Loving yourself sounds simple but can sometimes feel impossible.
Self-love isn’t pretending you’re happy or repeating affirmations you don’t believe or forcing yourself to be positive.
Self-love begins with awareness.
Let me explain what I mean.
Most of us move through life believing every thought that passes through our mind:
“Something is wrong with me.”
“I’m not good with money.”
“No one really cares about what I’m doing.”
“I’m not enough.”
“It’ll always be this way.”
We treat these thoughts as facts.
But what if you paused and gently asked yourself: “Is this thought true?”
Not to shame yourself, but to question what so quickly and easily pops into your head.
The truth is, your mind will often pull you into the past or push you into the future, but self-love starts with returning to the present moment.
And in that space, you realize you are not the story you’ve been repeating to yourself.
Many of us are living with old beliefs that we formed years ago.
An incident occurred. We interpreted it. We made it mean something about who we are, and we’ve carried that meaning with us ever since. That meaning shapes how we show up in relationships, how we pursue opportunities, how we think about our financial situation, our work, and our worth.
If somewhere along the way you internalized “I’m bad with money” or “I’ll never get ahead,” that belief can quietly influence your financial decisions just as much as it influences your confidence.
Loving yourself means revisiting old beliefs with curiosity instead of cruelty.
To notice the thought.
To question it gently.
To choose another story.
Because the more you question what hurts you, the less power it has to define you.
And over time, self-love stops being a concept you’re chasing and becomes a practice you’re living.
When a negative thought shows up, what do you usually do?
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On Purpose
Last Friday on my podcast, I discussed why so many of us feel disconnected in love despite living in a hyper-connected world. Drawing from my Audible Original Messy Love: Difficult Conversations for Deeper Connection, I unpacked the hidden patterns that quietly erode relationships not because we don’t care, but because we were never taught how to love with emotional safety.
Through real sessions with three couples, I revealed that what we often label as incompatibility is actually unspoken hurt, inherited conflict styles, and a longing to feel respected, recognized, and influential in the lives of those we love.
Listen on:
Today’s Wiser Choice
Try This: Set a timer for 2–3 minutes.
Write down a stressful or self-critical thought that’s been playing on repeat in your mind. Don’t edit it. Write it exactly as it sounds in your head.
Read it back slowly. Notice how it feels in your body.
Underneath it, write one alternative possibility. Not an affirmation you don’t believe, just something that could also be true.
Sit with the alternative possibility. See how it feels to lean into it.
The goal here is to introduce the idea that self-love begins the moment you realize you are not every thought you think.
