During times of doubt and stress, we need to be extra gentle with ourselves. If we criticize ourselves, we install negative thoughts and feelings into our minds. The negative thoughts root themselves in our subconscious. They can cause low-level feelings of anxiety and depression. To combat these negative thoughts, it’s essential to build yourself up with self-love and compassion. You will feel better about yourself and maintain a positive mood and outlook.
Release a Negative Mindset
Mindset is an important component of feeling good about ourselves. It is altogether easy to create a habit of criticizing yourself. But doing this only harms our conscious and subconscious mind. It can make us lose sight of our goals and get off track.
To release a negative mindset, set your mind to think of positive thoughts and intentions. Think about your goals and what you want to achieve. As you practice a positive mindset, you will embrace the positive instead of the negative. It takes time and practice, but it is worth it to maintain good feelings about yourself.
Install Self Love Into Your Mindset
There are several ways to practice self-love and positive thoughts.
You can:
- Listen to positive stories. The Chicken Soup for the Soul series of short stories has stories that help to uplift. Stories can redirect our thoughts to ones of hope, courage, and our goals.
- Try hypnosis. It helps reach your subconscious and reduces unwanted behaviors. Hypnosis can help with bad habits and destructive patterns. Practicing hypnosis installs positive behaviors like exercise, confidence, and better sleeping habits.
- Use affirmations. With affirmations, your mind may not accept them at first. This is because your mind blocks off a sudden reversal of a belief. Try writing affirmations that aren’t an about-face to your beliefs but meet them in the middle. An excellent book to see how to do this is Dr. David D. Burns’ Feeling Good.
- Listen to meditation music. One of the best ways for your subconscious to absorb positive thoughts is through music. You can listen to Subliminals, guided meditations, or other types of soothing music. The music helps to relax your brain while it soaks up the positive thoughts.
Write love notes to yourself. A great way to show yourself love is to write to yourself. You can pretend that you are your future self writing to you now. Or try writing to yourself in the future. Also, try pretending that you are in a past life and write to yourself in the now. What was different about your life back then? What are you grateful for in your life now that you may not have had in the previous life?
Create a Routine of Self Love
Try to find time during your day when you are alone to practice self-love. During this time, turn off your cell phone, computer, and any other distracting devices. Focus at least 10-15 minutes on self-love. Add this to your daily routine. You will start to look forward to this time during the day, every day!
Simple Self Love and Compassion Meditation
You can choose to start with a pure self-love and compassion meditation every day. You don’t need any tools or anything extra to practice this meditation. Follow the steps below.
- Make sure that you are in a safe place and can relax for a few minutes
- Close your eyes
- Place your hand over your heart
- Take in 3 deep breaths
- Allow your awareness to connect with your heart
- Feel the warm sensation of your hand over your heart
- Allow yourself to feel warmth and kindness coming from your heart
- Think positive thoughts of yourself like “I am kind,” “I am grateful for this moment,” and “I give myself love.”
- Allow yourself to breathe in and out. Do this while focusing on your heart.
- Imagine yourself reconnecting with yourself in your heart. Honor who you are by being a witness for anything that wants to reveal itself to you from your heart
- Breathe it in and breathe it out
- When you feel that your time in self-love and compassion is complete, thank yourself. Take in one more deep breath, allowing yourself to come back to the present moment
- Open your eyes
- Come back into the room where you are
