How to Practice Self-Love: Lessons from the World’s Greatest Teachers
Over the last 17+ years of study, healing, and professional practice, I’ve immersed myself in the works of some of the wisest thought leaders on the subject of self-love.
Each of them share a unique perspective. Yet all of them arrive at the same essential truth:
Self-love is a relationship.
As we know, every strong relationship is built through honesty, attention, courage, communication, practice/dedication and repair.
A portion of what I teach my clients in the No More Mind Games mentorship program is inspired by the works of some of my most beloved teachers:
Through Pema Chödrön, I’ve learned that self-love is a willingness to stay present with our own discomfort instead of running from it. She teaches that loving-kindness begins with gentleness towards ourselves. Reminding us that healing is about learning to meet yourself exactly where you are, without aggression.
Through Thích Nhất Hạnh, I’ve learned that self-love grows when we stop treating our pain like an enemy and start treating it like a part of us that needs attention. He often speaks of self-compassion as an act of deep listening. He taught that to care for ourselves is to care for our suffering the way a loving parent cares for a child with patience, tenderness and understanding.
Through Tara Brach, I‘ve learned that self-love requires the courage to turn towards what we’ve been avoiding. She calls this practice radical acceptance. She shows us that healing happens when we stop fighting our inner experience and begin to offer ourselves presenceinstead of judgment.
Through Bell Hooks, I’ve learned that self-love is expressed through daily choices that honour our dignity and wellbeing. She brings powerful clarity to the conversation by stating, love is not a feeling, but an action. She writes that love is a verb. Love is something we do through care, respect, responsibility and commitment.
Through Ram Dass, I’ve learned that self-love is ultimately a spiritual practice of coming home to our true nature. He reminds us that at the deepest level, love is not something we earn but something we remember. His teachings invite us to soften, to forgive ourselves and to recognize the inherent worth that has always been there.
Through Teal Swan, I’ve learned that self-love is practical. It shows up in boundary work, the choices we make and the way we treat ourselves when no one is watching. What I love most about her teachings is that she brings it all down to earth with radical honesty. She states that, self-love is demonstrated in how aligned we are with ourselves and that it is measured by whether our actions reflect our inner truth.
These are just a handful of teachings and teachers who have helped shape everything I do.
After years, of sitting with people in their most tender moments, I’ve learned that most of us were never taught how to love ourselves in a real, embodied way.
Most of us instead, were taught:
How to perform
How to push things down and push through
How to override our needs
How to be ~fine~ with the status quo
Many of my clients come to me with struggles like: anxiety, burnout, disconnection, confusion, feeling lost or stuck. Sadly, many of them see these struggles as personal failures, they are not. They are symptoms of a long history of self-abandonment. Again, it’s not your fault, we have been taught/programmed through television, advertisements, news, social media and other sources to abandon ourselves. You are much more easily sold to (and not just material things, but ideas too) if you don’t know who you are. If you don’t love yourself you will buy into whatever it is being sold to you to make you think that you are loving yourself, when in reality the those things are driving a bigger wedge between you and true yourself.
This is why the core of my work is about teaching you how to return to yourself.
Through my holistic process with we learn to:
slow down enough to hear our own inner voice
repair the relationship with our body and intuition
recognize the subtle ways we’ve learned to betray ourselves
practice choosing what is true instead of what is expected
build self-trust one small action at a time
This is radical self-love in action.
This is the kind of radical self-love that changes how you speak to yourself. How you make decisions. How you set boundaries. How you move through the world. How safe you feel being you.
If you are the kind of person who has spent years being the strong one and high-functioning on the outside while quietly feeling exhausted and disconnected on the inside this work is especially for you.
My role is to help you translate these timeless teachings into practical, grounded, everyday practices that restore your sense of Self. So that self-love becomes the way you live.