Self-love is a term you might have heard but not fully understood. It doesn’t mean being self-centered or arrogant. It means appreciating and valuing yourself, knowing your worth, and being compassionate towards yourself. Meditation is a great way to enhance and grow self-love.

Why Work on Self-Love?

To anyone who cares about other people, is giving and compassionate, self-love can sound selfish. It can also seem like a luxury; something you might not have time for in a busy schedule. For your mental health, which impacts the rest of your life, growing self-love is worth your time and effort.

When you are more compassionate with yourself and appreciate the real you, it flows over into other areas of your life. Helping you feel more satisfied with your life, happier in general, and able to give more to others.

How to Meditate to Stop Self-Criticism and Grow Self-Love

Self-love is more than just a feeling. As with love for other people, it requires action. It comes from the actions you take and the decisions you make on a regular basis. It is reflected in how you set boundaries to protect yourself, the people with whom you form close bonds, and the meaningful things you do with your life.

There are many aspects of self-love. You might want to be body confident or have an improved self-image or belief in your abilities. If you struggle with self-love, you might be overly critical of yourself, fail to meet your own needs, tolerate abusive relationships, or fail to live in accordance with your values.

There is no quick fix, but one strategy that can help you change negative self-talk and build greater self-love is to practice meditation. Mindfulness meditation is especially useful. Being mindful means focusing on the present moment and your current thoughts, feelings, and sensations.

Mindfulness brings greater self-awareness, which is the first step towards being kinder to yourself. Mindful meditations can help you look inward and find out who you really are, what you want, what you need, and what you value.

You can try any mindfulness meditation to begin working on self-love, but you can also find meditations specifically designed for this journey. Or, create your own. Here are some ideas:

• As you meditate, picture someone who loves you unconditionally. Picture the love they have for you surrounding you.
• If you don’t feel like you have someone like this in your life, imagine what it would be like as you meditate.
• Use self-love mantras during meditations. You can find appropriate mantras online, or you can create ones that feel meaningful to you.
• List things about yourself as you meditate, even the flaws, and imagine loving them because they make you you.

Remember that self-love is a journey and a practice. It is never a final destination or something you’re simply born with. You have to work at this constantly. Meditation is a great place to start. Try BetterSleep’s Hypnosis for Self-Love and try other guided meditations as you go on this journey.