say, “I can handle anything that comes my way” not only will you believe it, but you’ll become a self-fulfilling prophecy and start handling everything with ease. It’s all about making your brain work for you instead of against you.
7. Practice self-acceptance
A guided meditation for self-love can help you learn self-acceptance. But you can also do this on your own. Watching videos about people who’ve made mistakes and what they learned from it is a good start. It helps you realize that you’re not the only person who messes up on the planet. We all do. You can also read inspirational stories about people who finally graduated, started working out, or wrote their first book in their 70s, 80s, or even 90s. As long as you’re alive, you can live the life of your dreams. Acceptance is all about knowing that you can love yourself as soon as today. You just need to let go of the past and step into the present.
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