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Self-love isn’t bubble baths and scented candles — it’s an ongoing practice of deepening and opening, of accepting the parts of yourself that have not known love, of journeying towards wholeness.
Sometimes it feels like beauty and becoming and aliveness, other times it feels like grief and loss and heartbreak — a conscious collapsing, burning to the ground and sitting in the ashes of who you once were until you have the strength to go on. And self-love takes courage — to pay attention to the places within us that are full of anger and anxiety and afraidness. And to admit that those are the places where we need to do the work, the shame-filled places that need our love — so that slowly, as we heal and strengthen and blossom, we can let that love spill over into the world. ॐ.
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A gentle grief has been rippling through my heart more and more these last few years.
Not personal grief, but shared grief. Earthgrief — a deep sorrow in my body for the suffering of the Earth. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And I know I’m not the only one that has been feeling it — you can see it in the outpouring of collective anger and despair at the destruction of the Amazon. And you can sense it deep within you — a feeling that you don’t belong, a soft sadness that surrounds you like a fog, a longing for something you cannot name. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ But we cannot possibly face the horrors of the Amazon or the ongoing destruction of the Earth with any sense of balance without also remembering the beauty of the world and all there is to love. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The truth is, most of us have lost our connection with the Earth. And it’s hard to love what you don’t know — the trees you have never touched, the rivers you have never swum in, the wild blackberries you have never tasted. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ It’s taken me until now to fully feel my connection with the Earth, and i’m learning to live as close to the wild as a I can — to get down in the dirt + grow my own vegetables, to compost, to dedicate at least one day a week where I don’t use my car and another day where I don’t buy anything, to stay sober on a Saturday night so I can watch the sunrise on a Sunday morning, to spend my weekends exploring the hills and valleys and oceans close by so that never again will I forget that I belong to this Earth and that it is my responsibility to protect and care for it. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And I hope you know you belong too. I hope you get out in nature and hike up the mountains and swim in the seas. I hope you trust that you have the power to change things too. ॐ You learn the language of the body slowly — how to listen to it, how to speak it.
You learn it’s strength, it’s power, it’s fragility. And slowly, when you listen, when you truly listen, you realise it’s beauty too. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ As with learning any language, it takes patience and practise. And you may struggle for a long time outside the language — stuck in judgement and comparison, speaking words of self-criticism and self-hate. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And then one day, you learn to speak it fluently — the words dance through you and you learn to live peacefully in your body, to walk beautifully on the earth, to love fully with your whole heart. ॐ Every one of us has stood at the threshold of our comfort zone wondering whether to stay within our cosy little hell or walk into the wild of our unknown.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Even when we know exactly what we need to do, we have all found ourselves waiting at the crossroads of hate or healing, anger or forgiveness, of surrendering into the sacred messiness of love or closing our hearts off from it — waiting until we feel ready to begin, to heal, to love. Planning + preparing + procrastinating. Hoping that magic moment will come when we finally know exactly what to do + where to go + where we’ll end up. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ So we wait + we wait + we wait. And ready never comes. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And slowly, very slowly, we discover that we never had to feel ready, we only have to be brave — and that beyond all the waiting + planning, there is a simple door + all we ever had to do was stop waiting + walk through it. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ॐ Underneath all the struggling and busyness and hustling for worthiness, there is a silent, silky voice hidden deep inside — a gentle lifeforce that both frees us from everything and connects us to everything.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ When you slow down enough to notice it and are still enough to listen to this soft call of inner freedom, it will guide you back to strength, back to peace, back to love. I know you think that if you criticise yourself enough — if you pick apart your body and loathe all your flaws and find all the reasons you aren’t good enough, it will motivate you to take action so that sometime in the foggy distant future you might be able to love yourself.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ But it won’t. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Hating who you are now won’t lead you to loving the person you are becoming. Planting seeds of self-hate will never grow into love — just like planting a weed will never grow into a sweet mango tree. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The only path to self-love is to practise it — to plant seeds of love in every thought, every word, every action, every time you wake up in the morning, every time you look in the mirror, every time you stumble, every time you get up again. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And then to nurture those seeds, to nourish them with gentleness and compassion and kindness. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And slowly, softly, almost without noticing, love will bloom. You will bloom. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ॐ You are tired all the time
because you keep trying to control something that is meant to be wild. ॐ Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is let yourself bloom into something beautiful and wild. Which is pretty hard in a society that promotes willpower and self-control as the path to success. But, I'll tell you a secret — the most joy is found in those places outside of our control when we listen to the soft, quiet call of our intuition and trust it to guide us the way. This is especially true when it comes to Intuitive Eating. Statistics show over two thirds of UK adults admit to being on a diet "most of the time" even though research has shown that chronic dieting is associated with weight gain, body dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, and depression. On the flip side, research on non-diet eating has found that those who eat intuitively are more likely to have:
And this is why I offer Intuitive Eating Counselling — because I have experienced how healing your relationship with food will transform your entire life. So, what exactly is Intuitive Eating Counselling? It is a soft space to learn how to eat as a form of self-care instead of self-control. A place to make peace with your body and reconnect with the power that lives within it. A loving ground on which to rebuild your relationship with food from a place of love rather than fear. Who's it for?
If you can relate to any of the above statements, then Intuitive Eating Counselling can you support you in find freedom from the fears around food and body anxieties that control your life. Together we will work through the evidenced-based principles of Intuitive Eating until you no longer see your body as your worst enemy but as your best friend. This includes learning a more gentle approach to nutrition, reconnecting with your hunger and fullness cues, developing body acceptance practices, learning how to be with uncomfortable emotions without using food, giving yourself permission to feel pleasure and satisfaction from food, and creating a relationship with food that leaves you feeling, healthy and whole. Ultimately, Intuitive Eating is an act of love — a step on the path towards beauty, joy and discovering what it means to being fully alive. My book, Fear-Free Food, is a good place to start exploring Intuitive Eating, and I also Intuitive Eating Counselling both in person at my clinic, LOVING GROUND, and also online — please get in touch if you would like to book a session. If you want to grow, you have to sacrifice comfort and safety for freedom and aliveness.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And that’s why growth doesn’t always feel like growth — because it’s usually messy and uncomfortable and unknown. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And sometimes, as you let go of the destructive habits that once made you feel safe and decades worth of buried tears begin to release, it can feel like the total opposite of growth. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ But somewhere deep inside, you are healing while you cry — you are reclaiming your freedom, you are remembering who you are, you are returning to the love and beauty of the wild. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ॐ You will heal.
You will grow. You will thrive. Seeds of peace and purpose and passion are buried deep within you — nourish them with kindness and compassion and love. Let go of anything that is stopping you from blossoming. ॐ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Your practice is going to change. There will be days when your breath is strong + your body is free and everything just feels effortless.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And then there will be days when your shoulders hurt and your body feels tight and you can barely touch your toes. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And other days when your mind wanders and you forget to breathe and you can barely go two minutes without crying. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ It doesn’t matter. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ What matters is that you show up. That you practise. That you learn how to use your breath. How to feel at home in your own skin. How to be strong. And how to surrender. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ॐ I find it so beautiful when I look back and see how much the practice of yoga has transformed the way I see the world.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The first time i stepped foot on a yoga mat I was an angry wounded human — so sad and so lost and so scared and so afraid of my body that I’d spent most of my teenage years starving it and neglecting it and hating it. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Yoga has shown me the strength and beauty that lives in my body — the strength and beauty that lives within all of us, the strength + beauty that is who we really are. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ॐ Wherever you are,
no matter how lost + how lonely, Mother Earth is always holding you, always loving you. ॐ I’ve been practising yoga for 10 years now and this is what i’ve learnt:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Yoga isn’t magic. It isn’t going to save your life or solve all your problems or make everything perfect — life will remain as fragile and unpredictable as ever. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ So why bother? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Because when we begin to practise, we open up a conversation with our body, our breath, our soul and we meet our true selves for the first time — unmasked and unafraid. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Because the most joy lives in those places where there is freedom to be and play and grow strong. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Because it helps you remember the peace you felt before you joined the rush to nowhere. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Because it reminds you that you were whole all along. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Because, ultimately, it is an act of love. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ॐ At some point,
you stop trying to be the perfect pink rose + rediscover the vast freedom of being a wildflower -- still overflowing with beauty but no longer tame. ॐ I spent so long fighting that i forgot what peace felt like.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ For so many years I thought self-control and self-criticism and battling to prove my worth was a kind of self-love. But I was wrong — it was war masquerading as love. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Because it is not in fighting and battling that we find peace — only surrender, vulnerability and unconditional acceptance will lead us to the peace, love and happiness that lives within. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ When you stop fighting, when you put down the weapons of self-destruction, when you walk away from the battlefield of self-hate, you will realise you were worthy all along. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ॐ I no longer fear my body. It has it’s scars — those scars are my scars. It has it’s stretch marks — those stretch marks belong to me.
I am making peace with every part of me — every soft curve and sharp edge, every dimple and wrinkle and crinkle decorating the skin around my eyes like gentle riverbeds of laughter. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ For too long, I believed the stories society told me — that my flesh was a measure of success, that I shouldn’t take up too much space, that I needed to ignore my appetite, control my body and silence the true calling of my soul in order to be of value. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ But we can question these stories. We can rewrite them. We can release the fear and the shame and the striving for some non-existent perfection. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And when you do, you’ll find that beyond the self-criticism and self-hate, the path to self-love has always been there, waiting for you to start walking. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ We cannot control the media. We cannot force the culture to instantly change. But we can take our bodies back — and, in taking our bodies back, we take our lives back too. ॐ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Sometimes the most courageous thing you can do is let go of control and allow yourself to bloom into the lovely shape of something free and wild.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Because, if you are to truly love your body, you must have the courage to relinquish your hard-earned control over it — to sacrifice the rules and restrictions for freedom and aliveness. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The most joy is found in those places outside of our control — in falling in love and the sound of the ocean and the way the sun rises every morning, even after the darkest of nights. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And once you release control and reclaim a wild love for your body, one that isn’t limited by it’s size or shape, you begin to see the magic and beauty in it — magic and beauty that has always been there, hidden beneath the layers of self-criticism and self-hate, magic and beauty that gently reveals itself when you love yourself enough to notice it. ॐ Love begins within — in our hearts, in our homes, in our hopes, in the soft and silky silence of morning meditation, in 3am conversations when masks are off and walls are down.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Because it is only when we feel peace and harmony within, that we can create peace and harmony in the world. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ No act of love is too small — meditate, plant a seed, smile at a stranger. What you do is going to make a difference. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ You don’t have to save the whole world — just awaken love and compassion in your heart. And then let that love spill over into the world. ॐ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is slow down enough to hear that tiny, tender voice inside — the only voice that is truly your own.
It’ll sound soft and silky and slightly wild. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And it may take a while to hear it — because it’s usually buried beneath layers of thought patterns and cultural conditioning and other people’s opinions that constantly trickle and thunder through your mind. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ But when you hear it, you will know — you will know because it will sound like home. And it will speak to you with a kindness and gentleness that is unconditional. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ It will remind you to breathe deeply and move slowly and trust the path you are on. It will reassure you that, wherever you are, no matter how lost or how lonely, you are exactly where you need to be. ॐ Father’s Day is a painful and beautiful thing when you’ve lost your Dad.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ It transports you to valleys of grief and oceans of love. It reminds you of all you have lost and all you have to love. It reawakens the courage to fully and fiercely live this fragile gift we have been given — these precious breaths we call life. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Sending love to all the Dads, Stepdads, not-yet-Dads and those without Dads. May you all be happy + free. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ॐ |