Self love has been lifelong journey back to wholeness within myself. After years of neglect from being in abusive relationships, growing up with emotional neglect, healing my people pleasing tendencies and self neglect and self abandonment. Whatever your past may be with learning how to love yourself more, the following 4 easy steps below will help you along the way.

1) Write a Love Letter

Write a love letter to yourself every morning after your meditation. Why after your mediation? Because it helps clear and prime your mind for your deepest purest thoughts to flow.

Your intuition to come through and speak to you through these words to yourself. I know this may sound weird.. why write a love letter to myself you say? I thought it seemed silly at first as well, but it just kind of came to me naturally after a meditation one morning.

I wanted to journal after my meditation, which was only 5 minutes by the way as I’m just getting started into the practice. But I decided in that moment to listen to my intuition and start writing a love letter to myself.

I’m a romantic at heart and love writing love notes and love letters to my boyfriend and love of my life, but I never at all would have thought to write one to myself. I’m only two days in and already am feeling the healing affects of it.

The first letter I wrote was a letter to my inner child. How she was worthy and deserved love, unconditional love, despite all she went though and endured and what she had been taught growing up what love meant and was. How those things seemed to define her self worth and identity, but they were not true.

The words just spilled out effortlessly as I began to write. And as I wrote all those loving words my inner child needed to hear all this time, I began to cry. Healing tears from deep within.

Sometimes you can be on a healing journey for a long time and think you’re maybe done healing. That you’re finally where you want to be and you’re satisfied for how far you have come. But one thing I have realized on this healing journey, especially the one of self love.. is that healing isn’t linear, nor can it be measured in time.

Healing comes in waves and each new layer you unearth from your deepest self you realize just how deep those wounds really were. Wounds like shame, unworthiness, low-self esteem, regret, and wondering if you are good enough.

I have felt the pain of all these wounds and know that the journey to self love, true unconditional self love, is the path to true healing from all these shadows.

We can learn to love the parts of ourselves we perceive as “imperfect”. We can learn to forgive our past selves for not acting in alignment for who we truly are. We can learn to trust ourselves again by keeping the promises we make to ourselves.

We can start to grow a seed of hope that we can experience deep self love with each step towards that journey. And the first step in that journey starts with taking a pen and your journal, sitting down and writing a love letter to yourself.

Here are some ideas to help get you started if you don’t know what to say at first, or you can just let your pen free flow and see what words come out. They may be exactly what you needed to hear all along.

• Write a love letter to your inner child.
• Write a love letter about how much you love every single part of you, your past, your present and your future self.
• Write a Love letter of self forgiveness from all the things you have not fully forgiven yourself for or have any lingering regret over.
• Write a love letter telling yourself who you truly are, that you are the universe itself and all that you truly deserve in this life. That you truly do deserve abundance and to never give up on your dreams and goals.
• Write a love letter to all of your deepest insecurities and perceived “flaws” about yourself. Telling yourself how much you are loved and that every single part of you is unique and beautiful.
• Write a love letter to yourself pouring loving words and thoughts to every tender part of you.

These are just a few prompts to help get you started if you don’t know where to begin, especially if this concept seems weird and unnatural to you – it could be a sign that you need to do it even more. I hope you find healing in these love letters to yourself. I hope you uncover truths about yourself and find a deeper appreciation for all the beautiful things that make you, you. I hope you find yourself, and discover that you truly are the universe itself, that you are amazing, unique and rare and that you deserve all the love and abundance in this world.

2) Positive Affirmations to your Reflection

After you have done your morning meditation and written a love letter to yourself, before you begin to get ready for your day look at yourself in the mirror. Look at the you behind all the personas you try to uphold throughout your day.

Look through the layers beneath to your soul. The real you. Meet yourself there and place your hands on your heart and breathe deep. In and out slow deep breaths. Then begin to speak positive affirmations to yourself. The kind words you tell to strangers or your loved ones all the time. Speak them to yourself now. Softly tell yourself:

I am safe

I am loved

I am worthy

I am free of self doubt

I am free of self criticism

I am enough just as I am

I am whole

You can continue speaking whatever affirmations come to your mind and that you feel your soul needs to hear. This practice is best in the morning to set the tone for your day, but it truly is beneficial anytime of the day. You can speak these positive affirmations to yourself, with your hand on your heart, first thing in the morning, in the bathroom at your work and before you go to sleep.

It only takes a few minutes of your time, but the transformative affect it has on you at your core is powerful, especially if you continue to do this practice over a long period of time. My tip is to make it a habit, something so second nature that you feel the urge to speak something positive to yourself every time you see your reflection.

3) Self Validation

Often when your self worth or self esteem feels low, you seek external validation to lift you up. Please don’t beat yourself up if you have discovered this about you because it is very common for those who have suffered from emotional neglect as a child, or emotional and psychological abuse at any point in your life.

Or if you were ever taught that in order to feel enough and loved that you had to achieve and be something other than just yourself. This often begins in childhood, but it can happen at any point in your life when you are taught a different meaning of what love really is and how to receive it.

I have learned through many painful years of self doubt, that you can give yourself the validation you seek. You can be the person for yourself that you seek others to be for you. Start by giving yourself compliments. Telling yourself that you did a great job after completing a project or task you’ve been working on.

Don’t wait for others to give you validation for your hard work. Their words are a bonus and are wonderful to hear, but you should not be dependent on them nor be desperate to seek it.

Being dependent on others to validate your hard work or the things you’ve achieved will cause a never ending cycle of unfullfillment.

It will never fill your cup completely or enough as you will always be seeking someone else’s words to tell you that you are enough, or that your work or creation is amazing.

Telling yourself those words first, in front of the mirror, and after every project you complete, you will slowly find that you no longer ask others if something is good enough or what they think of it.

Of course it is always good to have other’s opinions to help you see things that maybe you did not see and help you improve and get better and better. But you should not seek other’s approval to prove your worth or that what you achieve or accomplish proves your worth.

Validating yourself first and speaking words that lift you up will help you see that your worth comes from within. Anything external to that is a bonus but your worth should never be dependent on it. You are enough just as you are and everything you achieve and create is beautiful.

4) Talk to your inner child

This practice may sound silly, but I assure you it is very powerful and healing. This can be done through visualization during meditation, through looking at your reflection and picturing your inner child or by holding up a picture of your inner child and talking to it as you look at yourself in the mirror.

Talk to your inner child as you would any child, but knowing that they are a part of you and live within you. When speaking words to your inner child place your hands on your heart and tell them:

“I love you”

“You are safe now”

“I will protect you”

“You are enough”

“You have always been enough”

“You are worthy”

“You have always been worthy”

“You are beautiful, inside and out”

“You were born beautiful”

“I love you”

You can then visualize wrapping your arms around your inner child and hugging them. You can do this practice after a meditation for the deepest healing affect, but anytime of the day is perfect. Just the practice of doing it is more important than when you do it.

The journey towards self healing and self love has no timeline, but any baby steps you make towards loving yourself just a little bit more will make all the difference. Learning to love yourself fully and unconditionally will help not only transform the relationship you have with yourself, but all relationships in your life.

The relationship you have with yourself is the foundation to all relationships and thus it is the most important. Let’s learn to unravel all the programming and past wounds and hurts that have made you feel less than, unworthy, unloved, and minimized. None of those things were ever true.

Your truth comes from within. You were born enough. You were born worthy. You were born beautiful and perfect. You were born lovable just for being you. Despite what you may have been taught you never needed to seek validation or achievements to prove your worth.

You are worthy just as you are and everything you achieve or create in this world is a magnificent piece of art just like you.