Embracing the Mirror: A Mother’s Journey to Self-Love
The Relationship You Have With Yourself
We put a lot of focus on our relationships with others, our family, friends, and co-workers, but what about the relationship you have with yourself? I’ve been on a healing journey and have discovered that your relationship with yourself is the most important. You can’t fully show up for others if you aren’t showing up for yourself.
Loving yourself fully takes a lot of deep inner work. You really have to be conscious of your thoughts and behaviours. You must get to know yourself and pay attention to what you need. This can be hard if you are responsible for taking care of others. As Mothers, we tend to push down our needs to take care of our families. It is so important that we take the time to give ourselves the same amount of love and care that we give our family. Everything in your life will flow with more ease if you take the time to heal and love yourself for exactly who you are.
Practices For Nuturing Self-love And Inner Harmony
You can make your road to self-love work for you. You want to heal in a way that feels authentic to who you are and what works for your unique soul. Here are some ways you can take steps towards healing and self-love.
Self-reflection: This is taking the time to sit with yourself and reflect on your thoughts, emotions, words, arguments, and habits. Really looking and reflecting on anything that you think would benefit your growth. When we look deeply at ourselves we can uncover things that no longer serve us. When we uncover those things, we can move towards removing them and healing them. Which is an amazing form of self-love. Loving yourself enough to heal and remove old ways will lead you down a road toward your true self.
Journaling: This can be a part of self-reflection, but I wanted to expand a bit on it. Journaling is a brain dump. It’s a way to release things from your mind. My favourite ways to journal are in the morning and before bed. In the morning, I like to write down any intentions I have for the day. How do I want to show up? How do I want to feel? Who do I want to be? Asking yourself these questions in the morning is a great way to set your day consciously and with love. At night I like to reflect on my day. I ask myself where can I improve and how can I show up in a more loving and giving way.
Set a morning routine that nourishes the mind, body, and spirit: You can do this however you like. I recommend getting up at least 1 hour before your kids. I do 2 hours, but I worked up to that. Starting in the spring is the easiest as it’s light out. Now is the perfect time :). I start with hydration and meditation. I listen to a 10-minute Kabbalah talk, then I exercise for about 20-30 min, and I do some subconscious work. I love To Be Magnetic. I have written an entire article about it, here is the link. I end with some journaling and hot water with lemon and Shilajit. I cannot recommend this step enough. It may seem like a chore but once you get it into your routine it is so transformational. It sets you up for a more patient, relaxed, and loving day.
Therapy: Taking care of your trauma is an amazing way to show yourself some love. Digging into your childhood, triggers and pain can get you to a place where you can forgive yourself and others for mistakes that have been made.
Nourish your friendships: Social connection is a huge way to love yourself. Deep meaningful relationships nourish the heart and soul. Connection and love from our relationships are a huge part of our happiness. We all need each other to thrive and grow.
Subconscious work: We all have things buried deep down that we aren’t aware of. They block us from reaching our potential. It’s a shadow that we can’t see but it’s there. There are many ways to get down there, I recommend To Be Magnetic. I will give you a link at the end of this post for a discount.
Forgiveness: Learning to forgive yourself and others is an amazing way to love yourself. Holding on to pain, resentment and mistakes weigh us down. When we let things that have hurt us go we can live our lives to the fullest. We can feel more joy, love, happiness and peace. It also allows us to be present in the moment. Be in the moment and don’t look back or too far ahead. You are stealing your joy. Forgive!!
Mom Guilt
This is a huge thing you see EVERYWHERE!! As Moms, we feel guilty about an endless amount of things. The mental load of being a Mother is so heavy. We feel guilty about working, going out with friends, forgetting things, losing our cool, not doing enough, doing too much, being torn in different directions, and needing a break. I could fill pages with ways Mothers feel guilty. We need to let it all go and realize we are not meant to be perfect and our kids don’t need that. They need us, exactly who we are, flaws and all. They need to see us fall and get back up. They don’t need us to do it all and be everything. How will they ever navigate the world if we don’t show them an authentic version of us? Let it all go and be you. Say sorry often and move forward.
Set Yourself Free
Motherhood is a journey. It’s full of so many different challenges, triggers, healing, and truth. It is also the most important job we have and if we can let go of what we think we should be doing and follow our heart it will feel a lot easier. Let go of control. Take care of yourself. Use your Motherhood journey as a way to learn and heal. Show up every day and never stop evolving. Motherhood is full of seasons. How can you grow from each one? I love you all so much and HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to all the Moms.
xo Alayna
