Self-love, a frequently mentioned term seldom comprehended in its entirety, is a fundamental element of personal growth and healing. At its essence, Self-love involves a profound and unwavering appreciation for oneself, forming the bedrock for personal transformation and recovery.
Amid the noise of everyday life, it’s easy to forget about Self-love. Many individuals often focus on meeting the needs and expectations of others, neglecting their own. However, it’s important to recognize that Self-love is not an act of selfishness; rather, it is crucial for leading a fulfilling and balanced life.
The many parts of the Self include:
- The Physical Self
As it sounds, the physical self relates to your body—your physical vehicle. Healing on this level involves caring for your physical health, nourishing your body, and appreciating it in whatever way it manifests. You are a physical being, but your body is one layer of yourself.
- The Emotional Self
The emotional self encompasses your feelings and emotional responses. It involves recognizing, accepting, and healthily expressing your emotions. Self-love here means allowing yourself to feel and embrace your emotional authenticity. It means learning to process emotions and allowing them to flow through you in a way that permits movement, as emotional stagnation is a common issue. This means removing yourself from the blame or victim cycle and approaching your feelings without judgment.
- The Mental Self
The mental self pertains to your thoughts, beliefs, and cognitive processes. Self-love in this dimension involves cultivating a positive and compassionate inner dialogue, challenging limiting beliefs, and nurturing a growth mindset. It also means stepping out of the overthinking cycle, analyzing paralysis, and ending mental catastrophizing.
- The Spiritual Self
The spiritual self is often the most elusive and personal dimension. It relates to your connection with something greater than yourself, whether a higher power, nature, or the universe. Self-love in this setting involves exploring and nurturing your spiritual beliefs and practices, your soul, your life force, the universe, or however you conceptualize your spirituality.
Self-love is a genuinely holistic endeavor that encompasses all aspects of your being.
Critical Aspects of Self-love include:
- Nurturing Self-Worth
Self-love involves recognizing and embracing one’s intrinsic value. It is about believing in oneself and one’s abilities. For example, people might affirm their worth by pursuing passions or hobbies that make them feel competent and fulfilled.
- Self-Compassion and Forgiveness
It also means being kind and understanding toward oneself, especially in the face of mistakes or failures. Forgiving oneself for past errors and viewing them as learning opportunities rather than reasons for self-criticism is part of this approach.
- Prioritizing Well-being
Self-love also includes making choices that enhance physical, mental, and emotional health. Examples include regular exercise, mindful meditation, and adequate rest and nutrition.
- Setting Healthy Boundaries
This is a central aspect of self-love, involving the ability to say no to others and to protect one’s time and energy. For instance, someone might decline additional work responsibilities to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
- Self-Respect
It is also profoundly connected to self-respect, which means honoring one’s needs and not compromising core values and principles. For example, a person might choose to leave a toxic relationship or environment to preserve their mental peace and happiness.
The Three Steps to Self-love
- Self-Love: The Catalyst
Self-love is the driving force that initiates and sustains the process of transformation and self-discovery. It is the act of valuing the Self enough to seek healing actively in the first place, and it helps to maintain motivation once the process has begun. What this means is that you must want to heal yourself, for yourself – not for others. If you are working on self-love and healing as a process to impress someone, find justification for things, or for any other reason, you are missing the point. You have to WANT to heal for you. To get to know YOU better, for your health and awareness and no one else’s.
- The Self: The Focus
The healing journey focuses on one’s inner being—encompassing thoughts, emotions, and experiences. Healing and Self-love are directed toward understanding, accepting, and nurturing this Self. One of my teachers once said that all feelings are internally generated. This means that we control our emotions, not others. So, healing has to come back to the self. There is immense power in embracing and owning what we feel—once we do that, we can change things.
- Healing: The Transformation
Healing drives the transformation of the Self, taking you from negative patterns and traumas to a healthier, more balanced state of being. It is important to remember that this process happens slowly – after all, you didn’t get to where you are overnight. There is no final solution to this, nor is there a magic wand that can be waved to fix everything. The healing happens in micro steps as you overcome negative patterns and build positive ones. This is a long-term process, meaning you must be committed to yourself.
Self-love, the Self, and Healing are all essential components, and they work together to help you achieve a harmonious and fulfilling life. It is important to note that healing is not linear; it is cyclical and offers continuous opportunities for you to learn and grow. For this reason, it is essential to be patient with yourself on your healing journey and accept that healing will look different for everyone, with backsteps and plateaus as well as clear progress and forward movement.
Your kit contains the following items:
- Clear Quartz Heart—Clear Quartz is the ultimate healing stone. We chose a heart for this kit to remind you that your light comes from your heart. Clear Quartz can empower all the other items in this box, but it is perfect for healing any imbalance in the four bodies: Soul, Mental, Emotional, and Physical.
- Amethyst, Tumbled—We chose a tumbled amethyst for this set to remind you to be gentle with yourself. Amethyst is an excellent emotional balancer used when feeling stressed and overwhelmed. This tumbled piece is perfect for keeping with you so you can take your healing on the go!
- Rose Quartz, Natural—Rose Quartz is the ultimate crystal of the heart. It helps to strengthen the heart chakra. We chose a natural crystal to remind you that you are perfect exactly as you are—you don’t need to be polished to find love. Rose Quartz also helps us connect with our ability to love and can help those who struggle to connect to Universal love in any way.
- Amāre Herbal Mist: This is the perfect blend to balance your emotional body on the go. Have you had a rough day? Two pumps of this mist will help you release negativity and find balance again. This is an excellent combo with the Amethyst to use on the go as you face everyday challenges that may try to pull you away from your path.
- Rosa Incense: This blend sets the stage for all ceremonies involving the heart and the heart chakra. Burn it during a ceremony or anytime you journal to keep yourself feeling good and on track with your work.
- Rosa Oil: This oil, created with rose essential oil, amongst other ingredients, is designed to penetrate the skin, bring about the vibrations of love, and connect you to your capacity for love. You can use this oil on your body to charge candles and even add a few drops to your bath!
- Love Reiki Charged Votive Candle: This is a fantastic choice for all self-love work, as it has already been recharged with reiki. Be sure to charge your candle with intent before you use it! This candle is an excellent choice for your self-love altar or to use while journaling.
- Two Spell (Chime Candles), Pink: These candles suit all self-love ceremonies. Before burning them, you can write your name or intention on the candle.
- Charcoal Roll: A roll of 10 charcoal disks to burn your incense!
You will need to add the following items to your journey (not included in your kit):
- Votive Candle Holder
- Chime Candle Holder
- Loose Incense Burner
- Tongs for Charcoal
- Personal Notebook or Journal
Setting Intentions
Healing intentions are the compass that guides your transformation, directing your energy toward your Self-Love Healing. Unlike healing goals, which are specific and measurable, healing intentions are more about the mindset or the attitude with which one approaches the healing process and the qualities or values one wants to cultivate. Healing goals are destinations or milestones in the healing journey, and healing intentions are the compass that guides the journey.
Personal Ceremonies for Self-Healing and Self-Love
- Intention-Setting Ceremony with Rosa Incense: This ceremony can be used whenever you set a new intention for self-love and self-healing.
- Ceremony for Body Love with Rosa Oil: This ceremony is excellent for anyone dealing with body image issues or recovering from physical illness. It is a great way to send some love to your physical body.
- Bath Ceremony for intention setting: A bath ceremony taps into the power of elemental water. You can use it to release negative thinking patterns or to embrace and reinforce positive affirmations.
- Mist imprinting Ceremony for Stress Relief: You can imprint your mist to give you an emotional boost when you are feeling down or need a little extra love.
- Releasing Negativity with the Cordis Blend (Not included in your kit): The Cordis blend can remove negativity and is especially helpful when trying to break all behavior and thought patterns.
- Head Washing Ceremony for Releasing what no longer serves you (This can be performed with ourAmāre herbal blend, or you can choose your herbs and add some of the Rosa Oil to the water). A head-washing ceremony is a great way to get a “Fresh start” when you begin the path of personal change and transformation.
- Blessing your home for support through change: You can use our Guadium warding salts for this ceremony (not included in your kit). This ceremony is crucial if you feel resistance at home and need more support as you dive into your self-love process.
Using your Crystals for a Self-Love Bath
A crystal bath is a fantastic choice when working with emotional energy. The power of the water element combined with crystal energy offers a tremendous opportunity to help release what no longer serves you or embrace new patterns.
The crystals in this kit are all safe to be added to bath water. Be sure to cleanse your crystals first and then empower each of them for your work. Below are some examples for each crystal:
- Clear Quartz: Physical healing, connecting with the higher self, releasing negativity, energetic balance, good dreams, or augmenting the energy of other crystals
- Amethyst: Emotional balance, stress relief, anxiety relief, grief, loss, depression and self-image.
- Rose Quartz: Heart chakra balancing, opening the heart, connecting to universal love, forgiveness, learning to love yourself and body image.
When creating your bath, be sure to cleanse and charge your crystals. You can burn incense, use your spray, or even anoint yourself with oil to enhance your experience!
Using Oracle Cards for Personal Healing
Another way to enhance your journey is to use oracle cards to help reinforce your goals and give a boost when needed. You can choose to pull one card per day, or you can do a self-love reading once a week. Below are the decks that I enjoy working with for self-care and self-love:
- The Rose Oracle by Rebecca Campbell
- Oracle of the Sacred Horse by Kathy Pike and Laurie Prindle
- The Water Temple Oracle by Suzy Cherub and Laila Savolainen
