It’s the month of February. Valentine’s Day is a few days away, and it’s a day of love, but it’s not just romantic love, it’s also about self-love and how we can love ourselves. In honor of love I created a short video on simples ways you can increase your self-care, to increase your self-love.

It is important to take care of ourselves, and often times our mental chatter of how we feel, as well as how we treat our bodies, doesn’t fall into alignment of how we want to feel about ourselves.We want to truly love ourselves and have self-acceptance, but that takes a little bit of work and time to understand who we are and to fully accept and love all aspects of ourselves.

I know that it’s been a journey for me. I would like to share some of the things I’ve learned along the way, on how to love myself on a deeper level.

There’s two things:

1. How we treat our physical body
2. How we think of about our bodies.

First, the physical body houses our soul and spirit, there’s no way that we could be in this body if we didn’t have a soul to live in it, and vice versa, so it works together, and our physical body requires certain things to survive. Basic biochemical needs. We need air, we need water, we need food, and we need sleep, and we need movement: exercise.

Constancy is the most important aspect of self care.

Secondly, most of us would never, ever talk to a friend the way that we talk to ourselves. The negative thought patterns are hurtful. Negative phrases like I’m fat, I’m unworthy, I’m not beautiful, I’m not good enough, and others; all have a detrimental impact on our physical health. Our bodies react to our mind and our emotional state.

You always want treat your body with love, compassion and acceptance. The more you love your body, the more your body is able to support you.  You’ll be able to live a more grounded, fulfilled, integrated life where you’re truly connecting mind, body, and spirit.

Action Plan

Create intentions, have affirmations and put it to work.

One of the best ways to solidify your intentions and affirmations is to use your physical body to help you on your path  of self-discovery of who we are. The body is a wonderful tool to do that.

I invite you to start thinking about how you can incorporate self-care practices as a form of self-love and use it in your body.

Here is a personal example:  My intention is to love my body and who I am on a deeper level. I am choosing to work out to solidify my desires. I commit to working out everyday. Not only for health benefits but as an act of self love.

One of least favorite parts of my body is, my lower belly – which often is said to be the kangaroo pouch, most women know what I’m talking about, underneath the belly button.

While I work out, I often think about that part of my body and I send it love. “Lower belly, you’re beautiful, even though you’re not flat, I still love you anyway.” Self acceptance is always part of self love. The same applies to my inner thighs, that I have been working on since my teenage years. I’ve just grown to accept it. Just that’s the way my thighs are and love them.

This is also the time when I send other parts of my body love, send say the words of affirmation I need to hear – you’re amazing, you’re powerful, you’re strong, etc…

While you’re brushing your teeth, you are in front of the mirror most of the time. You can say I love you (your name), I love you hair, I love you eyes…speak to all aspects of yourself and especially the things you are ashamed about.

This time is already carved out in your daily schedule, so you it wouldn’t take too much effort to add a self love practice around your self care routine.

Whatever you’re doing in your life you can incorporate some practices, like when you’re washing dishes…(insert your words of love). Or while you’re walking your dog, this could be an opportunity for you to have gratitude for yourself and for your dog and start infusing some self-care, self-love, words of affirmation in those moments.

Be creative. Think of your life, you currently have daily routines. How can you incorporate self love practices around them?

The more self-love you have for yourself, the more compassion and acceptance you can extend to other people. You will be filling yourself up with so much love that you’d be able to pass that love on to your friends, family and even strangers.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all. I love celebrating love, I think we should celebrate love every single day.

Giving flowers have become a tradition. You can also give emotional flowers: sending people – love, kindness, appreciation, but most importantly, sending yourself those flowers of love, appreciation, kindness.

I’m sending you so much love and tell me what your self-care practices are…

I would love to hear, I’m always curious and what other people are doing and how they’re incorporating their self-care practices.

Sending you infinite love,
Carine