The difference between self care and Self Love....

...and why we need both.

The buzz words right now. Self care and self love are posted about daily on social media. Are they really that important?

So many of us are busy with our lives; working, being a mum, caring for our children, looking after the house, making sure there is food in the fridge and dinner on the table, the to do list, as well as spending ‘quality’ time with family and friends, how do we fit in any time for self care or even this thing called self love?

Self care is important to feeling renewed.

To define self care is to take action in preserving or to improve our health, physically and mentally.

It is basically an act of taking care of you. On a plane journey you are told to put your oxygen mask on first before you help another person. Self care is about caring about you first, the rest will fall into place.

Self care is another way of explaining self awareness, need to time to develop and grow, as well as to rest and rejuvenate.

No one size will fit all when it comes to self care and self love, where one person may find a yoga class restorative another will find sitting reading a book equally as beneficial. It is a step by step process of discovering what it is that makes you feel happy or makes your day just that little bit better.

With a little bit of attention to your own self-care, the fog will lift.

Self-love, on the other hand, is about cultivating gratitude and acceptance toward yourself, physically and emotionally.

Self love is present in all areas of your life, when you feel that you love and respect yourself you make a shift within and you can achieve a new level of confidence and contentment in your life.

The inner critic just loves to have dialogue telling us that, ‘somebody is better than we are, I’m not capable, I’m not good enough’. This inner critic will cause feelings of inadequacy, we sink down and our bodies contract because of these suppressing thoughts.

This can be fixed!

First step in self love is simply to make the decision of being kind to yourself!

Transform the inner critic, talk lovingly to yourself, ‘I am good enough’, I am capable, I can do this’.

Be kind to yourself, don’t beat yourself up. If you make a mistake treat it as a learning curve.

I have found the simplest acts of self love and care have the greatest rewards, mine is having a walk up the road with my favourite four legged friend.