How to truly love yourself

The foundation of all the work that I do as a dating and relationship coach helping single women navigate healthy, loving relationships with others comes down to forming a healthy, loving relationship with themselves first and foremost.

When you have a strong foundation of love for yourself — one built on self-worth, self-attunement, self-awareness, and self-compassion — you will inevitably attract into your life healthy partnership. And, unfortunately, the opposite is also true.

Most of us have suffered from a lack of self-love at some point in our lives, if not for all of it. In a world constantly telling us that we are “too much” of this or “too little” of that, it’s almost an act of rebellion to love yourself fully.

A lack of self-love often stems from childhood, from our primary caregivers telling us, either directly or indirectly, what does or does not make us lovable or worthy of love. Our parents likely meant well, but in their attempts to protect us, they often encouraged us to mould and bend ourselves into whatever form was most celebrated or acceptable in society.

“Be smart.”
“Be skinny.”
“Smile more.”
“Don’t cry.”

All of these statements can be interpreted by our young, impressionable minds as conditions we must meet to be “lovable enough.”

Then we grow up and take on new narratives from peers, teachers, partners, social media, and the world at large. We start believing that if we conform to these external expectations, then we’ll finally be worthy of love.

But the truth is: you are inherently lovable just as you are.

Let’s start with a simple truth:
To me, self-love means unconditionally accepting yourself. This doesn’t mean you always have to like your actions or behaviours. But it means the love and acceptance that you have for yourself remains regardless.

It’s forgiving yourself instead of shaming yourself, and choosing to learn the lessons from from missteps, rather than reprimand yourself for them.

It’s not about believing you’re perfect or avoiding accountability.
It’s about knowing, deep down, that you are worthy, even with imperfections, even while evolving, even while healing.

You are deserving of love. You don’t need to earn love because you already are love.

Getting to this place took me time. I had to accept parts of myself that I had spent my whole life trying to rid myself of, hid, or suppress, like my fear of abandonment, people-pleasing, jealousy.

And interestingly what happened was, the more I began to accept these parts of myself I had previously deemed so deeply unlovable about myself, the more they began to soften their tight grip over me and the more I healed.

The more I began to connect to my own self-love, rather than seeking it through validation and approval from others, the healthier my relationships with others became.

Practical Steps to Radically Accept Yourself

Here are a few practices that helped me (and many of my clients) move toward unconditional self-acceptance:

1. Notice your inner critic & question it.
   Become aware of the voice that says “you’re not enough.” When it speaks up, pause and ask: “Whose voice is this really?” Often, it’s not yours. It’s an echo from childhood or society.
2. Practice self-attunement.
   Check in with yourself daily: “What am I feeling? What do I need right now?”
   Learning to meet your own needs builds self-trust.
3. Embrace the ‘both/and’.
   You can both love yourself and want to grow. You can both accept where you are and strive for more. Growth and self-acceptance are not opposites, they are partners.
4. Use compassionate self-talk.
   Speak to yourself as you would to a dear friend. When you stumble, instead of “I’m so stupid,” try, “That was hard, but I’m learning.”
5. Celebrate your wholeness.
   Make space for all your parts — the confident and the uncertain, the gentle and the fiery, the joyous and the grieving. They all belong.

If you’d like to deepen in self-love, you can SIGN UP HERE for my free guided meditation. I recommend listening to it every morning to put yourself in the energetic frequency of love and abundance to start your day. ✨