Love Yourself

Lydia McCall is a Certified Health Coach from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Lydia works with women to help them heal their relationship with food and to ditch the negative self talk. So they can finally lead a life of balance and become the person they want to be. She says it's time to start practising some self love.

It has been said that you can’t fully love someone else until you love yourself and I completely agree with this statement. In this day and age we are so critical of ourselves. We are always striving for the next goal and never take the time to relish in our accomplishments. For example you set a goal of losing 4 pounds and when you reach that goal it’s not enough. So you say I need to lose another 4 pounds. You have to ask yourself this question...

“What am I really searching for?"

You might feel everything will be perfect when you lose the extra weight or get your dream job. But the chances are there will still be something missing because you haven’t built a loving and trusting relationship with yourself. This relationship needs to be formed for you to lay a solid foundation in which you can build upon. When you are unkind to yourself, your body and mind do not respond well.

So I wanted to share with you my 6 tools for practicing self love:

Eat nutritious foods

The foods you consume become your cells, tissues and organs. It becomes your emotions, thoughts and mind. What you eat tells a lot about how you feel about yourself. You deserve to respect and care for your body by eating real wholesome foods that energise you and make you feel alive. Eat without distraction and really pay attention to how the food is making you feel.

Exercise

Exercise should be fun and uplifting. Whether it be yoga, spinning, swimming or running. Whatever it may be, make sure to find a form of exercise that works for you and that you love. Exercise helps you release built up tension, opens you up emotionally and makes you feel good. Ditch the hardcore workout routines where you are only punishing and putting added stress on your body. Start to listen to your body and what it really needs.

Express yourself

When you don’t communicate how you feel, all of the negative emotions you may be feeling will fester in the mind and body. This build up will become very toxic which will lead to you becoming stuck. When you express yourself you are getting this negative energy out of you and you are able to move forward with ease. If you find it hard to open up to someone then a great way to recap the benefits is writing morning pages. As soon as you wake up just start writing how you feel, what you’re thinking. Anything, just start writing. This is your subconscious mind expelling all of your emotions first thing in the morning. It is so freeing. It is a form of therapy and I highly recommend it.

Meditate

This is a new challenge for me. My mind is always racing so the last thing I want to do is try and sit still and in silence. But this is when we need to practice it the most. We all have a tendency to live in the past or the future. Always looking away from the present moment. We need to start owning where we are right now and meditation helps with this. We are able to start building a deeper relationship with ourselves. I recommend downloading Headspace, which is a meditating app, and start by taking the Take 10 challenge. 10 minutes of meditation for 10 days and notice the benefits for yourself.

Rest

Rest is one of the most important things you need to do. Show yourself some kindness by allowing yourself to unwind and recuperate. I love taking a nice long bath and just sitting back and relaxing. Sleep is also very important. Make sure you get enough sleep so your body can restore itself so you can wake up feeling energised and refreshed. When you are overtired your mind and body don’t operate to the best of its ability. Instead you are pushing yourself and everything in life will seem like a struggle. So get some good quality rest so you have the energy to make positive decisions, which will support you in being the best version of you that you can be.

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