Five Practices to boost Self-love, Self-worth & Self-belief
Here are 5 practices that I use on a daily basis to boost my self-love, self-worth and self-belief…
1. Affirmations
We’ve all heard of affirmations and they tend to be over-rated or get a bad rap. But I can honestly say that when practiced with meaning, feeling and with consistency… they do work.
After my 30th birthday I started reading Louise Hay’s book You Can Heal Your Life. As I read a couple of pages on my lunch break each day, I would take all the affirmations throughout the book that resonated with me, and collate them with some of my own into a list on the notes app on my phone and got into the habit of reading them every day when I went for my morning walk. After a while, I started learning them off by heart and would say them to myself when I was having my shower and throughout my day, and it all started to sink in.
Practicing affirmations about everything, including myself and what I wanted to be, do and have, really shifted the inner dialogue I had about myself. You know that inner voice that says things like “who are you to do that”, or “you’re not good enough”, or “if only I could lose a little weight here, tone and tighten up around here”, well once I started to pay attention to that inner voice, I realised how negative it actually was. I would never say those things out loud to others, so why was I saying them to myself? “Your thoughts create your reality. Your mind is more powerful than you know.” ~ Neale Donald Walsch
2. Mirror work
This is another practice I must give credit Louise Hay for. In the same book I mentioned above, she talks about mirror work. After I started practicing my affirmations, this was the next step - combining the two. When I brush my teeth and put my make up on in the morning I say nice things about myself as I look at myself, things like; “I am beautiful. I have glowing skin. I love and accept myself”. I also created a self-care routine where in the evenings after my shower I give myself a face massage with oil and say my affirmations. This has now stuck and become habit of mine, just like brushing my teeth every day.
Don’t underestimate the power of these little practices, because when practiced daily with meaning and intention, a little goes a long way. 5 or 10 mins here and there all adds up, and over time has an impact on you and your energy. But as Leah Simmons says “say what you mean and mean what you say”. You must genuinely mean it and feel it, in order for it to have impact.
3. Self-pleasure
When I turned 30, a couple of years ago, I decided to buy myself The Eros rose quartz pleasure wand from the Yoni Pleasure Palace for my birthday, as a treat for myself. Although a bit apprehensive and embarrassed about it at first, I started using the wand, both with my partner and also by myself, and ended up falling in love with the practice of sacred self-pleasure.
I use the term sacred here because, again, like what I mentioned above, it comes back to intention. When I speak about self-pleasure, it’s more than just climaxing and reaching the big “O”. Of course it is part of it, but for me, it’s also about connecting with myself.
Learning to please myself and give myself pleasure has been fucking powerful and life changing. Before I started self-pleasuring I had a terrible relationship with myself. I was insecure and lacked confidence. I was hiding out and afraid to speak my truth. I had shame and guilt around my desires, which was blocking me from calling them in.
The practice of self-pleasure unlocked so much more than just pleasure inside the bedroom. I went from having an unhealthy relationship with myself, my body, my partner and money, to now loving myself and my body (despite being at my heaviest. I also now have a stronger, closer and happier relationship with my partner, and healthier relationships with my worth, money and receiving.
Self-pleasure is a huge topic in itself and I will be writing a separate blog on this (and probably many more) and if you would like to know more about this topic, I’m running a free Sacred Self-Pleasure Workshop about how self-pleasure increased my sense of self-worth on Saturday 4th September 2021.
Practicing sacred self-pleasure has allowed me to build a beautiful healthy relationship with myself and my body, as well as my desires and self-worth. Back when I invested in my first crystal pleasure wand, I really had no idea of how much it would impact me and my life. This leads onto my next practice.
4. Investing in myself and my desires
This one follows on from my story above because up until my 30th B’day, I told myself that I couldn’t afford luxury items like pleasure wands. Even though I had invested in myself in the past for example working with Coaches and personal development, buying that crystal pleasure wand for $189, was different. Something shifted.
The purchase came from a place of “I’m doing this because I desire to love and value myself more. I’m doing it simply because I desire it”. Not because I felt that I needed it or that it was going to fix me, which was the energy behind some of my previous investments in myself in the past.
Buying the things that I desired more and more often, whether that was something of small or large value, started to instil within me the feeling that I was worthy, and slowly over time it contributed to changing my story around what I could afford and what I believed I was worthy of.
If I had kept telling myself that I couldn’t afford that pleasure wand, I would never have bought it. Maybe, like me, there is something that you desire, but you’ve been telling yourself that you can’t afford it or don’t deserve it. If this is the case and it truly doesn’t fit into your budget today, ask yourself the question: “How can I afford this?” and work out a way that you can.
5. The Spiral
Firstly, WFT is The Spiral? The Spiral is a powerful and effective transformative work that really helped me turn up the belief within myself. I went through The Spiral at the beginning of the year because I wanted to break through the thoughts, beliefs, emotions and conditioning that were holding me back from reaching my potential.
One of my biggest challenges that I wanted to work on was my self-doubt and the area I most wanted to transform was the relationship with myself. I wanted to improve my sense of self-worth and start living more from a state of ease and flow. Some of the patterns that were preventing me from being my full self were; people pleasing, self-sabotaging, playing the good girl, worrying about what others will think of me, hiding out and perfectionism.
Going through the The Spiral enabled me to release the guilt I had around being happy, and doing the work I love and enjoy. It also helped me to release the shame of being my authentic self and showing my spiritual and intuitive side.
I used to crave deeper connection with people - my partner, my family, my friends, but I used to keep people at a distance because I was afraid people were just going to reject and hurt me. I used to try to control the risk of others hurting me by dialling myself down, closing off and putting up barriers of protection, that kept others at a distance.
I used to have a deep down fear that my partner was going to leave me one day. I always doubted that he wasn’t going to like what I did in my business, which held me back massively. I didn’t want him to be ashamed of me. Our relationship feels a lot easier and stronger now. I didn’t release how draining it was before, to always adjust myself around him, to try to be someone I assumed he would approve of, more than the real me. I can now just be myself around him and it’s such a relief.
I sincerely love this work, which is why I became a Practitioner, so that I can share it with others. I highly recommend it (whether it’s with me or another Practitioner) to anyone who is ready to up level their self-worth and confidence, and break free from old stories and patterns that are holding them back. If you are interested in The Spiral, you can check out more of information HERE.
In addition to these 5 practices, there are others that have contributed to my self-love journey, but these are some that really stand out, and are also quite simple to start implementing in your own life. In sharing these with you I’m inviting you to start integrating your own practices into your daily life in order to build your own self-love, self-worth and self-belief, whether it’s adopting these ones or creating some of your own. Enjoy!
