The Art Of Practicing Self-Love As A Creative
We just celebrated Valentine’s Day a couple of weeks ago and it got me thinking about ways I can be more intentional about practicing self-love. Practicing self-love is important to me because when I feel balanced and well taken care of I can pour more of myself into other things and people!
One of the things I want to focus on is fostering more self-love in my work and approach to creativity. As a creative, it’s my job to continuously be creating new and exciting works of art. However, I notice when I start to slack on nurturing myself my creativity simultaneously starts to suffer. Instead of approaching art (and life) with a childlike sense of curiosity and wonder, I find myself gravitating more toward a mindset of feeling overwhelmed and stressed by all of my self-placed expectations.
We all need to take a step back and carve out some time to pour back into ourselves occasionally. While taking time to nurture ourselves can seem selfish (especially when you first start), it’s actually an important step to improving all areas of your life! When you take care of yourself, there’s more of you to pour into your work, relationships, adventures, and hobbies!
Whatever you do for work, whether you consider yourself an artist or not, we are all creatives. Our art is in how we choose to show up in this world each day. Practicing self-love is essential for maintaining inspiration in our daily lives as well as nurturing a healthy relationship with our individual crafts. Following are some ways you can practice cultivating more self-love in your own unique, creative journey!
Speak Kindly To Yourself
Oftentimes, we’re our own harshest critics. While silencing that critical inner voice can be difficult, we can work on practicing self-love when we hear ourselves being self-critical. Practicing mindfulness in these situations allows us to become casual observers of our thoughts and recognize any negative thought patterns we may be falling into subconsciously. Becoming detached from these thoughts helps us to remember that they’re not actually the truth. We can then make the intentional choice to speak kindness and love over ourselves instead.
Try this exercise: Write down any lies you believe about yourself. Then, cross them out. Make it your intention not to believe these mistruths anymore. Last, replace the misbeliefs you wrote down with something positive and true you can choose to tell yourself instead.
For example:
“I’ve never done this before. There’s no way I can accomplish this.” (misbelief)
“Everything seems impossible until you do it for the first time. Don’t stop until it’s real. You’ve got this!” (reinforcing positive truth)
Anytime you’re tempted to fall victim to one of your self-limiting beliefs, you can exchange it with your new positive belief.
Nurture Your Mind And Body
Taking care of your mind and body is a great way to practice self-love! After all, you can’t bring your best self to your work if your basic needs aren’t being met! This is why it’s important to prioritize your mental and physical health!
Eat healthy, drink plenty of water, and take vitamins and supplements to fuel your body and brain health. Ensure you’re getting the recommended amounts of physical activity and sleep each day. Practice mindfulness through meditation, speaking kindly to yourself, and finding moments of joy throughout your day to support your mental health.
Set Healthy Boundaries
Setting healthy boundaries can be really hard for us entrepreneurial and creative types. However, I’d argue that setting and ultimately respecting one’s own (as well as other’s) boundaries is one of the most important things one can learn in life! Setting healthy boundaries for yourself may look like:
Not working outside of work hours
Saying “no” to outings or invitations that don’t bring you joy
Not doing things because you feel pressured to or because you think it’s what’s expected of you
Distancing yourself as much as possible from people who drain you or bring you down
Delegating tasks where you can whether at work or at home
By defining and upholding healthy boundaries for yourself you are practicing self-love by setting the precedent not just for yourself, but for how others treat you as well!
Give Yourself Permission To Rest
I often find it hard to rest. Being self-employed, I have a hard time turning off my “work brain” outside of work hours. Oftentimes, I’ll catch myself ruminating over all the ways I could be improving my businesses during my downtime. This means that even when I’m resting physically, I’m not getting the quality rest I need mentally. Through conversing with others, I’ve found that this seems to be a common problem amongst creatives.
When you don’t get the rest you need, your creativity and resulting work suffer. Rest is absolutely crucial to avoiding burnout and keeping creativity alive. (If you’re already noticing symptoms of burnout, check out this article on how you can recover from burnout and regain motivation).
The key to overcoming this and ensuring you are getting the quality “off time” you need to perform your best is to simply give yourself permission to rest. While this might be difficult at first, the more you practice resting, the easier it gets. Turn off your creative brain for a while and find rest in doing activities “just for fun” that don’t relate to your craft! I like to engage in activities I enjoyed as a child such as coloring or playing nostalgic games.
And did you know there are actually seven types of rest people need? You can check out the seven types of rest and how to achieve them here.
Embrace Your Unique Creative Voice
One of the best ways you can practice self-love is by embracing your unique creative voice. You can do this by simply showing up as your authentic self, both in and outside of your work.
By recognizing and celebrating your uniqueness, you realize that you have something valuable that only you can bring to this world (as we all do!).
When you learn to love and accept yourself exactly where and as you are, flaws and all, you start to show more grace to yourself. You no longer need to compare yourself to others or talk down to yourself because you know that what you do and who you are matter. We are all beautiful works in progress, just like our art!
Celebrate Your Wins Big And Small
Too often, I don’t allow myself to celebrate until a project is completely finished. Then, I might relax for a few hours before trying to figure out what my next big project will be. I blame hustle culture for this constant need to always be working towards something. This is one of the things that I’ve been trying to unteach myself – that my worth is not tied to my productivity.
Instead, I want to practice self-love by celebrating all of my wins – both big and small. In fact, I want to find a reason to celebrate everyday. Rather than rushing through my days merely scrambling to get everything done, I want to find more grace and joy in the chaos of it all. I want to find more room for celebration.
Woke up? Praise God to be alive! Ate breakfast with my family? Thankful for quality time with loved ones! Completed a workout? Grateful for my health and body! Only got one hundred words wrote today? Woohoo! That’s progress made and one hundred more than I had yesterday!
When we forget to celebrate the wins in our lives, even the seemingly smallest of ones, we miss out on so much.
So celebrate those big milestones and goals reached, but don’t forget to cheer for the small ones, too!
Reconnect With Your Joy
When you’re feeling stuck, burnt out, or unsure in your work (or life in general) you can show self-love by reconnecting with your joy!
We all have joy inside of us, just waiting to be brought to the surface and set free for the world to see! Sometimes we just have to find it again!
To me, joy is what I felt as a kid when all the world seemed so big and mysterious and full of wonder. Back when nothing seemed impossible. When I was all too eager to jump out of bed in the morning because I couldn’t wait to see what adventures the day would bring. And when I would stay up late at night just daydreaming about all sorts of endless possibilities of what could be.
You can reconnect with your joy by reconnecting with your inner child. Engage in activities that you enjoyed as a kid. Watch one of your favorite childhood movies. Allow yourself to just explore – whether it’s nature, a story, a new skill – without the lens and expectations of adulthood – and engage in play without purpose.
Another way you can reconnect with your joy is by asking yourself ‘why’. Why are you doing what you’re doing? Why does it matter? Sometimes we lose sight of why we set out to do something. Asking why allows you to reevaluate your current values and goals and modify them as needed if they no longer align or bring you joy.
Want to know another way to show self-love? By creating positive anticipation in your life! Read about why having things to look forward to is so important (and how it’s actually good for your health!).
Photo credit: Matthias Cooper on Pexels
