If the pandemic taught us anything, that is the importance of self-love. We had no choice but to either feed into a stressful narrative or go inward and find refuge in the comforts of our self-love. I choose the latter as stress is something I consciously avoid. If there is a feeling that sparks any sort of negativity in my soul, I purposefully, choose to run away from it.

It's not always easy to recognise that stress hormones are running your life. The fight or flight mode activated is hard to pinpoint with awareness if self-love is not present in one's life. It pleases me so much to see self-love taking over Tik Tok trends and showing younger generations what can be accomplished even in 15 seconds. It actually takes less than that to set an intention. Where the intention goes the energy follows.

Setting the intention to improve self-love should be a priority in everyone's life. If someone in that person's life defines it as selfish then that person does not align with the new energy created by the set intention.

This is what makes self-love hard in the beginning. The label of selfishness is associated with a person incorporating boundaries and being less available to what no longer serves their higher perspectives. Remaining strong in the practice will slowly start removing people, situations, and even jobs from one's life to align with a new and better life. The place that was intended to start with but as a human, our purpose is to evolve and we evolve the best through hard life lessons.

The growth isn't comfortable however if I look back to 5 years ago to where my journey started, I wish I started it 10 years ago. I wish I was taught self-love in school. I wish I was thought self-love by my parents who lack it themselves. Perhaps the beautiful struggle and lessons that I have undergone made my growth journey that much more special. The journey that I can fully accredit to myself. The process of unlearning all that I knew and creating a brand new foundation that pleases only me brought new magic into my life.

All of a sudden, I find myself in a place filled with peace and freedom. A place where I coexist with systems that I don't depend on and don't fully serve me. My self-love practice, and remaining consistent with it brought me where opportunities are abundant and I choose what happens to me every day.

Compared to an earlier life where I was in a victim mode most of the time, taking back control over my own life inevitably changed it.

The love I feel and share is removed from dependency and reciprocity. My cup is filled and all that overflows I share without needing anything in return.

The energy you put out always comes back ten folds and the process thought me to give freely as the universe has ways to bring it all back and more. It has more power than the individual you shared with so I would prefer to have it returned to me.

This is your cue to take a quick inventory of your thoughts and emotions. If you don't at least feel hopeful for most of your day, every day. It's time to change how you think and set new intentions. The new intention being to not to care about what the external world thinks and fully commit to yourself. Give yourself all that you need and soon the external world will not bring you what you need but what you want.

I have created a self-love manual that can help create a routine by incorporating daily, weekly and monthly practices into your mornings. It can take as little as 15 minutes to 2 hours if you have time. Most days I spend the first 2-3 hours in my morning self-love practice and I find it to be the start of the most productive and inspired days. I never think that I don’t have enough time because I’m in charge of creating and managing my time.

The intention to focus on improving self-love and remaining consistent with the practice day in and day out can truly change a life.

I wish you the same and there is no better time to start than now.