Self love is an emotional and spiritual state of appreciation for yourself.

The level at which you love yourself, your level of self love, can affect the choices you make, and the actions you take.

We are all attempting to live our best lives, and we do that by honoring what is important to us. 

When you love yourself, you always put what is important to you first.

When you put what’s important to you in the foreground, this leads to what is called being authentically yourself. 

Living an authentic life, as authentically you, has been a buzz phrase for a while.

In reality, it simply means living in alignment with what you honor and know to be true.

You live in alignment with your truth when you practice self love. The truth and highest state of being is love and best of all, you can give this to yourself.

Loving the self usually starts by taking care of yourself with the thoughts you feed your mind. It’s the easiest place to start and it requires you to buy nothing.

The thoughts you feed your mind lead to the steps you take to nurture who you are, physically and non physically, crafting an authentic you.

This is where affirmations come in. They work through the concept of neuroplasticity, teaching your brain new things about the way the world can be. Affirmations act as thought seeds, giving you an idea about your worthiness for love, that then can spread to other ideas.

They train your mind to believe new things. With so much negativity out there, affirmations can act as a strong balancing agent to remind you that yes, you are a good person.

Self love does not necessarily mean once you have it, you are now living in a state of crude selfishness, wanton abandon, or without regard for others or the environment. 

In fact, the opposite is usually true. When you love yourself, you often take time to think about and prioritize the things that matter to you most.

When doing this thinking, many realize these ‘things' aren't things. Though some things definitely do make us happier, the things of priority are often people or other living beings we share our world with.

What this means is self love often leads to loving actions taken for yourself and those around you because when you prioritize what is important to you, you are often involving some aspect of prioritizing others, too.

Now think about it - what would the world look like if we all accepted ourselves as who we are, in love? Would it be a better or worse place?

To answer this question, think about the actions you take when you are in a loving state of mind - are they more generous? Or less?

Now that we have covered the philosophy of self love, let’s start today with some self-loving thoughts.

If you’re wondering what to say when manifesting self love, below are 13 self love affirmations to get you started:

1. I am an intelligent and wise human being with good ideas

2. I am capable and worthy of achieving all I need

3. I am in the power seat of my own life

4. Today I will make the right choices at the right times

5. I have the ability to choose where this day goes

6. I trust the process that today has in store for me

7. Today I choose to see myself with a sense of humor

8. Today I will make simple changes to create all I need

9. Today I will take time on the things that matter to me

10. Today I have the ability to start fresh

11. Today I will nurture my body when it tells me it is hungry or thirsty

12. Today I can begin something I’ve always wanted to

13. In this next moment, I will do what’s best for me

Choose one or two you like, and use these affirmations for manifesting self love every morning for the next week.

A few loving thoughts to fertilize your mind, when repeated as needed, can go a long way.

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