Radical Self Love Bootcamp

Last week I was feeling a bit down. Actually in the spirit of honesty I have to say I was feeling very down. I was homesick, hormonal and on top of all of that I was sick with a sinus infection. I was in a negative spiral, I couldn’t sleep or relax and I just had an overwhelming feeling of yuck about myself.

I have done enough research and work on myself over the past ten years to be able to identify when I am feeling bad and know when I have to do something to help myself.

I decided I needed to do something completely different than my normal go to pick me ups. I am a HUGE fan of Gala Darling and her book Radical Self Love so when I realised that she also ran an online course entitled Radical Self Love Bootcamp, I was super excited and knew that this was exactly what I needed.

I enrolled immediately and started the course the very next day. I am now almost finished the first segment and I am starting to feel a lot better physically but most important I am feeling a lot better mentally.

I can sometimes tend to lean back towards bad habits when I am feeling pressured or under stress. By bad habits I mean that I forget to love myself and concentrate on every negative aspect of myself, mostly berating my body. This is an old wound that I pick at every so often. When I find myself slipping down this dark hole I always know that I need to up my self-love game.

The concept that I can not only accept myself the way I am, but actually love myself is one that I still find difficult some days. Even after 10 years of learning, teaching and trying to master an all-round sense of spiritual and physical wellbeing this is something I struggle with.

I am writing about this because I want other people to know that it’s okay to not feel okay about every aspect of their life at all times.

If like me you struggle with your body image and self-esteem I would highly recommend some sort of self-love practice.

These practices are really personal and different things work for different people. For me I find the following practices useful.

Reading or listening to something inspirational every day. There are some awesome podcasts out there completely for free and some great free resources on the internet. Youtube is also an awesome resource for this.

Taking time to treat my skin properly. I have a tendency to try and rush through things and taking my make up off and showering is no acceptation. I feel so much better and confident if I really make an effort to cleanse and moisturise my skin properly at the beginning and end of every day. Smells always lift my mood so I try and use some products that smell fantastic.

Meditation. I can’t stress how much meditation helps me but I will be the first one to hold my hands up and admit that I don’t do it enough. I am working on that, and you know what that’s okay. Again there are some great guided meditations on youtube completely for free. If you are new to meditation I really recommend using a guided meditation and don’t worry if you fall asleep the first few times, maybe that’s what your body needs.

Above all self-love is about accepting and knowing who you are, at your very core and loving that person unconditionally. In the past (and sometimes still) I have placed conditions on my love for myself. Like ‘I will love you more and treat you better when your tummy is flat or when you earn more money’.

When I see this written down I can see how dysfunctional it is and how I wouldn’t accept another person placing conditions on their feelings for me but unfortunately in 2016 this appears to be a huge part of our culture, especially as women we are constantly bombarded with messages telling us that we are not good enough.

I want to tell you are good enough, you are more than good enough, you are perfect and you need to believe that about yourself. I will update you on my bootcamp soon hopefully I will have some new insights to share.

Aisling

XOXOX