What does self love truly mean?

What’s your first reaction to the words “self” and “love”?

Take a minute here.

Are you irritated by those words? Do you feel comfortable with them? Do you think of someone in your life who is “self-loving” and feel annoyed? What do these words mean to you?

I wanted to write this post just before starting the 30-Day Self Love challenge as part of the 30x30 Project because “self love” is a bit of a tricky topic. In fact, it is quite controversial.

I’ve had a number of conversations with friends recently who are worried, nervous, or even unsure of this challenge. Well guess what…SO AM I!

How do we come across as being sincere genuine people wanting to explore ourselves by making positive self affirming statements everyday and not come across as ego-maniacs?

Well here’s my best attempt to dispel myth, share my perspective, listen to what I believe is true, and hopefully calm some nerves.

Why “self love”?

From my point of view, the term “self love” has been appropriated in an interesting yet unhealthy way in recent history.

Love + self = selfish.
Love + self = egotistical.
Love + self = self-absorbed.

Is that what you thought? Well here’s my defense.

There’s so much talk these days about “doing good”, helping others, being socially conscious. But if there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the past few years it’s that the best way to serve and love others, is to serve and love yourself first (see writings by Cheryl Richardson for more on this).

You can’t give wholeheartedly from a place that is empty or depleted. And for those of us that might react strongly to hearing the term "self love", might examine what our relationship is to giving and helping others.

What is it?

From my point of view, self-love is NOT about stroking our ego. It’s not about coming up with false flattery to make ourselves feel better, or thinking that we are better than anybody else. In fact, it’s about separating from the ego, in order to honour who it is that we really are. It’s about self-appreciation, affirmation, and respect. Perhaps a better term is soul-love.

But how often do we do this?

Versus, how often in your life do you find that you judge yourself? How often do you analyze or critique your every action? Every word that you speak? When you do something at work, say something to a friend, or try something new, do you walk away from it and say to yourself “oh my god, I shouldn’t have said that, that was so stupid” or “why did I do that?” or “I should have thought of that instead?”

Well that is the exact OPPOSITE of self love.

Imagine your best friend had done the same thing. Would you judge them as harshly? Would you remind them over and over again about what they could have done better? Probably not.

Instead, how often do you compliment yourself? What does it mean to compliment yourself? How do you feel when others compliment themselves?

To me, self love really boils down to this: love, compassion and non-judgment for yourself. That’s it.

Why 30 days?

According to research in neuroscience, we can actually re-program our brains by re-wiring the neurological pathways that send signals and messages to certain parts of our brain. The more we do something/say something/think something, the more it is repeated in the mind and body, the more it gets deeply ingrained in our cells and changes us. However, our brains are "plastic" and can change.

So what would happen if we consciously practiced this attitude of self-affirming love for 30 Days instead of self judgment and criticism? What if we had to own up to it publicly? How might this transform us? How might this trigger, stimulate or change the way others view the term “self love”?

Will we learn that loving the self is not about loving the ego, but about deeply caring for and seeing the worth and value that each and every one of us bring to this world? Whether it’s the pride we take in the home-baked cookies we made, or whether it’s the ability to congratulate ourselves on a tough talk with the boss at work.

Either way, it’s not about putting yourself up one pedestal, it’s about being honest, vulnerable, and genuinely happy to be the person that you are. So here’s to the courage it takes to do this challenge and to explore your relationship with yourself over the next 30 Days.

Who knows what will happen, but I’m grateful to have others that will be courageously joining along on this exploration! Here we go…..

Does your ego drive your ideas?

Has someone ever said to you “just put that thought in your parking lot?” i.e. great idea, we'll get back to it later when there's more time, money, resources etc.

Or perhaps you might have had someone say to you “you’re such a great visionary” i.e. love the ideas, now how’re we going to do it?

Well I’ve heard it. Sometimes I have so many thoughts running through my head that my mental roadways start to get full of traffic jams. In those instances no “cars” get to move forward because everyone is stuck. I just need some parking lots.

Last month was a particularly traffic jammy type month. I think maybe because it was the start of a new year so I was so eager to jump ahead and get going with plans, new yoga workshop ideas, connections I wanted to make, and interesting people I hoped to meet.

Yet, by the end of the month I had little to show for it, except for a pair of baggy eyes, and an overbooked calendar.

My head was ready to explode.

In yoga and other energy healing modalities, they might say I wasn’t fully “grounded”. I was in my upper chakras of sight/vision and not my lower ones of manifestation, feeling, and creation. I wasn’t fully in my body, I was in my mind, living in the realm of ideas, and not really getting anywhere, just getting overwhelmed.

I had ODed on ideas.

I was paralyzed and didn’t know which way to go because everything seemed so interesting and important. I was in a major mental traffic jam.

Or if each idea/plan/vision were represented by a post-it note, I had no board to post them on. My mind was cluttered with beautiful, multi-coloured stickies, but no wall to stick them to!

With the help of a very dear healer of mine, we spent some time mind-mapping out all of my mental post-its, dumping them onto a table, noticing which were taking up lots of my energy, which I wished would take up more of my energy, what I could park/throw away, and highlighted what I needed to move forward.


Aside from helping me prioritize, this visually showed me something even more interesting…my ego!

My ego was at fault for creating this post-it insanity or this mental car pill up.

I had never really thought about it this way, but yes, all my ideas and eagerness to pursue them right now, was simply my ego taking over (not to be confused with being egotistical, or self-centered).

So I spent some time contemplating this ego.

What was happening in this state of un-groundedness, was I was allowing my ego to orchestrate the symphony of post-its up there. He/she/it was telling me “I want to do it all, I can do it all, I think everything is interesting and worth pursuing, do it…NOW!”.

The problem was, nowhere was my ego telling me what to do first or where to start, or reminding me that I had choice. Ego was not providing me with a bulletin board for support.

So I called in my good friends humility and patience. They helped me sort things out.

I realized that yes, while I find so many ideas interesting and often want to pursue them all, I need to be gentle and not expect my physical self to be able to keep up or make all the ideas into reality.

As soon as I saw it was my ego trying to make me do all of these things, it changed how I approached my list. Even though it wasn’t coming from a place of self-centeredness, it still meant that some inner part of me felt I needed to accomplish it all – that’s ego.

So I created a sort of separation from the ideas, allowed myself to step back, and to say, “who is really driving this urge to get it done? Who is telling me it’s all important?”

And so from now on, I hope to pause before getting overwhelmed with pursuing intriguing ideas and plans, take a look at the mental post-its and remember to always call in patience and humility for help.

What are the post-its that are floating in your head? How might you see them differently if you were to ask yourself “where are these coming from?” and “Who says I need to do them?”

What can gratitude do for YOU?

On a scale from 1 to 10, how grateful are you? If you could chop up your day into little bits, how much time is taken by sincere moments of being thankful? What does your relationship with gratitude look like and what does that word even mean to you?

I just spent 30 days exploring and consciously cultivating my ability to be grateful and to MEAN it.

I’m not UNgrateful. I mean, I always say “thank you”. I’m very polite. But does that mean I am truly grateful?

For example, when asked on the spot to think of something I’m grateful for in a yoga class, do I feel that “thank you” in my bones? Does my entire body sit in that moment of appreciation even after it has gone? Um, maybe, maybe not.

Well I decided I was going to find out.

Starting on Jan. 4, for a full month I posted one statement of gratitude to my Facebook and Twitter walls every day – that way, I would be held fully accountable for my postings (yes, by the FB police and the FB stalker fans I imagine I have)!

So Day 1. I was grateful for the wisdom of my girlfriends. I reflected on the amazing advice I was constantly receiving from them, and it struck me how brilliant and wise friends can be when you really listen.

Day 2. I was grateful for new faces and familiar faces at my yoga classes. Still being a relatively new teacher, I couldn’t have been happier to have their support, so I really sat in that moment of pure happiness.

Day 9. “I’m grateful to have my furnace working again after a 48 hour hiatus”. Never had I been so thankful to have heat. Something so simple, yet had I not been doing this challenge, I probably would not have thought twice about when it came back on. IN FACT, I probably would have thought “stupid landlord, why is he such an incompetent lazy idiot, everything keeps breaking. I want compensation for the hassle”. But instead, I was happy to have heat.

Day 17. I’m grateful for hip-hop music. Enough said.

Day 19. I’m grateful for snuggles with Trapper.

As the days went on, I realized I couldn’t wait to post my gratitude statement. It was something I looked forward to every day!

And then end of January hit. This, I have to say was the lowest point in my month. For about 4 days, I really struggled with finding things to be grateful for. My energy level was so low, my body was tired, work was ramping up, things weren’t going as I had planned, and I felt like I had a million things on my plate. Gratitude was getting tough.

One morning during that period, I had a catch up breakfast planned with my dad. To be honest, the last thing I wanted or needed to do was add another item to “my agenda” for the week. Though I love my dad VERY dearly, I felt stressed just thinking about having a leisurely breakfast on a very busy workday.

Needless to say, I went.

And as a result, I felt one of the deepest moments of gratitude that I had during the whole challenge.

I told myself, “Courtney, you are here with dad, the office is not here, you aren’t going to find your new apartment in this moment, you aren’t going to make your yoga lesson plan here, why think about that, you are here”.

So I looked at him, and let my heart open. I let the breakfast go on much longer than I had planned. I let myself cry in front of him from exhaustion. I let myself feel.

And as I continued to feel, I started to feel a sense of lightness. I realized I was feeling sincere happiness for having the eternal love of my parents. I was feeling gratitude.

As a result, I left with happy tears in my eyes for that moment of reflection. And a post to write:

Day 24. I’m grateful for heart to heart chats over breakfast with my dad :)

I left thinking, when I can say I’m grateful for heart to heart chats with someone I love, then searching for an apartment, sending out those emails, or writing that report, don’t seem like such big deals.

I gave my dad a hug goodbye, and it wasn’t just a thank you, it was a THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart.

As my month drew to a close, I continued my posts and I saw more and more people joining the challenge. Every day I would log on and my wall would be speckled with “Day 3. Today I’m grateful for…”, “Day 17. I am grateful for…”. It literally made my heart jump, I was so THRILLED!

As my final post for Day 30 I wrote, “Today I am grateful for being witness to all the gratitude and inspirational stories that came from this challenge”. The number of people who reached out to me, letting me know what it meant for them to be a part of it, was amazing.

Being one who didn’t grow up in a religious household and has not adhered to many rituals before, I realized that the 30 Day Gratitude Challenge became more than just posting statement or funny remarks on a wall. It really became a ritual – it became an exercise in strengthening optimism and hope. It became a ritual that others became a part of.

The challenge made me feel so connected to the others that were participating (and still are participating – keep going guys!!)

Knowing that every single day, we were all sharing the exact same human emotion, was exquisitely moving and powerful. And I miss it now!

And so, as I end my story, I open it up to you and your experiences with gratitude. I welcome your thoughts and reflections on the challenge or on gratitude in general. How do you experience it? How might it change your perception of situations or people in your life? What can gratitude make possible for you?

With lots of love (and eternal gratitude ☺),
Court xo