The Art of Self-Love

Exercises to Strengthen Your Relationship with You

 Table of Contents

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Introduction pg 03

Defining Love pg 06

Loving Your Body pg 09

Loving Your Mind pg 11

Loving Your Emotions pg 13

Loving the Moment pg 15

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 Introduction
Why does self-love matter?

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Welcome!
What an honor it is to have your time and attention. Your decision to give this a
look-see says quite a lot about you. Interest in self-love is a powerful human trait that’s
tricky to embody, let alone learn about. Please know that participating in the following
exercises does not mean you already ‘don’t love yourself’. In fact, the very essence of
taking action toward self-love automatically proves that the self-love is present! Get it?
In fact, people who love self-love are always looking for new and more fun ways to
embody more self-love. Self-love is an infinite energy source and can be accessed and
unlocked in an innumerable amount of ways.

Sometimes it can be easy to get caught in the guise that ‘self-love’ is just another ego
trip. It can seem selfish and it can seem almost arrogant to some.

Let’s clarify this by offering a few parallels to self-love:

Self Care, Self Value, Self Growth, Self Help, ...to name a few.

These are all forms of self-love.

Why do you exercise, sleep, eat or have fun?

Because you are YOU, and it’s pretty awesome being you! You do these things to not
only maintain, but also to build upon who you are.

That’s why often when we’re not feeling too hot and awesome, sleep, eating, exercise
and fun start to seem like worthless tasks. Because why take care of and build upon a
sense of self that’s not feeling too amazing in the moment?

Thankfully, we can all agree these moments always pass and, ultimately, it is natural
for life and its energies to ebb and flow.

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If you’re still with us, we already know you are the type of person who is committed
to or at least has a serious interest in living a good life, ultimately taking steps when-
ever you can to become a better version of yourself.

Loving yourself can be the key to unlock any door, to get past any obstacle and to
continually fuel yourself along this often confusing and mysterious journey of life. No
matter what life brings you, at the end of the day, you have you. You will never lose
you. So your relationship with you should always be your #1 priority.

Let’s be honest, we’ve all experienced a time were we are down and out and couldn’t
seem to stop thinking negative things about ourselves. In this state of mind, it’s hard to
acknowledge the loving kindness available to us at every moment.

In other words, we are often the ones getting in our own way. And the more we can
cultivate an authentically loving, compassionate, understanding and empowering rela-
tionship with our self, the more invincible we become no matter what life looks like on
the outside, or on the inside.

Modernly, it’s been discovered that embodying a state of self-love has a chemical ef-
fect in the body, increasing serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin levels (the feel good/
inspiration hormones), as well as stabilizing your metabolism, balancing blood flow,
increasing libido and ultimately sending healthy electrochemical signals to all of the
cells in your body!

Self-love has been the #1 most profound lesson on my personal life journey and my
intention is that by sharing what I have learned in a clear and actionable format, you
will have the opportunity to dive deeper into your greatest self and path of love that
gets you there.

“The only person who can pull me down is myself,

and I’m not going to let myself pull me down anymore.”
—C. JoyBell C.

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 Defining Love
Let’s get clear about a few concepts.

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What Does Love Mean?
Love is truly infinite and means many different things depending on who you ask.

Some find love to be a romantic connection between two people.

Some find love to be an internal sense of passion for something they hold dear.
Some find love to be their pet, their car, their shoes, their garden and the like.
Some say love is God, Source, The Almighty.
Some say love is simply a neurological process stimulated by the environment.

All of these are true! Why? Because love is love! Love, by it’s very nature, establishes
the rule that no matter what you say love is, love will love you for that. There is no
wrong answer when it comes to love.

So before we move any further, let’s stake our claim.

What is Love to you? | Exercise 1 “The most powerful

relationship you will ever
List feelings, experiences, actions, tastes, smells, have is the relationship
people, places, things, what ever comes to mind. with yourself.”
This will be helpful moving forward. — Steve Maraboli

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What is the Self to You? | Exercise 2
This is a fun one: Let’s define “the self”. Makes sense that if we’re trying to love our-
selves, knowing what that is might come in handy. Thankfully, this is a question philos-
ophers, mystics and common folk alike have been asking since the beginning of time.

Instead of falling into a sense of overwhelm or mystery, lets stick with what is obvious,
what is present and most importantly,what we can actually work with.

Moving forward, we will address many different aspects of ‘the self’. By giving the
time and attention to each different dynamic of our intricate nature, we can be fully
honoring of all of who we are. If we are activating self-love in our life, there’s no rea-
son to leave anything out!

Truly loving yourself means loving all of who you are, even the parts of you that so
clearly need to be let go of or totally upgraded. We can assure you that love is a
foundational dynamic that is 100% necessary when it comes to making these kinds of
changes.

I think the most important thing in life is self-love, because if you don’t
have self-love, and respect for everything about your own body, your own
soul, your own capsule, then how can you have an authentic relationship
with anyone else?
—Shailene Woodley
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Loving Your Body
Your body is the storehouse of
all your wisdom and power.

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Your body is right here, right now. It is never not with you. Al-
though it’s an easy one to be aware of, it can often be one of the
hardest things to love. The deeper and more openly you occupy
your body, the more energy, joy and inspiration you can access.

There’s no escaping the body you’re in, so we’re left with only one
option: Accept & Grow.

Consider what your body does for you. You don’t put a single
ounce of effort into beating your heart, breathing, digesting food,
storing memories, fighting off viruses, not to mention the trillions
and trillions of cellular processes happening every second.

Thanks to this glorious human suit of yours you are actually able
to experience reality. We can’t think of a single thing that deserves
more love and respect. You go, body!

Body Love | Exercise 1

Make a list of all the things you love about your body. Your attributes, your abilities,
your uniqueness. Also consider less obvious things like the ones I mentioned above.
Don’t you love that your body carries out the 1,000+ step process that happens when
you taste a bite of chocolate? Or listens to your favorite music? You are not doing
any of that, your body is, automatically and without question.

Body Love | Exercise 2

For this exercise, make a list of all of the things that “Self-love is the source
you love that your body is becoming! Stronger? of all our other loves.”
More flexible? Deeper breathing? Better posture?
—Pierre Corneille
Next to each body potential, note at least one thing
you can do to take action on making this potential
more and more actualized everyday.
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Loving Your Mind
Finding a supportive and
empowering state-of-mind.

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The mind can seem like a tricky one, because almost always when you are not feel-
ing loved or are even giving yourself a hard time, it is through the mind. Self-talk is
a vital component of self-love and it’s essential that when you are thinking you are
sticking to an empowered and supportive frame of mind.

Just acknowledge for a moment how genius you are! Your mind has offered you
endless inspiration, aspirations, confidence and joy. Yes, sometimes it’s totally a brat,
but hey, we are always doing the best we can. Let’s give the mind some love.

Mind Love | Exercise 1

Make a list of the types of thoughts and mindsets you feel like you experience the
most regularly. Take note of where more love can be added! Don’t be afraid to
make a few adjustments to your self-talk.

Did you know that your consistent thought patterns are actually the result of physical
neuron connections in your brain? There’s a saying that the neurons that fire togeth-
er, wire together. Simply put, this means that science has proven that when you stay
consistent with empowered, loving thinking from an authentic place, your brain will
actually re-wire itself to make that kind of thinking your default.

Mind Love | Exercise 2

Make a list of ten phrases that you would love to have “Love yourself first
hard-wired into your brain. Take some time and really and everything else
consider this: What are the things you really need to
falls into line. You re-
hear? Instead of expecting or relying on it to come from
anywhere else, lets love ourselves so much that we
ally have to love your-
show up for ourselves in the way we need it most. self to get anything
done in this world.”
Our personal favorite is the phrase. “You Got This!” – Lucille Ball
Often, that’s all we need to hear to get us out of a funk.

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Loving Your Emotions
There’s a reason why they’re there
and feel the way they do.

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If an emotion is nagging at your attention, that means that if you actually gave it your
undivided presence and understanding, it would teach you something.

Almost always, emotions are teaching us one of two things:

“Hey! That’s awesome, that works for me, I like that.”

or
“Hey! That sucks, that doesn’t work for me, I don’t like that.”

Consider your emotions like GPS. Your emotional guidance system is always honestly
telling you what’s up. But we have to take the time to feel and notice our emotions in
the present moment to follow the GPS. When you feel good, keep going! When you
feel bad, get present and don’t be afraid, there is wisdom to be found. In fact, love is
the emotion that decodes the GPS for you. When you can meet whatever emotion that
arises with love, you can extract the wisdom from your experience and actually grow,
instead of experiencing the same emotional patterns.

Emotion Love | Exercise

Make a list of the emotions you often feel that you “A man cannot be
know could be met with a deeper sense of love. Get comfortable without
clear on what is actually causing these emotions in your
his own approval.”
life and understand that only through an embodied
state of love can you actually address whatever obsta- – Mark Twain
cles are ahead and not stay stuck in any emotional funk.

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Loving the Moment
Your past, present and future self
are all deserving of your love.

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Now we’re clear that in a practical sense, we ‘are’ our bodies, our minds, and our emo-
tions. Let’s take it one step further and acknowledge another practical aspect of reality. As
much as we are in the here and now, it seems impossible at times to not be emotionally
stuck in the past, or mentally stuck in the future.

So let’s love that.

Alan Watts reveals a profound truth, explaining that the past and the future are ‘Present
Moment Experiences’. You are never not in the present moment. Even if you are dread-
ing the future or can’t stop thinking about a past experience, that is always happening
here and now.

So let’s take a breath and move forward with this understanding. Like we clarified with
our emotions, if something is not feeling in alignment in the now, it means there is wis-
dom there and there’s something to reflect and learn from. When we take the time to
love ourselves through a past regret or potential future mishap, we’re able to understand
the lesson at hand and adapt accordingly.

If the past is still tugging at you, good. Go listen to what it has to say, but listen with love
and you will actually hear it.

If the potential future is stressing you out, good. Love yourself enough to realize it’s stress-
ing you out because you know what is best for you and you want it to go your way. So
again, love yourself enough to take action to make it so.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are

tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Love the Past | Exercise
Give yourself some time to love your past. Truly. It’s “Until you value your-
already done. It will never happen again. Every single self, you won’t value
human has gone through tragedy, loss, pain and re-
your time. Until you
gret. With love, we can learn and grow from these
experiences. value your time, you
will not do anything
Write out in detail the things that may still be bother- with it. ”
ing you. – M. Scott Peck

Next, write a letter of love to each one of those expe-

riences, thanking it for what it is teaching you.

Loving the Future | Exercise

The future is up to you. Love yourself enough to re- “Never be bullied into
ally make that true. Prove it to yourself. No one else silence. Never allow
is going to do it for you.
yourself to be made
Make a list of the highlights of the future you know
a victim. Accept no
deep down you are creating. Next to each attribute one’s definition of your
of this desired future, write down the ways in which life, but define your-
you know you will need to love yourself in order to self.”
make that happen. Some examples might be: not
– Harvey Fierstein
taking on too much, creating a better daily routine,
reaching out to close friends more often, taking coura-
geous chances, saying that one thing to that one per-
son you’ve always wanted to say, taking more naps,
or taking fewer naps. These are all self-love in action.
Make it happen.

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Loving Presence Self-love is no mystery.
If it feels good, supports
The absolute truth is that self-love is always and your growth and doesn’t
only here and now. Even as you are reading get in the way of anyone
this, you could decide to breathe a little deeper, or anything else, do it.
sit a little straighter and acknowledge and let Every day.
in the beauty around you. That’s really how it
works. Self-love is a day-to-day, moment-to- Self-love is often about
moment practice that all revolves around you permission.
simply listening to what you know you truly
need, and making sure you get it. So let me ask you. Who do
you need permission from
We can promise you that if you really take the to love yourself more?
time to do the exercises in this book, you will
have a fresh perspective on the ways in which Whether you realized it
you can show up for yourself that much more or not, you gave yourself
and really create a new standard of energy, permission the moment
inspiration and joy for yourself. you decided to read this.
So congrats!
Now make it happen! Day by day, moment
by moment. One “I love you” at a time.
Y O U G OT T H I S !
With love,

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