Self-Love - The Best Love

When you practice self love, you are continually naming and claiming all of who you are — even the scariest parts. It’s about developing your capacity to be aware, authentic and intentional in every aspect of your life. In doing so you’ll build greater self compassion and also enhance your ability to offer compassion to others.

Self love can only come from a place of self understanding and affirmation. Journaling can be a very helpful tool when it comes to self reflection. It forces you to bring clarity to your thoughts and feelings and also captures them for you to revisit later.

Try this: each day this week, open your journal and write for 20 minutes in response a prompt. Here are 5 self reflection prompts. Make no mistake: these are big, tough questions. Don’t let them freak you out. Just write what naturally comes to you and hold back the desire to edit.

Do The Work: 5 Reflective Journal Prompts

1. What core values, beliefs, personality traits, or interests define who you are today? What about when you were younger? What has remained constant?

2. Which of your core beliefs, traits, or interests did you adopt for the sake of others, and which did you choose for yourself—in other words, who are you when no one is looking?

3. Think about three times in your life when you felt significant joy, peace or a sense of accomplishment. What do those experiences have in common? What does that suggest about where to look for your happiness?

4. What parts of your past cause you the most embarrassment or pain? How does that relate to the values you named above? Does it confirm or challenge what you believe about yourself?

5. Think about the relationships you have with other people, such as friends, family, coworkers. Which relationships feel the easiest? Which ones feel more difficult? Why?