An Intro to Self-Love
What exactly is self-love and how can it specifically help pet professionals?
What Self-Love Is
Self-love is an all-encompassing state of being unconditionally present with yourself no matter how you look or feel. Self-love means even though you don’t look your best, you still find beauty in your flaws. Self-love is when you are heartbroken and can still look at yourself and know you’ll love again. Self-love is surrender - a release of control - and knowing everything will still be okay. Self-love feels so full and abundant that it spills out into the world around you.
What Self-Love Is Not
Self-love is not arrogant and selfish. Self-love does not mean you care for yourself instead of others, it means you care for yourself to better care for others. Self-love is not an excuse to shy away from responsibilities, it’s a force used to be better at your responsibilities. Self-love is not always easy; sometimes it means doing something hard right now that will free your soul later. Self-love is not all sunshine and butterflies; sometimes it’s the act of examining the darkest part of your memories in order to heal.
Self-love is the act of surrendering your body and soul to your greatest potential. As pet professionals, we work with animals because we love animals. We all care for them in vastly different ways, whether that’s improving their physical health, providing supplies, providing a safe space for them to play and stay, or teaching them obedience for mental balance.
When we don’t care for ourselves because we spend most of our time and energy running or working for our businesses, we begin to feel drained and lack enthusiasm. When we pour from an empty cup, no one truly benefits. Some people can work and grow their businesses for decades without truly feeling self-love, and although their businesses thrive, they feel like an empty vessel.
Lack of self-love can cause many issues in the industry like:
A lack of policies
An inability to raise prices
Guilt for taking personal time
An inability to stand up for oneself or create boundaries in the workplace
increasing physical pain
Stress and/or depression
Lashing out at other people and animals
Having an overall negative perspective
Building Self-Love
There are many ways you can begin building self-love, but how do you know what you’re doing is helping? How will you have time to care for yourself if you’re so busy with work and even possibly caring for more animals and children at home?
Step 1: What makes you happy?
This is a fun visualization exercise to help you come up with ways to grow self-love for yourself. Only you know what makes your heart sing. Find a quiet place and begin to visualize all the people, places, and activities that make you smile. It doesn’t matter how outlandish your visuals are. If you’re happiest as the Queen of a medieval castle getting a foot rub by one of your royal servants while commanding your village people to do the Electric Slide, go for it. The important thing to hold on to is the feeling in your body you get when you’re that happy. No one else can feel that in your own body except you. It’s okay if your visualization wouldn’t make anyone else in the entire world happy but you. You validate YOU.
Step 2: Bring a little of that in your everyday life.
Okay, so you probably can’t really be the Queen of a medieval castle, not being born of royal blood and all, but you can absolutely get a foot rub and watch people do the Electric Slide on Youtube while you imagine you’re the Queen. There is power in visualization and recreating it in real life. Practice thinking of the smallest ways you can make yourself smile today, even if that foot rub looks more like you and your 5 year old painting your toenails together.
Step 3: Say “I Love You” out loud in the mirror everyday for 30 days.
I used this technique when I was building self-love for myself. That first time in the mirror was the hardest. I felt all kinds of awkward and silly. I thought it was weird that I had a hard time looking into my own eyes. It felt oddly pretentious to look in the mirror without brushing my teeth or washing my face. I thought it would be easy to just push out those three words, but when I looked at myself a different reality set in. I forced out a quiet mouse-like “I love you,” and it felt like a dirty lie. That first time will really show you how you feel about yourself.
Over the next week, it got easier and easier. I started noticing little details about my face that I liked. During week 2, I started feeling good after saying “I love you.” I started smiling as soon as I saw myself in the mirror and said those three words with more vitality and meaning. By week 3, there was a moment where I wasn’t looking in the mirror but the inner thought “I Love You” washed over me. I stopped what I was doing because it was so jarring. That felt so real and tangible that it gave me chills. By week 4, the thought would automatically come over me every time I engaged in self-care, and translated to “I’m doing this for you because I Love You,” or after a self-care ritual I’d think “Thank You, I Love You.”
How Self-Love Manifests
Once you have self-love, it’s easier to push through tough moments when you have more productive inner-dialogue.
If you need to wake up 30 minutes earlier than everyone else to have some self-care time, self-love is what will help you get out of bed. “Yes, getting out of bed is hard, but I’m doing this because I love you.”
If you need the motivation to work out, self-love will get you started. “I really don’t want to work out right now, but I love you so much I’ll do it anyway because i want you to be healthy.”
If you have a habit of scheduling yourself so tight that you never have time for a break or vacation, self-love will tell you, “I know we believe we have to work to stay afloat, but i am breaking down and need to rest. I love you so much that I am willing to plan a vacation 3-6 months ahead of time to thank you for your hard work and recharge.”
If you have been resisting counseling or therapy, self-love will tell you, “This might be hard and open some old wounds, but I love you so much that I’m ready to do the work and move on.”
Sometimes you just need to hear yourself say, “You did great today, thank you. I love you.”
Self-love will always be your biggest cheerleader. Your own best friend in your head. Self-love wants you to be, do, and have better even if that means taking the harder path. Self-love is with you 24/7 and is a muscle that can only get stronger with attention.
Join the Discussion
How do you practice self-love? How has self-love helped you in your business or personal life? Do you have questions?
Leave a comment below!
