Self-Love Affirmations: 5 Simple Ways To Practice Self-Love This Valentine’s Day

At Mooditude, we follow the belief that self-love is the best love because it is only when you learn to love yourself that you can actually be there for others.

The official month of love is here and to make sure that love is truly celebrated this month, we urge you to review your mental health this Valentine’s Day by making it a day of celebrating self-love and self-compassion.

What is Self-love?

Do you give yourself a pat on the back and a ‘you go girl!’ every time you accomplish something, no matter how small, instead of criticizing yourself with a ‘you could have done better?’ 

Do you care for yourself as you care for your spouse, parents, and children? Do you give yourself regular breaks? Do you make sure to focus on your health?

Do you eat healthy? Do you do things that make you happy? Do you ever prioritize yourself?

If your answer to all of these questions was affirmative, then good job! You’re on the right track towards practicing self-love.

Self-love, as the name entails, is the state of unconditional appreciation for oneself, having pride, and faith in yourself and your actions. It is when you put yourself before everything else, when you hold yourself in high regard, and never settle for less than what you deserve.

Self-love looks different for every individual. Sometimes it looks like routine self-love affirmations, sometimes it looks like reveling in some alone time, sometimes it looks like keeping a self-love journal, and sometimes it may look like enjoying a cup of coffee in peace. No matter what it entails for you, its outcome remains the same, that is, psychological, physical, and spiritual growth, development, and peace.

Among the several mental health benefits of practicing self-love are:

• Self-love and self-care go hand in hand. When you master the art of practicing self-love, you learn to care for yourself. It becomes easier to understand your psychological and physical responses to different things. You can identify signs of burnout, fatigue, stress, and anxiety through your body’s responses, aiding in promptly identifying and removing yourself from such situations, significantly reducing mental stress and fatigue
• With significantly less stress and anxiety in life, your psychological health will begin to thrive. Daily self-love affirmations can elevate mood and uplift your spirits.
• With self-love comes confidence and a boost in self-esteem. Confidence is attractive, provided that it doesn’t border on arrogance.
• Self-love entails caring for oneself. When you get the proper care and nourishment that you deserve, you’ll experience self-growth and healthy development.
• By practicing self-love, you gain self-awareness. When you’re self-aware, you do not let others treat you like a doormat. You learn to put your needs first and enforce the necessary boundaries in your relationships.

5 Easy Ways to Practice Self-love

With hectic schedules reigning over our lives, nights are busy and days are busier. Finding time for yourself seems like a daunting and overwhelming task. But it is especially during such busy times that practicing self-care and self-love becomes important. Contrary to what people believe, practicing it can be as easy as maintaining a self-love journal, saying your daily self-love affirmations, reading a book, practicing mindfulness through activities like mindful eating, and more.

Since we believe self-love is the best love, we have compiled 5 easy ways for you to practice self-love that require little to no effort!

Daily Self-Love Affirmations

Positive affirmations are possibly the easiest way you can practice self-love. Affirmations are mantras that affirm your faith in something. In this case, your affirmations will aim to cultivate self-love and appreciation. Making a habit of repeating your favorite affirmations for self-love every day is a great starting point for you to get into the habit of practicing self-love.

Keeping a Self-Love Journal

It is backed up by evidence that journaling is a healthy activity that can aid in relieving stress, anxiety, and improving mood among other things. Maintaining a self-love journal can encourage you to become more self-aware and develop an understanding of yourself through self-reflection. Self-awareness is a superpower that can allow you to grow in acceptance, forgiveness, and confidence.

Practice Mindful Eating

When you love someone or something, you care for it. Loving yourself entails taking care of both, your physical as well as mental health. Mindful eating is the habit of being conscious of what you’re putting into your body. Mindful eating can be as easy as paying attention to what you’re eating, minimizing distractions, and engaging the five senses in the process of eating!

Stop Being Too Hard on Yourself

Being self-critical can help you grow and develop improved habits but excessively berating yourself for things out of your control can have disastrous effects on your self-relationship and damage the love you’ve cultivated so far. Everyone requires self-care reminders from time to time. So, when you catch yourself being too hard on yourself, pause, breathe and remind yourself that you’re doing as great as anybody else.

Art Therapy

A lack of self-love often results in a fear of self-expression due to little confidence and acceptance of your self-worth. Art therapy is a relatively new form of treatment that operates as a creative outlet to allow patients to dispense their self-destructive energies creatively, leading to self-discovery. Some easy art therapy ideas for self-esteem include using a coloring book, keeping an art journal, drawing your emotions, etc.

What are Self-love Affirmations?

Affirmations are self-declarations that help you internalize a thought by affirming your belief in it, completely. Affirmations for self-love are mantras meant to be professed to yourself repeatedly to make your heart firmly believe in your abilities, worth, and to cultivate a mindset of peace and serenity.

… But do they really work? Yes, yes they absolutely do.

Most of the time the culprit of your negative thinking turns out to be your own inner dialogue. It keeps reminding you of your failures, shortcomings, and everything you’ve ever done wrong. Constantly being reminded of your shortcomings is definitely not an ideal situation. It blocks out all the good things in your life, your triumphs, your growth and development, everything you have to be grateful for.

Making a habit of saying your affirmations for self-love can help condition your inner dialogue to be more positive instead of obsessing over all the failures.

We have gathered a list of 21 affirmations for self-love and peace to help you start your day off on a positive note!

21 Self-Love Affirmations to Attract Self-love and Peace

1. I am exactly where I need to be.
2. I am perfect, just the way I am.
3. I am worthy of love, friendship, and care.
4. I am beautiful together with all my imperfections.
5. I forgive myself for my past mistakes.
6. I put myself first.
7. I adore my body, my blemishes, my curves.
8. I feel loved and appreciated,
9. Loving myself makes me feel liberated and at peace.
10. I feel deeply in love with myself.
11. I do not obsess over things I cannot control.
12. I am proud of my achievements.
13. My failures do not define me, my present, or my future.
14. My happiness matters to me the most.
15. Loving myself comes naturally to me.
16. My life is filled with love and joy.
17. I do not apologize for being myself.
18. I love myself more and more every day
19. I release myself from the confines of unnecessary judgment and self-criticism.
20. I am confident and strong.
21. The world is a reflection of the love that flows inside me.

We challenge you to select your favorite self-love affirmations and make a habit of saying them out loud, every single day.

Bottom Line

• Self-love is the best love. It can encourage better mental health, enhance mood, and improve self-esteem, appreciation, and self-worth.
• Self-love can easily be practiced at home through activities such as keeping and maintaining a self-love journal, art therapy, saying your daily self-love affirmations, or practicing mindfulness activities.
• Affirmations are positive declarations of love and appreciation that help eliminate negative thoughts and maintain a positive outlook.
• Saying your daily self-love affirmations before you begin your day can help combat negative thinking and excessive self-criticism.