6 Ways to Do Self-Love That Are Actually Satisfying (For Men and Women)
We’ve all heard the term self-love thrown around a lot, but what is it? How does one do it? Is it synonymous with self-care and pampering? For myself, self-love was always an abstract concept that was difficult to grasp and act on. It wasn’t until I learned how to actively do self-love that I started to feel like my own self-love was really enough.
As social beings, we’ll always have some yearning for love and connection with others. But when we practice self-love, that desire to connect with others can come from a place of wholeness rather than one of dependence.
Actively practicing self-love allows us to become confident and satisfied within ourselves, so that we can still receive praise from other people, but we don’t need their validation. It’s just one way to take charge of creating our own happiness, instead of relying on others to create it for us.
Here are six ways to do self-love that are actually satisfying:
1. Parent Your Inner Child
Most, if not all humans have frightened, lonely, insecure parts within them. This part of our being is like a child. Children need others to care for them. As grown ups we have adult bodies but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the scared child within us will ever go away.
All of us had parents who were only human, who failed us in some way or another. Instead of blaming our parents for their shortcomings and how it’s affected us, it’s possible to become a parent to your own inner child right now, at whatever age.
Just imagine yourself as a child — at the age that you naturally gravitate to. For me, it’s about 9 years of age. The person you were then is still within you. Introduce yourself to the child you. Tell them about how you’re an adult now, tell them about your job, your friends or significant other, show them where you live. Tell them you’re going to take care of them and parent them well now. And then do it, practice being the kind of parent you would have wanted by parenting that childlike part of yourself.
We all naturally have self-talk happening all the time, this is just a metaphorical tool to help give the necessary attention and love to the most needy parts of ourselves. Sometimes seeing yourself from the second person point-of-view allows for a greater appreciation of the lovable parts of yourself. If your self-talk tends to be negative, think about how you would like your parent to speak to the insecure child within you. Realize that you are in that parental role for yourself now. We shouldn’t need to rely on other relationships to parent us. Using this metaphorical device to care for the most vulnerable parts of ourselves is the most satisfying way to practice self-love that I know of.
2. Touch Yourself
Does this mean sexually or more like a pat on the shoulder? Yes. Give yourself the care and attention you long for when you touch your own body. Stroke your arm, pat your leg, play with your hair, pleasure yourself. We don’t have to rely on others to do this for us. The key distinction here is the mindfulness of the touch. Going through our daily lives we scratch an itch or rearrange our hair or otherwise make contact with our own bodies, but it’s an entirely different thing to really be present with yourself, and feel the comfort of skin against skin. Touch yourself with attention and appreciation, you might be surprised how giving yourself the reassurance and kindness of mindful physical touch can be so satisfying.
3. Quality Time
This is somewhat like returning to mindfulness throughout the day. I’d describe it as becoming present with yourself and remembering you’re there. It’s easy to go about life caught up in work, always thinking about others, and just sort of, forget about yourself. I don’t mean forgetting to feed yourself or forgetting to pee or something. Rather, in being so caught up with the “doing” of life it’s easy to forget to recognize yourself as a being. Some might call it a soul or an essence. Recognizing your soul, either for a moment or for a more long term meditation, is another way of doing self-love.
If you’ve never done this before, one way to practice it is to close your eyes and put your hands on your chest, and then imagine turning your eyes inward. Normally they’re looking out on the world, but visualize turning them around to look inside. Even if you don’t see anything (I don’t), you can find yourself there. An essence of your being, that’s entirely sincere and lovable and contains all your pain and weakness in a non-judgemental way. It’s just… you. The whole and real you that other people can only try to get to know.
4. Words of Affirmation
As previously mentioned, internal self-talk is happening all the time. This method of doing self-love involves intentionally telling yourself the things you need to hear (and could be part of parenting your inner child). For example, “I can do it! I’m good enough and able to handle anything.” “I’m so lovable, I radiate lovability.” “I’m hilarious.” No one else needs to hear it. Tell yourself all the things your soul is longing to be told. It’s really no more valid coming from other people than it is coming from yourself.
These words of affirmation can be declarative, coming from a place of possibility about who you’re choosing to become. I’d recommend staying away from language that seeks to control others, such as “this person loves me” when they really aren’t treating you well, as well as language that puts other people down in order to build yourself up.
Look for good truths about yourself. I promise they’re there. Find them and acknowledge them to yourself, don’t let your magic pass unnoticed without the recognition it needs and deserves.
5. Acts of Service
We all do things for ourselves, whether it’s feeding ourselves, dressing ourselves, washing ourselves, putting on makeup, doing dishes. With whatever we’re doing, we can do it as a chore, a mindless thing, or we can do it as an act of love. It’s just a difference of intention. While not everything needs to be intentional, we can choose to do things with intention any time we want.
For myself, acts of service tend to be things I don’t want to do. By making it an act of service to myself it can change from a chore to a gift. Sometimes that might mean washing my hair, trimming my nails, or making a healthy meal when I’m tired. By shifting our perspectives from “I don’t want to do this” to, “I’m doing this for me,” the most mundane things can express care and kindness for ourselves, our bodies, our space.
6. Gifts To Self
I think this is the one that the majority of us are most familiar with. This is when we buy something for ourselves as a gift. Putting in that thoughtful attention to choose the perfect thing, waiting for it to be packaged at the store or shipped to your house. Receiving the object as your own with giddy rapture.
Purchasing my latest new backpack was like this for me. It might be my favorite backpack I’ve ever owned, and I took great care to pick it out. I feel happy every time I use it. My bracelet from Bali is another example. I had to go back to the booth three times to have the size adjusted, but now it’s just perfect. It sparks joy every time I see it.
One caution about gifts, it’s important that we don’t overly rely on them when it’s outside of our means. Compulsive shopping can be destructive. When you do buy or create a gift for yourself, make it mean something. Let it be an act of love and relish it.
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You may notice that five of these six are inspired by Gary Chapman’s, “The Five Love Languages.” His theory is that there are five ways we give and receive love in relationships, so it follows that we can use each of those methods to practice self-love. It’s simply a matter of knowing how.
I’d love to hear if using these methods of doing self-love is satisfying for you. Do you have any others to add?
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