How Do I Increase My Self-Love?

How can I love myself more? What are some techniques, methods, and practices that I can use to develop more self-love?

I have previously talked about “self-love” in other articles. In Why Don’t I Have More Self-Love? I have pointed to some of the reasons why we may not have enough self-love. And in Why Reach for More Self-Love? I have argued that it is important to develop more self-love.

In this article I will try to identify some of those “thinking patterns” and “behavior patterns” that we have to develop in order to succeed with our intentions. And those patterns may pertain either to “small things” that are not involving others, or to “bigger things” that do involve other people (such as friends, family, and coworkers).

But since I am here focusing on Abraham-Hicks-related techniques and processes, it is also about emotions and feelings. So it is also important not to overdo the thinking part and the behavior part.

In general, we have to become less rigid and “well-organized” in our daily life, so that we can enable (or “activate”) our emotions in a more relaxed fashion, and thus let more of that glorious “intuition” in, that the universe sometimes endows us with.

Now let us move on to some practical tips and techniques that may help us climb higher on that “self-love” ladder.

PART 1. MORE SELF-LOVE: WHAT NOT TO DO

Our first stop is to cover some of those things that may not be helpful. These things may, for most people, stop, hinder, or otherwise make it harder to achieve more self-love.

But I wish to be clear here: these things may for some be an impediment toward the end goal. But even if they are, we will eventually get there, anyway. So there is no loss in either case. All earthly experiences are good for us in the long run.

Another preliminary note is that it is possible to achieve more self-love. But in order to succeed we have to play the Law of Attraction game according to its rules, not our rules. And according to that Playbook, we have to prioritize feeling good, as much as ever possible. So when in doubt, listen to your feelings.

Stop That Old Habit!

The whole “problem”, for most people, is that we are not loving ourselves as much as we could. So we have to let that old habit go, so that we can “rise to the surface”, and let our love flow.

Here’s what Abraham-Hicks say in their The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent (p. 287):

The recommendation is therefore that we should not continue “not loving ourselves”. Instead, we should thoroughly accept the idea that we are worthy of more love, both from ourselves and others.

So it is important to (slowly) adjust our thoughts and behavior, so that we can let our love rise to the top. And by being more kind to ourselves, not continuing “blaming ourselves” and “second-guessing ourselves” when things do not go according to plan, we can give our love a real chance to bloom.

Don’t Ask Others to Love You More (1)

A common way of thinking of self-love (and self-esteem) is that, “If only other people loved me more, then I would have more love for myself, too”. But that way of thinking is not going to get you very far.

But don’t misunderstand me here: I am not saying that that statement is false. That statement is, for most people, quite true. For most people do care what other people think of them, and thus, in a relative kind of fashion, adjust their opinion of themselves accordingly.

Now the question is: If that statement is true, then why would thinking such a thing lead nowhere?

Well, one answer is this: Thinking true things is not necessarily helpful. So the fact that that statement is true provides no guarantee that it is producing more self-love in us. In fact, it may produce less self-love in us, if it makes us feel bad.

And that sentence probably does make us feel bad. Why? Because it is a conditional statement, since it has the word “if” in it. And if a sentence has the word “if” in it, many times that is an indication of that our current situation is not like that.

Don’t Ask Others to Love You More (2)

So essentially then, thinking or uttering that sentence will not make us feel good. For we know, by practical experience, that, so far, people has not loved us very much. So it is, we conclude, highly unlikely that they will do so in the future.

And why don’t they like me so much? Because I myself don’t like myself so much. And because I don’t like them so much, either.

Thus, we see here the workings of the Law of Attraction in action, so to speak. The Playbook says that we must always start with ourselves, and create a favorable emotional mood within us, and around us. Then, and only then, will other people start behaving more loving towards us.

In other words, the external world is merely a mirror of our own inner world. We all, individually, create our own reality. So the more we love ourselves, the more others will love us too.

And Abraham-Hicks reminds us of this in The Vortex (p. 90):

And the way to understand that quote is to realize that they are here talking in general terms. For the overwhelming amount of people on this planet are not in a positive enough place to give us that love.

This is because most people are not into the Law of Attraction. And many of those who are, are not committed enough to really develop substantially more self-love, or to be able to offer more love to others.

Don’t Ask Others to Love You More (3)

It is also important to remember that we all, by definition, are selfish. And that there is nothing wrong with the fact that other people do not give us more love than they do. It’s just the way the universe is built.

So instead of pointing fingers and complaining that others don’t love us enough, we should focus more on ourselves, and realize the “mirroring” that is going on. For only when I have developed more love for myself will others love me more.

But we also have to keep in mind the thing that Abraham-Hicks speak of in The Vortex (p. 100):

Thus, it is not guaranteed that all the people you know right now will love you more. Some may, but others may not.

So a serious student of the Law of Attraction will not be surprised, or feel bad, if some (or all) of their old friends and acquaintances no longer are so eager to meet up. For that gives him or her new room for more positive people to appear, who will be more compatible with the student’s increased love for himself or herself.

PART 2. MORE SELF-LOVE: WHAT TO DO

Here in this part I will cover some of the things that we should do, in order to build our love of ourselves.

Note, however, that some practices below are not recommended by Abraham-Hicks, in terms of being helpful to most people. So although certain individuals may be able to achieve success using such methods, the majority of people will not.

What Do You Want? (1)

One of the cornerstones of the Law of Attraction is that we must know what we want to achieve. We have to set out intentions, in order to define the type of things that the Law of Attraction is going to bounce back to us.

One type of intentions are the ones that we define in Step 1. For if we experience something we do not like, our desires for that which we do like are defined better.

However, we still have to allow that which we want into our experience. And it is that allowing part that most people aren’t so skilled at.

One of the ways to go about it is highlighted by Abraham-Hicks in their The Law of Attraction (p. 191):

The idea here is that in order get anywhere we must define our end destination. If we want to take vacation somewhere abroad, we must decide exactly where, if we are going to be able to buy our plane ticket.

Similarly, we have to start visualizing ourselves in our final mood, in our desired end state: a more self-loving person, who moves effortlessly in life, in happiness in joy, and loving every minute of it.

What Do You Want? (2)

Note here that by “visualizing” I do not necessarily mean creating vivid pictures in your mind. Since all people have different talents in terms of visualization, it may be better for some to work with words instead, and to create stories about themselves (which either may be written, or spoken using self-talk).

Remember also, that you have to feel good when you are doing these techniques and practices. It is not just about the inner scene that you are seeing within your mind (or about the story you are telling). The most important thing is the emotion (or feeling) that you derive from contemplating such a scene (or story).

So if you are not feeling good while you are doing it, don’t do it. Or at least, don’t do it right now.

The main idea here is that you must have a joyful mood before you start these practices. So if you don’t feel good, you have to do some emotional warm-up to arrive at a minimally positive P1 emotion (see my positivity scale). Then you can start your visualization (or story-telling).

Focusing on Yourself

In order to develop more self-love, one must come into alignment with Source (one’s Inner Being). Another way of saying the same thing is to say that one must come into the mode of allowing–the positive emotional state that allows the Law of Attraction to “hand over” those things that we have put on our wish list (in this case our self-love).

Here’s what Abraham-Hicks say in The Vortex (p. 188; my square brackets):

So the idea here is not to focus on the physical you that you see in your mirror everyday, but on the greater You, your soul, your community of non-physical loving beings that make up the bigger part of you.

Whether you call them your Muses, or your Inner Being, or Source, or Abraham, does not matter. The important thing is that you align with their thoughts and their love: for they love you unconditionally, and so should you.

Not Focusing on Yourself (1)

However, it may not always be so easy to develop self-love by focusing on oneself.

And the reason is that we have had a whole life thinking about ourselves. During this time we have built up a whole network of thoughts and beliefs, containing various resistances which are now hard to overcome.

This is what I refer to as our Belief Wall, which is difficult to change, since our thoughts and beliefs are “cemented” together so tightly and strongly.

This is why Abraham-Hicks clearly say, in The Vortex, that there is another way (p. 189):

Although this may perhaps sound quite counter-intuitive to some of you, Abraham-Hicks assures us that not focusing on ourselves may be the most efficient way to build our self-love, for the rest of us.

And why is that? Because self-love is the manifestation of a more general love. If we can love, in general, then we will have self-love too.

The obstacles in the way are many times our ideas of ethics and morality. So by trying to love ourselves, or other grown-ups, we have this human tendency to evaluate things in a moral light.

Of course, this is only natural, since governments and societies all over the world have, in various times and ages, been very careful to inject “proper” ethical principles into the school children at the earliest age possible.

So many of us have been programmed with various types of ethical and moral principles that have made a large impact on our self-love and self-esteem.

But that was then, and this is now.

Not Focusing on Yourself (2)

So by not focusing on ourselves, we can optimize our building project of more self-love. The only question is: If we don’t focus on ourselves, what do we focus on?

Well, one thing that we should probably avoid is focusing on other people. This is because we have this tendency to judge people and their behavior according to those moral and ethical principles that I just mentioned. This means that it will practically be difficult, for most people, to continuously love other people, without thinking any negative things about them and their opinions and behavior.

The recommendation from Abraham-Hicks is therefore to use pets as our guinea pigs for building our self-love (The Vortex, p. 189):

Thus, we may practice our love on our favorite dog or cat or horse, and then gradually (and automatically) also build more love of our selves in the process. This way, it becomes an win-win situation for both ourselves and our dear pet.

CONCLUSION

It is, indeed, possible to develop more self-love. But the best method may involve not focusing on ourselves, but on our pets.

Chris Bocay

REFERENCES

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