Self-love comes first. You can’t give what you don’t have. You can’t fully receive what you don’t allow and embody within. Loving yourself comes first. It sounds soo cheesy but soo necessary. Without self-love, you’ll be hanging onto people and external things to soothe your heart.

Without self-love, you push people away.

How does that happen? When you don’t love yourself, you outsource your emotional needs to others. You unconsciously depend and wait on others to fill you up, to soothe that void within. Because receiving love, attention, validation feels so good and temporarily covers the void. That can work for a short while.

But eventually, by running away from yourself in pursuit of chasing love, that void within gets deeper and deeper. The burden of filling this void becomes too much for the other person to carry (this is why you might push people away without even knowing it). Or nothing they do or any external reassurance can ever be enough.

What’s happening within you, needs to be attended by you. There’s nothing out there that can soothe and heal your heart in the way that you do it for you. When you experience the calmness and bliss that comes with it, you will know what I’m talking about.

Let’s get started with this post. Here are 6 practical ways to deepen your connection with yourself and strengthen your self-love.

1. Take Yourself Out

If you’re not used to doing things on your own, it can feel a little odd. Things like going out for a walk, sitting in a coffee shop, visiting a park etc. Get into the practice of taking yourself out, doing things on your own confidently. Just getting out of your home can do wonders to boost your mood and creativity. Taking yourself out is about you becoming the main character in your life – where you’re not waiting on others to feel good within.

2. Give Yourself Joy

Tell me what fills your heart with joy? What makes every cell in your body light up with joy? What makes you soo appreciate and in awe of Allah? It might be listening to the Quran with your eyes closed, take a walk in nature, playing with your children, heart to heart conversation with the people you love… line up things in your day that nourish you with joy.

3. Invest In Your Future Self

Think about the most radiant, glowing version of you? The girl who has all that her heart desires. What does she dress like? What’s her ideal weight? What kind of books does she read? How does she spend her money? What is she earning? What gives her joy? What kind of life has she created for herself? Create that vision. Connect deeply to her. Because she is you. You can tap into your highest, most radiant self in any given moment.

From that space, start showing up as her. See your choices as an investment in yourself. Would your highest self say yes to this? Or would she back off? Would she buy those new shoes or use the money elsewhere? Hold that vision of your dreamiest self and become her now and let that guide your choices.

4. Trust Your Heart

I can’t explain to you how many times I’ve ignored my inner gut knowing in favour of thinking good of people. Whilst it hasn’t harmed me in any way, when the situation would unveil itself, I would always wonder “why didn’t I trust my heart in the first place?” Trusting your heart is not about judging or labeling people. It’s not about wishful thinking or dreading the worst. It’s about listening and holding space for the nudges within. That little voice that goes “something feels off here” or “it’s going to work out for you”. Trust your heart.

5. Un-Numb Yourself

What’s draining you? Numbing yourself happens when you’ve clocked out of your body and mind in the present moment. It’s when you’re numbing yourself with excessive food/ binge eating/zombie-like TV watching. Do you feel numb in your day-to-day life? As though you’re going through the motions with no heart or intention? Or you’re going through your day but you’re getting nowhere? Take that as a sign to come back within, reground your energy, shift your environment, do something new and come back to feeling alive.

6. Take Yourself Through And Out Of Pain

One of the most loving things you can do for yourself is to pick yourself up through tough times. In the depth of hardships, you don’t let go of yourself. I get it, it’s soo hard to pick yourself up when you’re hurting. As a child, you might have looked towards your parents/ siblings/ teachers to make sense of that hurt. But now instead of running towards people for acceptance, food to numb you or technology to distract you, now step up for you.

Be there and pick yourself up.
You become the parent that you needed.
You embody the love that you’re looking for out there.

Nobody can do this for you. Getting angry at society/ family/ all the things that you see on Instagram isn’t the answer. There’s a better way that doesn’t leave you feeling at the mercy of others.

1. Accept your feelings: Allow and accept your feelings without getting stuck in the story that you believe caused it. You can feel hurt or angry without needing a story to validate it.
2. Be done with your crap: This isn’t the dusty pink, fairy airy self-love stuff you see online. Self-love is not a ticket pass to self-destruction. Love yourself enough to stop the crap in your mind no matter how real it feels.

Trust that Allah does not test you with hardship without the means of relief coming to you.

7. Bonus Tip: Love Yourself Even When Life Is Amazing

When life is flowing, it’s easy to become attached to it. You might begin to lean more into your husband, career accomplishments, friendships etc. You naturally gravitate towards the things/ people that make you feel good. It’s a beautiful thing but you don’t want them to become your source of feeling whole and loved. It’s a delicate dance of opening your heart, allowing them to come to you, letting your relationships/ accomplishments fill you to the brim but not becoming your source of feeling whole and safe.

P.s. Day in, day out what matters most is you. It’s not a selfish way of thinking but one of meeting your own needs so that you can receive and give to others freely. If you’d like to work 1-1 with me to overcome past limitations in your thoughts and actions, to step into your highest self and call in your deepest duas and dreams, click here to learn more about my coaching offers x