Eli sitting in the studio at canberra yoga space

What is Self Love?

I hope you are doing well and settling into the cold days of winter, a time of hibernation and reflection.

So often in the wellness industry, we hear the terms Self-love, love yourself or love your true self….

I say it in my own classes and we can not see an ad directed to women particularly, without some reference to it.

But what does Self Love actually mean?

I have spent a long time constricted from love. Giving it out freely and easily to others, both those deserving and undeserving, but I have done little to direct it towards myself. I have not been able to understand what self-love really means despite searching for it my whole life and suffering excruciating pain in the process.

My recent stages of transformation and awakening have allowed me to discover more intimately the meaning of self-love. I have been able to unshackle my heart from what feels like lifetimes of binding entrapment. I have seen my patterns of attachment and attentions seeking for what they are, a deep longing to know and love my true heart and to honour myself and my light. I have given my love, but not freely, I have been seeking its reflection from others, particularly men, to feel beautiful and worthy. Whilst this has been reflected at times and in some way. I see now it pales in comparison to the light and love that I can shed on myself when I truly move into this space of self-love and honouring.

Yoga has been my guide to this place. My dedication to my practices, unwavering, consistent and trusting, have led me to the awareness of my patterns and given me the strength to change them.

When we show up for ourselves, when we observe our interactions, when we pause before reacting to situations, when we trust the messages of our breath and our body, when we respond to life from our heart, we love thy self.

This is not an easy road, in fact it is bitterly painful, but there is a beauty in the pain, there is healing, there is knowing and there is a deep realisation that this is why we are here.

This is the path to honouring ourselves, this is the path to recognising the divine within us, this is self-love.

So show up for yourself, for your journey, for your sense of honouring the divine within you.

Yoga is not about ticking the box of virtue, it’s not about flexibility and strength in the body. It is the vehicle to bring us back to our heart, to bring us back to our truth and to remind us that we are each, in our own and special way a reflection of the divine, and a reflection of all that is.

You can also just show up because it makes you feel good, and that is ok too.