Exercising Your Self-Love Muscle.

For full transparency, this past year has been a bit of a difficult one for me when it comes to self-love. I recently moved to San Diego and I got swept up in the excitement of living in a new place. Especially one as beautiful and incredible as San Diego.

My daily solo-walks were soon replaced with bonfires on the beach with new friends. My mindful morning routine was replaced with sleeping in. My annual goal check-ins were ignored in place of spending a lot of time with someone I loved. My monthly blog posts were. . . nonexistent (sorry!).

While all the things filling my schedule were great; over time, I gradually realized I wasn't super happy. My anxiety was high, my confidence was low and I couldn't quite put my finger on why I was feeling so down and unenthused with life.

I recently came to the realization why I'd been struggling so much: I forgot to exercise my self-love muscle. Self-love and confidence are just like biceps and abs. You need to move them; stretch them; and nourish them to help them grow and prevent them from atrophying.

To maintain self-love most people need to feel good about themselves. As a recovering self-lover, here are a few suggestions for building up and maintaining that muscle.

• Take care of your body. Plan out your days for how you're going to nourish your body with food and movement. What are you going to feed yourself to ensure you have energy and nutrients to get you through the day? How much water are you going to drink? How much sleep are you going to get? What forms of movement are you going to participate in to ensure your heart is happy and strong? You don't need to go vegan and start training for a triathlon, but try to be intentional about taking care of your body. Ensure it gets what it needs to set you up for success and help you feel good.

• Take care of your mind. What materials are you going to consume to ensure your mind is sharp, clear, and relaxed? Challenge the stories you tell yourself and rewrite them to break negative thought patterns. Meditate, learn something new, look for positivity, journal, and surround yourself with inspiring people. There are a lot of depressing things out there, but let's try not to let them to take all our attention.

• Take care of your soul. What activities will you engage in to bring your soul happiness and fulfillment? Instead of spending hours watching television; get outside and try a new restaurant. Try a new activity, volunteer, travel, make a vision board, throw on a face mask, read a book, or get a massage. Do whatever you need to in order to get some joy out of your day and get excited about life.

• Focus on your purpose and set some goals. Most people aren't content if they don't feel like their life has some sort of purpose. Our definitions can vary vastly. One person can think their purpose is to change the world; another's could be to spend time with family, or to visit every country and experience the different cultures. However you view it, most people that have a general purpose in their lives are overall happier than those without one. Defining a purpose can seem daunting, so start small. Set some achievable goals that interest you; work towards something larger than yourself and take note of how it makes you feel. For more tips on this, check out this post.

• Ditch the haters. Some people aren't good for us. They may be (or may not be) good people, but sometimes the people in our lives don't bring us positive value. If they judge us; take advantage of us; put others down or put us down, it can really affect how we see ourselves and the world. By surrounding ourselves with people who support us; lift us up; and share our values, our worldview shifts and so do our feelings towards ourselves. The people we surround ourselves with matter.

• Be your best friend. A lot of the time, when we lack self-love, we're really hard and critical of ourselves. We expect perfection and dwell on anything less. To break out of these negative thought patterns - first, accept that we are human and will never be perfect. Second, try visualization. What would your best friend or a loved one tell you about yourself? Envision yourself through their eyes. A similar, but slightly different tactic: visualize yourself through the eyes of the love of your life (or if you haven't met that person yet, visualize how you'd want the love of your life to view you). Picture them watching you from afar. What do they see in you? What do they feel while observing you live your life? It's almost as if you're imagining yourself being the protagonist in a romantic movie about to meet the love interest. Feel that energy and take it with you as you conduct your daily life.

Self-love can be tough in today's world. We need to be intentional about building it up and making it stick. Exercise those self-love muscles and cultivate the life you are capable of living! I know it can be a fickle life. If you want hands-on help and constructive tools for getting that muscle into shape, feel free to reach out and we can work through some coaching together.