How to Develop and Nurture Love

By Dr. Annette Colby, RD on SelfGrowth.com

Increasing your love of self involves an intention to become more self-loving and then following up this intention with reinforcing actions. An intention involves a conscious decision to be happier and more fulfilled in your own life. You make a new decision to be alive . . . and then accept personal responsibility to make your life a better, more enjoyable experience. It may take considerable effort to pry yourself out of a life that feels less than joyful, but it is entirely possible to have the kind of life you want for yourself. Below are some practical ideas of how to begin expanding your love of self:

• Acknowledge and verbally praise yourself.
• Have fun more often.
• Learn new ways to relax and release tension.
• Practice conscious, deep, full-bodied breathing several times each day.
• Think inspiring thoughts.
• Instead of always focusing on the problem, decide to focus on desired outcomes.
• Fill your life with beauty, such as times of silence, beautiful music, flowers.
• Raise your confidence by taking daily small, achievable actions steps that support your goal.
• Acknowledge your efforts and your successes.
• Reward yourself daily.
• Listen to your intuition and then follow it.
• Let yourself succeed.
• Nurture yourself by imagining desired outcomes to life's situations.
• Offer yourself affection in many, many different ways.
• Choose to think thoughts that bring inner peace (rather than worry).
• Remember and feel gratitude.


Love may be a mystery. The good news is that the art of increasing self-love is not so mysterious. In fact, it is something you can learn through knowledge and practice. Imagine your self-love as a seed inside of you. Even if it is just a tiny, undernourished, seed right now, you have the ability to grow that seed into something spectacular. The growth of your self-love is not going to happen overnight. However, by taking certain actions, your seed will most assuredly grow. Today, make a commitment to yourself to nurture your inner seed of love. Ask yourself, "How can I be more loving to myself today?" Use your imagination and come up with several possibilities. Then, follow through with your thoughts and put them into action. Do this every day, and watch as you begin to create the loving life you deserve.

Exercise #1 Part II - What I Want to Be List

Exercise #1 - Part II: Be Who You Are

Once you see where your idea of “I” came from, you can begin to be the person you are meant to be.

On your list, start crossing off the things that you would NOT like to carry around anymore and add words or phrases that sound good to you.

“I am so pretty”.

“I have a million dollars in the bank”.

“I treat myself well”.

“I can fit into those cute shorts from last summer”. :-)

What you are doing is creating your own version of “I”, instead of letting others do it for you.

The funny thing is that whatever you write on your “What I Want to Be” list, is what you ARE when you drop all of your negative programming. And that’s all that ‘learning how to love yourself’ is… dropping everything that is not the real “You”.

See, at your root… at your core… you are a perfect being.

You are “YOU”… Unique and divine.

You are beautiful, strong, and powerful. You are worthy of the absolute BEST that the universe has to offer because you are a child of the universe.

When you realize this, you will become more authentic and not be guided by other people’s opinions. You will joyfully express your “I” in the world. Learning how to love yourself and being who you really are, is the greatest gift that you can give to anyone...most of all, to yourself.

First Love You and everything else will fall into place.

Update Creating My List... Self Esteem Exercise #1

Exercise #1 Update: Make a List of Everything You Think About Yourself (Sorry for the delay.)

The first exercise was draining. I actually became quite emotional as every negative thought about me throughout the years surfaced. A simple task like making a list turned quickly into an arduous one. I started off with like three maybe four good thoughts and then I hit this gigantic wall of self-loathing. Every minuscule terrible thing ever spoken about me or to me leaped onto the page. Comments from grade school even popped into my head. Horrible nicknames, abusive things my parents have said during my childhood, angry statements from boyfriends of the past, and my own endless thoughts about myself were overwhelming. In the end I had a long sheet of notebook paper describing someone I do not want to be and making me question my concept of who I am.

Being A 'You Suck' Collector

Doing this exercise made me realize I have a lot of work to do. There are so many powerful negative thoughts that I carry with me. I suppose that was the purpose of the exercise to get a bold reality check on how you view yourself. It was disturbing for me. I never think about those things. I guess I secretly took up the hobby of a 'You Suck' collector. Any put downs or criticisms that come at me I've been taking them in to display on my mental 'Who I Am' bookshelf. Not a good idea.

I know now this process isn't going to be easy but it will be life changing. Although, it took me several days to do the first part of this exercise I think I'm ready for part two. Are you?