I care for myself the way I used to care about you...self love, a practice.

Written by: Ali Kates

Self-love: it’s trendy, it's important, and we hear about it everywhere. Have you personally ever experienced it? Have you read articles, listened to podcasts, and tried what people are saying but still felt resistance towards it? 

I want to pose self-love to you in a different light; go with me here. If you were in a relationship with yourself, how would you talk about yourself? Would you describe yourself as kind, compassionate, understanding, and graceful? Or would you say that you are rude, demeaning, critical, and an overall hot mess?

In Lorde’s song “Hard Feelings/Loveless,” she says, “I care for myself the way I used to care about you.” Most of us have an inner critic in our head that is rude, pushy, and a downright downer. I personified my inner critic as a Friday-night football coach from Texas. It was loud and harsh, with a constant nagging belief that even if I did something great, it could always be better. We tend to speak to ourselves worse than we talk to our friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers in the supermarket. Why is that? 

The majority of my clients have the same harsh, demeaning, rude inner critic that runs 95% of their thoughts. The reason they are trapped in this looped thinking is that somewhere in their life, they learned that in order to survive, they had to put themselves down before others did. Being hard on themselves was a way that they created a false sense of “control” because the space they were living in was chaotic. 

Melissa Wood Tepperberg recently said on her Move With Heart podcast that “the person you will be in the longest relationship with is yourself, so work on that.” The relationship you have with yourself is the most important one that you will ever have.

So, let’s cut to the chase and talk about locating that inner critic and working on your relationship with yourself. 

The first step to cultivating a self-love practice is acknowledging where you stand in that relationship with yourself…and being radically honest. I recommend either getting a piece of paper out or writing the answers to these questions on your phone. Here’s why; because you live in your head all day, writing it out on paper or on your phone allows you to physically see what your answers are. Trust me. Do it. 

Here are some self-reflection questions to get a temperature on your relationship: 

• Think of a time when you were going through a semi-challenging situation; what were the thoughts, beliefs, and emotions that were coming up for you? 

• Now ask yourself if a friend came to you with the same thoughts, beliefs, and emotions, what would you say to them?

• Which one is kinder? The words you spoke to yourself or the words that you spoke to your friend? 

If the words you spoke to your friend were kinder than the words you spoke to yourself, this gives you a pulse on your relationship with yourself. 

Now, don’t get hard on yourself. It's okay if you do not have a stellar relationship with yourself. 

A lot of times, I see clients start to go into the shame cycle once they have acknowledged their emotions. They say things like, “why do I say that to myself?” or “why did I tolerate that relationship?” 

One of the biggest tricks to creating a healthier relationship with yourself is to break up with shame. Now I know this all sounds like fluff, but everyone starts somewhere. How do you once and for all break up with the negative self-talk and start cultivating a self-love practice?

The first step is always to acknowledge your emotions, which we did above. Nothing will change unless you are brutally honest with yourself and are ready to put in the work.

The second step is to understand why your body is recycling these emotions. Remember, emotions = energy in motion, so the trick to moving emotions is to see where they are stored in the body. 

When your body keeps recycling the same emotion, it is because you are in a stress response cycle that has not been completed. How do you know if that is the case? Do you jump when there is a loud sound? Are you constantly looking over your shoulder for a threat? These are some examples of threat responses. 

A stress response is very natural; it is why you have survived this long. Seriously, it has kept you safe. 

The problem is when the nervous system gets stuck in a state of fight or flight (AKA fawn or freeze) for too long. 

This is why the second part of creating a self-love practice is recognizing where you are holding tension in your body. 

Do a body scan right now. Start with the top of your head. Relax your scalp, forehead, eyebrows, jaw, throat, chest, stomach, shoulders, back, hips, legs, and feet. Where were you holding the most tension?
Name it out loud, “I am holding tension here____.” 

Now take a deep breath in for 4-3-2-1, hold for 4-3-2-1, and let it out for 4-3-2-1. This technique is called box breathing, and it is what Navy Seals use to regulate their nervous system under stress. Trust your body, let it relax, and let the tension go. 

For all you go-getters out there, can you name what emotion is associated with this tension in your body? Is it anger, sadness, or resentment?

The body and emotions are more connected than you think; your body keeps a score of all the emotional pain that your mind has blocked. 

Last and most importantly, find the next best thought that you can have about yourself. This is a practice I learned from Gabby Bernstein; it is called her “choose method again.” The practice starts by first becoming aware of the thought that you have. Next, let yourself off the hook for having this thought; thank your thought for showing you what you do not want in your life. Lastly, you choose again by asking yourself, what is the next best feeling I can have right now? For example, if you are critical of yourself all the time, what is one degree nicer thought that you can have about yourself? 

Once you recognize all these signs, you’ll find your relationship with yourself much clearer and stronger than you imagined. Having a healthy foundation relationship with yourself is key to surviving the twists and turns life throws. So buy yourself the flowers, give yourself a kiss in the mirror, and hold yourself close. Be honest with yourself, and your self-love will improve.  

Remember you are doing the best you can with the tools in your toolkit. 

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Website: www.alikates.co