The science behind self-love and why it's important to LOVE YO self!
With influencers urging you to #loveyourself without much substance to their posts one could easily see how the concept of self-love + self-care might fall short.
However, there is lots of scientific evidence suggesting that self-love can have a positive impact on your mental wellness, weight, abundance, and quality of life.
Imagine if everyone on the planet all 7.8 billion of us, including you, loved themselves. I mean really loved themselves. What a different world this would be.
You don't have to be a world-changing superhero to make a difference. All it takes is one person, YOU in order to start a ripple effect that can change the world.
Self-love is contagious. People pay attention to people's energy. In fact, your energy walks into the room before you do. Ever been to your favorite coffee shop and the Barista as just OFF? It wasn't her, it was her energy. Her vibe and you felt it!
Because we are all made up of energy, and love is the highest vibration there is, when we are loving ourselves we create a positive feedback loop in our brains, which makes us more motivated and successful at everything we do. Not to mention when we feel good about ourselves, that radiates outwards.
Now, I know that social media is all about #loveyourself #spaday #bootyworkout and it could feel like you're failing at the whole self-love, self-care thing if you aren't meditating, eating right every day, and you aren't forcing yourself to love something about yourself that well, you just don't.
The truth is that you can't hate your way into loving yourself. It's a process and it's achievable.
If you've also ever felt or been told that self-love is selfish, know that you were misinformed. Self-love is about taking care of your own needs and not sacrificing or abandoning your well-being or your own needs to please/keep others.
To make it REALLY simple, self-love is mostly about managing our inner critic so we can learn to talk to ourselves as we would someone we love, and learn to see our failures, as growth, and to celebrate them!
It's the way our brains learn.
The fastest way to self-acceptance is to CONSISTENTLY remember and speak about the things you like about yourself instead of keeping score of all the things you don't.
Here's some more motivation for you: Your negative thoughts make you age faster.
Researchers are finding that our mental patterns could be harming our telomeres — essential parts of the cell’s DNA — and affecting our life and health. Your telomeres are listening to you. The foods you eat, the things you say to yourself about yourself, your response to challenges ALL. OF. IT.
So the more you tell yourself that you don't have time, aren't worthy of, that you have too much to do, that you aren't good enough, that you can't take time off, that you can't focus on your needs over someone else's - the more your body, brain, and cells believe it.
As you begin to mindfully practice self-love, know that it can feel weird at first. That's okay, it's just because you've practiced the opposite for so long.
It can also bring up strong emotions as you exit your comfort zone to try new behaviors and face limiting beliefs head-on. Again, all good. It's perfect. Welcome the feelings - don't try to avoid them or run from them. They are messengers, see what they have to say. If the feeling has momentum you won't be able to stop it without compounding the emotion. If you just allow the feeling to come, neuroscientists have shown that if you can sit with a feeling without running from it, or judging it, it goes away in 90 seconds. It's not the emotion or the feeling, because those are neutral, it's the meaning we are giving it that creates the negative charge.
You don’t have to morph into the queen of perfect self-love and self-care overnight either. In fact, striving for “perfection” in our practice of self-love can be rather counterintuitive. You didn't get it overnight, so have some realistic expectations. It's a journey, not a race.
The first step is awareness. This is an act of self-love - watch the way you speak to yourself about yourself. How you speak about yourself to friends. Discover what your own NEEDS, not wants are, and then seek to add the things that bring you joy. CELEBRATE! It quiets your inner critic.
The next time you're feeling like you could use benefit from some self-love, wrap your arms around yourself and give yourself a BIG ol hug. It releases Ototoxic, the love drug, and BREATHE.
You're beautiful, you're worthy, you're enough just as you are, and you matter.
Your biggest cheerleader,
Amanda xo
