Taking time for self-reflection and introspection can seem selfish, but taking time for your mental health shouldn’t be a luxury or indulgence. When you explore your interior life, you understand yourself better and develop self-compassion, confidence, and self-love. This makes you happier and, in turn, makes you a better person for others.

Building Self-Love with Meditation

Meditation has many benefits for physical and mental health. It helps you learn to love, accept, and cherish yourself. Spending quiet time with your thoughts helps you get to know yourself. Ordinary life is full of distractions that it’s hard to process. Meditation gives you time to do so.

As you begin to learn more about yourself through the process of meditation, your compassion will grow. You will begin to feel connected to others, which builds a feeling of community, kindness, and confidence in your standing in the world.

If you could use a little more self-reflection and self-love, try these short meditations. Each one offers a relaxing journey that will help you get to know yourself as you prepare for a good night’s sleep.

• Inner Voyage. This ten-minute meditation guides you through relaxing breathwork as you discover your interior self and drift off to sleep.
• Hypnosis for Self-Love. A hypnosis meditation is a powerful way to use suggestions to change your mindset. With this 19-minute meditation, suggestions will help you stop negative thoughts about yourself and cultivate new ones that promote self-love.
• Self-Acceptance for Sleep. Part of self-love and understanding is accepting who you are in the present moment. Recognize that you are not perfect and that you make mistakes with this guided meditation. With growing acceptance naturally comes better sleep.
• Self-Compassion for Sleep. Self-acceptance is so difficult because it’s easy to be critical of yourself. Use this 15-minute meditation to replace critical thoughts with compassionate ones.
• Self-Love Body Scan. This is the ultimate self-love meditation. Set aside 30 minutes before bed to go through this full body scan. It will help you move from acceptance to genuine love for each part of your body and how hard they work for you daily.
• Increase Self-Belief. Do you struggle to believe in your own abilities? This quick meditation promotes self-confidence to help you feel better about yourself as you go to sleep at night.
• Self-Image Enhancement. Self-image is another struggle for many people. Use this meditation to improve those difficult internal feelings and to appreciate yourself exactly as you are.

Self-love and acceptance aren’t selfish. They are, in fact, essential to good mental health. Take just a few minutes a day to work on your interior life, change negative thoughts, and question your critical self-image. You can also learn more about how meditation can empower you to be your best. The more you practice meditation, the more it will enhance your life and well-being.