Love Yourself: 3 Steps to Develop Self Compassion
Love Yourself: 3 Steps to Develop Self Compassion and Support Fertility
The way you talk to yourself, impacts your entire wellbeing, and yes that even includes your fertility!
How amazing would it be to feel accepted and even supported rather than constantly criticized by that voice in your head? Everyone has an inner critic that keeps us from reaching our full potential. However, this inner critic CAN be tamed through self-awareness and understanding.
In this article, I will offer you three ways to help you to send yourself and your body some self love.
Self-compassion means being gentle, kind and understanding with yourself. Accepting that you are not perfect and that there is potential for learning and growth in every mistake you make (Neff, 2003).
Instead of hiding our imperfections, self-compassion teaches us to to open up to our limitations and accept ourselves for who we are in this moment…even if it is not the person we want to ultimately be.
Step 1: Let go of the idea of “perfection”
The first step in cultivating more self love is to learn to stop punishing yourself for your mistakes, failures or shortcomings. Accept that you are HUMAN, and not perfect (and no body is)! Bring attention to situations that drive you to measure your self-worth based on perfection. How can you change these situations or where you derive your sense of self-worth? Remind yourself that you do not need to be perfect in order to deserve love. Learn to derive your sense of self-worth from yourself, not others. Even something as simple as a sticky note on your fridge reminding you to be kind to yourself can start to change the way you treat yourself.
Step 2: Practice gratitude
Gratitude is extremely powerful toll to help reframe our mindset and focus into one that is positive. Instead of focusing on what you don’t have, there is a lot of strength in appreciating what you do have right now. Incorporate gratitude into your daily life by writing down 3 things you are grateful for in your life right now. By focusing on the good in our lives we help to take the focus away from ourselves and our shortcomings.
Step 3: Practice mindfulness
When we find ourselves caught up in self-criticism, it is often because we have indulged our inner-critic and allowed our mind ruminate over the negative storylines we have created about ourselves—it could be that we are not good enough, pretty enough, rich enough, thin enough, our mind can easily run out of control. Mindfulness is a state of non-judgmental awareness, that helps to bring intention and attention to situations, and can serve as the remedy to this type of negative thought. The next time you feel your mind start to spiral into a negative place take a step back and bring attention to this behavior. Try to reframe or challenge your thoughts or do a 3 minute meditation to recenter.
