About Self Love
What is self love, really?
What is self love?
Simply, Self-love is love directed to the self (see self dash love).
Self-love is defined in the dictionary as conceit, vanity and narcissism (wrong! Narcissists actually lack self love and the good news is if you aren’t already one, you are not likely to become one.)
Self-love is the unconditional love and respect you have for yourself that is so unwavering that you only choose loving, respectful situations and relationships, including the one with yourself.
Self Love is a Path, a Practice and a Choice you make everyday in your relationships, work, health, wealth, home, everything.
When we choose to cultivate a strong self-love
foundation within, we become empowered to make more self-supportive and empowering choices in all areas of our lives.
Self Love is a Path.
There is no quick easy fix to cultivating a strong self-love foundation. It takes time, practice and devotion.
This is why most people never make shift that sticks. Why they can’t find the courage to make changes in work, relationship, home, life to live more in alignment with their heart’s desires and soul’s path.
We are a culture who likes the quick fix – lose 15 lbs in 30 days, find the ‘one’, make six figures, buy a house.
When we keep trying these superficial remedies we stay surfing on the surface. If we dive deep and get the roots, the medicine of self-love can make lasting shift happen.
When you have a strong foundation of self love you live from and make your choices from the your wholeness which creates your wellness.
Your relationships reflect the deep respect you have for yourself, and others.
You stop holding back or masking yourself to fit in. You embody the fullness of who you are, and know you belong just as you are in this world.
The Path of self-love is made up of the “5 Gates of Self Love”
Each gate has a self-love promise that one must be able to take and keep – the 4 primary gates (as shown in the illustration above) supported by the foundational gate and what I call ‘the big kahuna vow of self-love” : I promise to stay true to myself, even if that means disappointing another.
To find out where your foundation is weak and strong, take the Self Love Pulse Check which will rank the 5 gates from lowest to highest.
CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SELF LOVE QUIZ
Self Love is a Practice + a Choice.
Loving yourself can feel so vast and esoteric, hard to hold onto or what to “do.” That is often the first question “Okay, if I need to love myself more, how do I do it?”
The answer – you strengthen all 10 branches of self-love + the roots of self-worth.
Self-love is not just self-esteem.
- You can have strong esteem (which is the belief you can do and be anything, self confidence), yet lack self honor and respect and end up successful in your career and a mess in your relationships.
- You can have self esteem and lack self expression and create a life where you look successful on the outside but it’s like you are living someone else’s life and the true parts of you are repressed and hidden.
- You can have strong self esteem and weak self care and be a high achiever whose constantly burned out.
In the book Madly in Love with ME and in our self love foundations program, The Yoga of Self Love, we go deep into each branch of self-love we put simple but mighty practices into play in our lives.
There are simple morning practices, daily awareness practices, personal inquiries, heart art and more that support us in the moment to:
BECOME AWARE OF OUR CHOICES
SEE HOW WE ARE SABOTAGING OURSELVES
GAIN THE STRENGTH + POWER TO CHOOSE THE SUPPORTIVE
ACTION
MAKE DIFFERENT CHOICES
SEE HOW WE ARE SABOTAGING OURSELVES
GAIN THE STRENGTH + POWER TO CHOOSE THE SUPPORTIVE
ACTION
MAKE DIFFERENT CHOICES
Over time, as you make these choices in your day to day life:
At a physical level, the neural pathways in your brain change to form new patterns and habits…
At an emotional level your heart opens and feels safer to make choices that honor what you need…
At a spiritual level you begin to trust more and feel more connected to your truth …
At a relational level you are able to ask for what you need in ways that allow supportive people to help you and non-supportive people, well, to find new relationships with you that serve not sabotage you.
You can learn more about these practices by participating in the Self Love Foundations program, Yoga of Self Love or reading Madly in Love with ME
Note from the Founder, Christine Arylo,
MBA, Leadership Advisor, Social Impact Innovator, Best Selling Author
MBA, Leadership Advisor, Social Impact Innovator, Best Selling Author
It took me 10 years to cultivate a solid, strong foundation of self-love that now I keep strong through my practices and daily choices, using the tools I’ve learned to transform self criticism, blame, shame, fear, guilt and stress into unapologetic self-love, staying true to myself no matter what.
Everything in my life has become more aligned because of the choice I made over 15 years ago to love myself, even though I didn’t know how to do it or what it really was. And even when I asked spiritual mentors, therapists and elders I would get these vast non specific answers that did not give me a path.
It’s taken me two decades to test, experiment with and create the processes, practices, tools and wisdom that lay out a specific PATH supported by PRACTICES that support you to MAKE SELF LOVING choices … and that is what we teach, train and do here at The Path of Self Love.
Consider yourself invited to join us.
I believe with all of my heart that self-love is one of the most essential but misunderstood medicines we need in these times.
Self love isn’t fluff. It’s not ‘woo woo’. And it’s not pampering and taking a day at the spa.
Can you imagine telling your daughter or son or a child, “Don’t bother loving yourself, it’s just a bunch of hooey? Or that’s selfish?”
Self-love is at the very root of every choice our children will make in their lives.
As parents we can’t be there in every moment to make sure they are making the choices that keep them safe, loved and supported to be their best selves. Self love can.
Self love gives a child and an adult the inner core strength to stay true to themselves, trust themselves, take care of themselves, be themselves, express themselves, no matter what.
And like all things, we can only teach what we ourselves live.
One last thing that I want to get straight – self love isn’t the absence of love of the other, self-love helps us love others better. And… a person must develop their own sovereignty and commitment and connection to self before they can truly be in fully loving and respectful partnerships and relationships with another and this world – and that goes for all relationships, not just romantic.
It’s my great honor and privilege to have been given this sacred technology to make self love a real, practical, attainable reality for all beings. I know our sacred work, our relationships, and this planet will thrive even more when our foundation of self is strong.
Thank you for believing in the power of love and for choosing to give love to yourself,
