5 Self-Love Practices to Awaken to Your Heart
It’s Valentine’s Day in the U.S. and so Happy Love Day!
Whatever you think of this day, one thing is for sure, we need a bit more love in this world.
There were many years I disliked this day. I had a boyfriend breakup with me on Valentine's Day, so there's that. And that experience left me with a little scar on my emotional heart. A scar that layered a few other scars around love that were already there. But that's another story…
For the past 9 years I've been single on this day. On the years when my heart was longing partnership, I avoided emails and social media that had anything to do with love. And while I consider myself someone open to love and loving love, it still pained me to yearn for that romantic love and to see everyone else have it and not me.
We all want what we don't have. And what I've learned through my own spiritual practices is that this context is what creates the suffering within. When we cling to what we don't have instead of focusing on what we do have.
I've been on this journey of self-love for several years. And that journey is a path of awakening my own heart to myself, to connect to the love deep within me and to love myself unconditionally. This is probably the hardest thing to do than love someone else. In my self-love and self-awareness journey, I have come to realize that I am my harshest critic. I can be more un-loving to myself than any friend, family member, or romantic partner. And when I woke up to that…well, I realized something has got to shift.
There's a number of practices I've incorporated that have guided me back into fully loving myself unconditionally and to BE love. Love is not something that happens on one day of the year, it's a daily practice of coming home to yourself over and over again. And opening yourself up to the vibration of love that is all around. This is one of the greatest spiritual teachings, to be love.
When we come from this place, this place of deep true love for ourselves, we move through the world a lot differently than coming from the place of insecurity, anger, or fear. We see and experience the world lighter, with more joy, with more possibility.
I'm sharing a few of my favorite practices for embodying love with you here today. They're practices I have done and share with clients coaching them through their own journey of self-love and self-leadership.
Check it out and let me know what you think…
Start each day connecting with your own heart. This can be as simple as sitting in bed and taking a few deep breaths into your heart space. Bring one hand to your heart and breathe there. Imagine the love of life coming in with each breath, straight into your heart. Set an intention for your day from this place.
Spread kindness. Take a moment to share 1 act of kindness each day. It could be as simple as pausing and greeting a stranger and smiling. Or it could be picking up the phone and calling that friend you haven’t talked to in a while. When we give, we receive.
Write yourself a love letter. I have started a monthly practice of writing a love letter to myself for the past few years. I have it scheduled on my calendar so it's the same day and I make sure that it gets done every month. Otherwise, I'll just skip it or forget about it. It's helped me reconnect to my heart and acknowledge all of me in a loving way, remembering who I am.
Wrap your arms around yourself. Did you know hugs increase your oxytocin levels? Those are the feel good hormone or love hormone. A 20-second hug can help regulate your nervous system and allow you to feel held, literally. Why do we wait for someone else to give us a hug when we can just wrap our arms around ourselves for just a moment to get that sensation? Try it out.
Affirm Yourself. Our thoughts are powerful and they create our experiences and our reality. I have an affirmation that I say every morning for the last two years. I speak it into my tea and then I have a moment with my tea every morning. I'm training my mind and my body that I am love and I am loved.
Here's a sample of it:
I love and approve of myself.
I see myself and all that I do through the eyes of love.
Everything that I need and desire is being taken care of for me.
I am safe, I am held, I am supported.
One of the books that was life-changing for me in this journey of self-love and my spiritual connection was by Ram Dass, Be Love Now. When I first read this, I felt it deep within my soul. It was the beginning of my path to open my own heart for myself, to truly love myself unconditionally so that I could receive love fully.
"Imagine feeling more love from someone than you have ever known. You are being loved even more than your mother loved you when you were an infant, more than you were ever loved by your father, your child, or your most intimate lover. This lover doesn’t need anything from you, isn’t looking for personal gratification, and only wants your complete fulfillment.
You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.
Imagine that being in this love is like relaxing endlessly into a warm bath that surrounds and supports your every movement, so that every thought and feeling is permeated by it. You feel as though you are dissolving into love.
This love is actually part of you; it is always flowing through you. It’s like the subatomic texture of the universe, the dark matter that connects everything. When you tune in to that flow, you will feel it in your own heart not your physical heart or your emotional heart, but your spiritual heart, the place you point to in your chest when you say, "I am."
This is your deeper heart, your intuitive heart. It is the place where the higher mind, pure awareness, the subtler emotions, and your soul identity all come together and you connect to the universe, where presence and love are.
Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not I love you for this or that reason, not I love you if you love me. It’s love for no reason, love without an object. It’s just sitting in love, a love that incorporates the chair and the room and permeates everything around. The thinking mind is extinguished in love.
If I go into the place in myself that is love and you go into the place in yourself that is love, we are together in love. Then you and I are truly in love, the state of being love. That’s the entrance to Oneness."
I hope you take today, and every day to open your heart to that infinite love within.
