Self-love journey: 7 steps to finding your authentic self
If you’re here, you’re probably wondering what is self-love. How do I truly love myself? What is this self-love journey? Does this self-love journey ever end? Do I finally just learn to love myself? I’m going to attempt to answer some of these questions in this blog post.
But first what is self-love?
Love is something so innate to us that consciously thinking about loving yourself can seem jarring. After all, we all know how to love someone right? We love our parents, kids, spouses, and even friends. But how do you give yourself love?
Let’s unpack this first. Think about someone you really love. A parent, kid, spouse, or friend. How do you talk to them? How do you behave with them? What do you think about them?
Now if you really love someone, chances are you talk to them with kindness and compassion, give them affection, help them when they need help, support them, encourage them and generally think of them in high regard. If they make mistakes you probably forgive them.
Your love for them is also unconditional meaning it doesn’t change depending on the circumstance. Do you only love your parents when they buy you something you want or your spouse when they do something nice for you? Probably not. You love them all the time no matter what they’re doing and even when they make mistakes.
Loving yourself is no different. It is similar but not quite the same.
A unique thing about self-love is that it is a journey rather than a destination. It is a journey that you go on alone to discover the love that lies within you. Your self-love journey will most likely lead you to your authentic self which may be the destination. But you never stop learning to love yourself.
My intention in this post is to guide you through a journey of how self-love commonly develops and the major milestones that you may encounter on your journey. I’ll also be sharing insights from my self-love journey.
Chapter 1: The desire to embark on a self-love journey
I remember how my journey of self-love started. I was infatuated with a boy I barely knew. Being in an infatuated and obsessive state was so euphoric especially since I hadn’t felt that way my entire life. I was captivated by the daydreams and the possibility of a future with him.
I put all my self-worth on the basis of how this one guy felt about me. If he liked me, I felt exhilarated, like I could take on the world. If I felt his disinterest, I would feel anxious and instead look for signals that he did like me. I realized that I had a limiting belief which was that if a guy liked me or loved me, I am enough and worthy and loveable. But if he didn’t, then I wasn’t, which crushed me.
I realized I put my self-worth in the hands of other people and if they loved me, then I was good enough but if they didn’t, then I wasn’t. It is scary to place your worth in the hands of other people and also an injustice to yourself.
However, this was one of the most transformative experiences of my life. This experience took me on a spiritual awakening journey and a self-love journey to discover who I truly am. That is when I realized that I never liked the guy, I just wanted him to like me. That too desperately because I believed I was unloveable and if he liked me, then I was worthy of being loved.
This toxicity in me took me on a journey to discover what it means to truly love yourself and heal yourself. It is a journey to believing you are loveable and acting like it. It is about rediscovering the real you that was, is and always will be worthy – just the way you are.
What got you started on your self-love journey?
What sparked this desire? Perhaps you realize you’re burnt out from taking care of everyone else?
Maybe you’re pouring from an empty cup?
It could also be a break-up or unrequited love. Bring to mind that initial spark as that will be the fuel for your journey.
Chapter 2: Self-care
After deciding to embark on this journey of self-love, the next common thing people begin to do is to take care of themselves. Perhaps you start eating better, going to the gym, meditating, and meeting your needs. Though self-care is not sufficient for self-love, it is a necessary part of the journey. You cannot love yourself if you don’t take care of your basic needs.
I remember this step of my journey when I decided to take better care of myself. It was during the pandemic when I began to dabble in meditation, exercise, and do those TikTok dances which brought me so much joy!
Self-care can look different for everyone. It can range from taking care of basic hygiene to doing 10-step skincare rituals. Neither is right nor wrong. The important thing is finding ways that nourish you. What is your self-care ritual? Learn to create an effective and personalized self-care routine for yourself!
Chapter 3: Changing your self-talk
Eventually, you get to a point where you realize that self-care feels good but it’s not bringing you closer to who you truly are. Self-care leads to amazing lifestyle changes but you realize you need more. You can do all those things but if you talk to yourself like you would an enemy, that’s not loving yourself. Would you criticize your child or parent or best friend? Would you beat them up for something little? So then why do you do it for yourself?
I realized how self-critical I was. I would beat myself, put unnecessary pressure on myself, and criticize myself for making mistakes. For example, when I was in second-year university, I remember getting a 70 on one of my tests and that was so agonizing to me that I cried over it, beat myself up for it and believed that I was doomed.
I practically put my whole life at stake over one stupid test. When I realized how damaging these tendencies are, I decided to change my self-talk. I also decided to take unnecessary pressure off my shoulders. After all, this wouldn’t determine my life outcomes. Oddly, when I took this pressure off, I did much better in school without hurting my mental health.
Changing your self-talk is a slow and gradual process. You won’t be able to change your self-talk overnight. But by being aware and then swapping those thoughts for better thoughts, you will see a huge shift in your mindset and how you feel about yourself. You can even use self-love affirmations to change your self-talk.
Chapter 3.1 – Perfectionism
A close cousin of your inner critic is perfectionism. Perfection is when one strives to be the best or produce the best quality of work. Perfectionism is not a block inherently. In fact, it makes us ambitious. But it can become a block when it starts to manifest as criticism, procrastination, or not doing the things you truly want to do.
Self-talk is closely related to perfectionism because when you’re a perfectionist, you’re more likely to beat yourself up and expect no mistakes. But that is impossible. You’re a human and it is naive to think that you won’t make mistakes. When you’re a perfectionist, you’re also sensitive to failure.
If we expect perfection, failure can make us truly suffer. But again it comes back to what you believe about failure and how you perceive it. If you believe failure is the end, you will suffer. Learn how you can reframe failure.
Pay attention to your inner dialogue. What kind of self-talk stops you from fulfilling your goals?
Chapter 4: Keeping the promises made to yourself
Although changing your inner dialogue is a huge step in your self-love journey, it isn’t enough. It’s also necessary to take actions that demonstrate love. Learn to keep promises to yourself.
Do you honour the promises made to your friends and family? Most likely you do. Keeping promises builds trust with others and yourself. How can you love someone you don’t even trust? By keeping the promises made to yourself, you cultivate self-trust and get closer to your authentic self.
Did you promise yourself you would wake up earlier or cut out junk food? Make sure to act on them as they build your level of self-respect which is an essential ingredient to loving yourself. It’s okay to fall off the tracks once in a while but try to remain as consistent as possible.
What promises have you made to yourself? Are you fulfilling them?
Chapter 5: Self-forgiveness
This is one of the hardest things to do on your journey of self-love mostly because we don’t ever think of forgiving ourselves or recognize that we need to do so. Most often, we hear our inner critic beating us up for mistakes made in the past. But the solution to silencing this inner critic is sometimes to just forgive yourself.
Know that you’re a human and you’re allowed to make mistakes. Everyone does. You will probably make mistakes in the future too. Criticizing yourself and beating yourself up for past mistakes will only make you feel worse about yourself.
Instead, decide to forgive yourself and learn from your mistakes so you can avoid repeating them. I remember getting into my first accident. It was traumatizing. Luckily no one got hurt but the cars were irreparable. At the time, all I could think of was how I crashed the car, this is so costly, and it was my fault. I felt terrible and guilty.
Until it suddenly occurred to me that I’m only human and I made a mistake. It could have happened to anyone. So I decided to let myself off the hook and forgave myself for my mistake. I realized I would make mistakes in the future too. The key is not to dwell on them but to accept them, learn from them, and move on.
Chapter 6: Self-acceptance
If you’ve arrived at this stage, you’ve clearly done a lot of self-love work. But self-acceptance is the key to finally attaining the love you’ve always craved from others.
So often we look to our romantic partners to love us and treat us like kings and queens. We look to them to feel good about ourselves and feel validated. Have you ever wondered why?
Most of us carry around two major limiting beliefs:
- I am not good enough.
- I am not worthy.
Whether you are aware of them or not, you most likely carry these two beliefs. Self-acceptance means to realize and become aware of the fact that you are good enough and worthy just the way you are right now. This involves accepting yourself the way you are with your flaws, strengths, and quirks.
A symptom of these beliefs can sometimes be becoming obsessed with self-improvement and growth. The self-improvement and self-help industry pushes us to get better and constantly change. But that can reinforce the belief that you are not good enough.
However, that isn’t to say don’t look for growth but be mindful of whether you are seeking growth because you genuinely want to grow or because you feel a lack in yourself somewhere and believe that changing yourself in some way can fix it.
After my history of unrequited love and repeating this pattern with a few other guys, I realized I am simply looking to feel good enough and loveable. But I am dependent on others to feel good about myself. That’s when I decided, I don’t want to depend on others. I choose to feel enough and worthy the way I am right now.
Repeating self-love affirmations may also help to change limiting beliefs.
Sometimes you just need to accept yourself.
Chapter 7: Living in alignment with your authentic self
The final destination of your self-love journey. Maybe? A beautiful journey has finally arrived at its climax where you realize that the love you were looking for on the outside has always been inside of you.
There is no greater demonstration of your love for yourself other than living in alignment with who are you really. This means letting the masks fall off, knowing yourself, and living according to your values.
We can lose ourselves in the noise of others but when you find who you really are and live according to that – that’s self-love.
For years, I identified myself as an intellectual and an academic. Not because this is who I am but because others created that identity for me. For years, that was my identity and I accepted it until I discovered that’s not who I am. At the core, I am intelligent, ambitious, and a go-getter who is equally creative and spontaneous with an entrepreneurial spirit.
I’m now trying to nurture my creative side. The side of me that wants to be expressed. There’s a lot to me more than just being an intellectual. Now I’m trying to honour all those parts of me. But more than that, I am slowly discovering my true purpose as I begin to align myself with who I really am.
Excerpt
There was a lot in this post but if you take away anything, take this: self-love is not a superficial facade you use to put a band-aid on your emotional wounds. It is an in-depth journey of discovering your most authentic self.
Committing to the self-love journey is not about roses and rainbows. The journey, although beautiful in hindsight, involves facing a lot of unprocessed emotions and traumas which can be ugly.
This is why I wanted to mention the connection between self-love and healing. When you’re on a true self-love journey, it will also involve a lot of healing and reprogramming. You will shed old beliefs, reframe things, and process a lot of emotions.
We all have some kind of trauma in our lives and healing heals that trauma and old wounds so our authentic selves can shine more brightly. Healing helps to uncover that self-love. So if you find that you’re on a healing journey, you are most likely on a self-love journey as well.
Finally, these milestones are more general and not an exhaustive list of everything one may go through but most of these milestones will apply to everyone. Additionally, the self-love journey is not always linear as shown in the article. Sometimes you can live in alignment with your authentic self but may have to go back to changing some of your self-talk or forgiving yourself for something. Thus it is not a linear process.
Now I want to hear from you. Do you relate to any of these milestones from the self-love journey? Where are you on your journey? Comment below!