Yesterday, we talked about focusing on feeling good.
Today, we continue that with 5 self love practices for healing and peace.
To begin, we must discuss the topic of self worth and how to trust your inner self, which are the foundations of self love.
As you acknowledge and heal your younger self in order to heal and gain inner peace, it’s important to know where you’ve been hurt, and bring awareness to the parts of your life that contain stories that you repeat to yourself about pain, trauma, and fear.
Write a letter of advice to your younger self
The first self love practice is to write a letter to your younger self, telling you all the advice you needed to hear when you were 4, 12, and 17, or any age at which you felt unsupported.
It’s important to be honest, and avoid judging yourself as you’re giving advice to yourself.
This practice will improve your inner ability to trust your current self, and lays the foundation for the next practices.
Make a list of 10 things you love
In the midst of the global crisis, I’ve been video chatting one of my best friends who lives far from me. She never usually likes to video chat, but this crisis has led to a desire for her to connect with friends in this format, despite being an introvert.
While chatting with her, I found one of my old sketch books, and because she was drawing, I decided to show her what was in my sketch book. It turns out, I wrote a giant list of things I love!
The first on that list was floral print which inspired this month’s series.
Writing a list of 10 things you love, can help you understand where your passions lie!
If you’re not sure where to begin, ask yourself about the last time you laughed, felt free, and found yourself smiling while doing something.
Expand with a little blurb of how you feel when doing these ten things. It’ll help if you stay general, and focus on the positive aspects of the activities.
What you write may surprise you! I wrote philosophy as number 9 on my list! That shocked me, as I wrote Pokemon and animal crossing before!
I love writing about philosophy because I feel confident in my abilities. I also love flowers because they make me feel pretty!
Write out your negative beliefs
I asked a friend of mine for advice a while ago, I started a new notebook where I only wrote positive things about myself, and I struggled so hard with this idea, I asked her if it was better to make it up, or go from negative to positive.
Her advice consisted of writing through the block; essentially convincing yourself that belief is false by writing about how it is blocking you.
I always spend too much money. I see the problem with this idea because I am good at saving money when I need to. I am capable of saving enough money to pay for rent, and food. I am really good at earning money too! There is so much abundance in the universe for me. I can easily attract anything I want. I always earn so much money.
Once you find the pattern of flow with your words, it begins to get easier to work yourself through this belief.
It’s also important to understand where your negative beliefs are and to cultivate a sense of self love through your writing, and allow yourself to change your own mind consciously.
Write a love letter to your future self
For me, this one proved to be difficult. Instead I wrote love letters to my ideal partner, and then began to see that partner as myself, which is the final practice.
Practice writing love letters to your dog, or cat, and then begin to apply those words to a letter to your future self.
Once you set your focus upon who you want to be in 2 years, your idea of who this person is will become more clear.
If starting the letter is difficult, write statements on your page with this prompt, until the page is FULL!
I love you because…
After a full page, sit comfortably, and relax into your body. Place your hand on your heart, and read each one of the statements to yourself and pause before moving onto the next one.
If you have a bracelet, this is also useful to touch the beads on your wrist while saying these statements, as you can change the pathways in your brain by physically acknowledging the feeling of saying I love you because you’re kind to yourself.
The bracelet will hold that feeling for you, and allow you to return to it when necessary by doing the same practice without your list in front of you.
You are your soul mate!
The final practice of self love, for peace and healing is to become your own soul mate!
The idea that you are someone else’s other half is false! You are your whole!
Anyone who is your partner, should be adding something incredible to your life! Your happiness is your personal choice, and allowing someone else into your intimate space with yourself should increase your feelings of worthiness, joy, and fun.
To solidify this, stand in front of a mirror and acknowledge yourself as whole, even if you feel fragmented or damaged, see yourself as a whole package, and a great one at that!
Remember…
Everything with healing and peace takes time, internal desire to change, and a change in perspective of how you view the world.
Take everything one step at a time, your healing is unique to you, and your weirdness is what makes you incredible, special, and fabulous!
You are a gift to this world, with a purpose, passions, and a perspective unlike anyone else.
Never let anyone prevent you from shining like the fire you are!
If you enjoyed this post and would like to learn more about my bracelets, check out my Instagram and join my live bracelet making chats!
With love and light,
~~ stay true, stay weird ~~
~~ Kristi