FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE®: HOW DO YOU DEFINE SELF-LOVE?

Welcome to February, my friend. I love to focus on self-love during this month!

In this episode, I’m helping you create your own definition of self-love and assess where you are in your self-love practice. 

Merriam-Webster defines self-love as:
"An appreciation of one's own worth or virtue; proper regard for and attention to one's own happiness or well-being."

But the most important definition is your own!

Prompts to help you define self-love: TIME MARKER 02:34

• What words come to mind when you think of self-love?
• What feelings come up for you when you are practicing self-love?
• What gets in the way of you practicing self-love?

Questions to help you assess where you are: TIME MARKER 03:33

• When you make a mistake, do you treat yourself with the same kindness you’d show a friend?
• Do you prioritize rest and joy without feeling guilty?
• How often do you say no to things that drain you?
• When you look in the mirror, do you speak to yourself with encouragement or criticism?
• Do you feel worthy of love and care—without needing to earn it?

Wherever you are on your self-love journey, there’s always room to grow. Consistent self-love is an opportunity to boost your well-being and satisfaction with life! xo Karli

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Transcript

FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE®: HOW DO YOU DEFINE SELF-LOVE?

When you hear the word self-love, how does your body feel? What thoughts pop into your mind? Do you feel guilty? Do you have a pit in your stomach? Maybe you have a burning light in your heart that feels really good?

Welcome to February, my friend. I like to think of it as a month of self-love. So I'm going to help you define self-love for yourself and have fun for the rest of the month practicing self-love.

{MUSIC INTRO} 

Welcome, my friend. If you haven't listened before, I'm Karli Newman. I'm a Gen X woman, life coach who works exclusively with women in midlife and beyond, and a community builder. 

The FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE® community is full of positive, kind, and supportive women in midlife and beyond. Each of us is in a transformational time of life, and it feels so good to lift each other up, nurture whole life wellness, and use a positive mindset to find beauty here. Thank you for contributing your unique self to the mix. I love having you in this community. 

If you relate to feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unseen, my ELEVATE membership is where you shed those feelings.

Use the library of tools I create for you to shift your mindset. Connect with other members in the Community Connection space to share resources and support one another. Join me live for our monthly virtual chats to talk through struggles and share successes.

Instead of feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unseen, ELEVATE helps you feel unstoppable, clear-headed, and truly heard and valued.

ELEVATE is $25 a month. Because you're already part of the FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE® community, I invite you to join ELEVATE for only $10 for your first month. Email me, karli@flipsideofmidlife.com, to request the promo code that saves you $15. 

You can learn more about ELEVATE at the link in the show notes or transcript.

Okay, let's get back to defining self-love.

Let me tell you how Merriam-Webster defines self-love. That might inspire your own definition. 

An appreciation of one's own worth or virtue; proper regard for and attention to one's own happiness or well-being.

Self-love is something you deserve, my friend, and yet it's not always as simple as just saying, I love myself. Sometimes even that is really, really hard. Self-love takes effort. Sometimes it takes hard work. 

Here are a couple of prompts to help you come up with your personal self-love definition.

• What words come to mind when you think of self-love?
• What feelings come up for you when you are practicing self-love?
• What gets in the way of you practicing self-love? 

Knowing the blocks that you have might help you think of the opposite of those things to define self-love for yourself.

The only definition of self-love you need, my friend, is your own. Merriam-Webster might inspire you a little bit, but how you define self-love is most important. Because each of us does define it a little differently. What works for me and how I define self-love may not have anything to do with your definition, and that is okay.

So once you have this self-love definition figured out, I invite you to do a little self-assessment. Where are you in your self-love practice? 

Here are five questions:

• When you make a mistake, do you treat yourself with the same kindness you'd show a friend?
• Do you prioritize rest and joy without feeling guilty?
• How often do you say no to things that drain you?
• When you look in the mirror, do you speak to yourself with encouragement or criticism?
• And the last question, do you feel worthy of love and care without needing to earn it? 

Good questions, my friend, to assess where you are in your self-love practice. Your answers give you some clues as to what might be standing in your way. It will give you inspiration for how you can practice self-love more consistently, more completely, more confidently.

Here's the thing, my friend. As women in midlife and beyond, self-love was not part of our vocabulary growing up. You probably didn't learn about it until later in life. That's my experience, and in some of the events that I host and talk about this topic, other women say the same thing.

But here's the beauty in that. No matter if you are a complete beginner, and this is all new to you, or you're someone who already has an established self-love practice, there's always room to grow, there's always things to learn, and self-love is not a race, my friend. There is no finish line.

And I actually love to know that there is always something else I can do to practice self-love. When you have an open mind to learning new things and to trying new things and stepping out of your comfort zone, you are growing, you are expanding. Life gets sweeter and sweeter. 

As you practice self-love on a consistent basis, you're going to feel greater satisfaction with life. You're going to feel more confident. You're going to feel more comfortable in your body and in yourself. Self-love, knowing and accepting yourself the way you are right now, is beautiful.

Just a quick recap here, my friend, before I wrap up this episode.

How do you define self-love? What are the words that come to mind? What are the feelings you feel when you're practicing self-love? 

 And then do that self-assessment to just give yourself a hint on things you might want to focus on to feel more complete in your self-love practice. 

And then of course, my friend, I encourage you to practice self-love every single day in the month of February. Think of the things you can do in 5 minutes or less. Think of the things you can do in 15 minutes or less, a half hour or an hour or less. And then think of some big stuff too. And then put those on to your calendar. 

Time, getting too busy, overwhelm - those are some common roadblocks to practicing self-love. So if you get it on your calendar and you commit and honor your commitment to yourself to practice self-love, it'll happen.

Think of where you can be 30 days from now as you're practicing self-love consistently. 

Aaahhh... I love this topic, my friend, and I would love to hear your thoughts about this episode. Please leave a comment or send me an email karli@flipsideofmidlife.com. 

As always, I'm here cheering you on as you travel through midlife and beyond. I'll be back next Wednesday with another episode of FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE®. Until then, enjoy practicing self-love.

{MUSIC OUTRO}