Three powerful habits for developing self-love

In the first part of this series, I explored why learning to love yourself can be harder than you think, and three well-intentioned things that can get in the way. This second piece will look at three things we can do in our daily lives to overcome those obstacles. 

A note on daily practice

The daily practice part of this is important. The patterns of thought, emotion and behaviour that we experience over and over happen in patterns like this because our brains have learnt that these are the neural pathways to follow when particular stimuli or challenges arise. However, given that our brains have the quality of neuroplasticity - in other words, the patterns they use can change over time - we are not stuck, and there are lots of ways we can change our patterns.

As the mantra goes - ‘neurons that fire together wire together’ - meaning that whatever we repeatedly do becomes our go-to automatic pattern. So if you’re seeking to change your mindset or your way of relating to yourself, it takes intentional work to keep noticing and shifting your patterns towards a new way of doing things, until that becomes so familiar that it becomes the new default.

So, as well as taking in the three pointers below, maybe have a think about what it could look like to bring these into your daily life. Are there things you do every day (e.g. brushing your teeth, going to bed, boiling a kettle etc) that you could tag some of these onto, as a reminder to check in on how you’re relating to yourself?

What is self-love, again?

Let’s recall the definition of love we looked at last time - from Brené Brown’s book ‘Atlas of the Heart’:

“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honour the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.”

The following three ideas are things that can help us to really see the vulnerable and powerful parts of ourselves, and to build trust, respect, kindness and affection in how we relate to them. In other words, we build self-love.

1. All parts are welcome

Can you start to take on a mindset that all parts of you are welcome and that none of them are ‘bad’? If it’s not immediately easy to love every part of yourself (and that can be the case for so many of us, particularly when we’re stressed out), can you begin the trust-building process, and show kindness and respect, by recognising that all these different parts of you represent your humanity, and are welcome?

If even welcoming feels like a stretch, start with the idea of ‘allowing’. When you notice these parts of you, simply allow them to be there. For many of us, it can be hard to realise when we are being taken over by these different parts of us.

This is where IFS-informed coaching provides invaluable help. Through the safety of the coaching environment, you can start to notice when different parts of you are in the driving seat and can start to identify and understand these parts. Because the coaching is from a place of compassion and acceptance, all parts of you are welcomed into the coaching space, and this makes it a million times easier to start connecting with that compassion yourself.

2. Common humanity

You know that relief, release, even giddiness when you share something embarrassing with a friend and they say ‘Me too!’? That’s the two of you recognising your common humanity. One of the three central components of mindful self-compassion, common humanity means recognising that we are not alone in experiencing the emotions and challenges that we face.

This recognition of our shared human experience is incredibly powerful because it releases us from shame. It moves us from ‘there’s something wrong with me’, to ‘I’m human, it’s OK to feel this’. A coach can help you to identify where you might be feeling inadequate or isolated in the sense of not being enough in some way. Coaching with an IFS lens helps you to validate your feelings, recognise where they might be coming from - and how normal and human they are, and begin to respond to them with compassion. As we start tuning into our common humanity, it becomes easier to love ourselves.

3. The power of the pause

I don’t know if there’s anything more powerful than a pause when it comes to processing our emotions (but who knows, I’m sure I can come up with some contenders!). Pausing, even just for one second, shifts our perspective. Try it now if you like - pause for a few seconds from reading this and see what you notice. What I noticed, in a 2-second pause when proofreading this, was a background level of tension I was carrying, but was distracted from while writing. It allowed me to acknowledge that the background thing was affecting me, and to recognise that I need a bit of gentleness.

We spend so much of our time rushing from one activity or screen to the next, that we are often disconnected from what we’re actually experiencing in our bodies. When we pause, even just for a second or two, we can switch from ‘doing’ mode, into ‘being’, and from busy-ness into observing. When we observe ourselves, we recognise the space between us and our emotional experience. In other words, we realise that we are not our emotions. When we step back into observing, we allow ourselves to connect with a wider perspective. We release ourselves, momentarily, from overwhelm and make it easier for ourselves to connect with compassion.

Can you choose a few regular moments in your day, when - instead of rushing from one thing to the next, you could pause for 2 minutes and notice what's going on in your body, mind and emotions? You can then start bringing in the two earlier tips (above), in how you respond to yourself. Can you take the approach that all parts of you - however uncomfortable - are welcome? And recognise that, when you're dealing with uncomfortable or difficult experiences, you are not alone in feeling that way, but in fact are experiencing that because you're human?

Putting it into practice

One of the big challenges with all of what I’ve said here is that it is one thing to understand it conceptually, and another thing altogether to put it into practice. The way our world is set up very much propels us into rushing. Our unconscious nervousness around contacting our emotions can also cause us to avoid doing so through countless distractions.

How many people who resolve to start a 10-minute-a-day meditation habit immediately get it up and running? Not many that I know. Because we’re human! This is where coaching can interrupt the cycle. As well as creating accountability so that you can’t start embedding new behaviours into your way of life, the coaching sessions themselves provide a space where you are relating to yourself in a different way - learning to pause, pay attention and understand the wisdom that is coming from your own feelings.