You HAVE Got This Newsletter – February 2023
- Amanda
- Aug 10, 2023
- 4 min read
Welcome to the February newsletter. This month’s theme is all about love. More specifically, it’s about showing yourself love and compassion.
Self love and self compassion are important for our confidence and wellbeing. Learning to love ourselves is important for our self esteem, to motivate us to take care of ourselves and to live in a way that feels right for us. Self love is also a building block that helps us to develop more compassion towards ourselves.
And when we show ourselves compassion, we tend to feel happier, be more optimistic and have better physical and mental health. We are also better able to handle the stressful situations that life throws at us – including the ones we face as a parent.
If you’re finding the idea of loving or being kinder to yourself difficult, you are not alone. Many of us struggle in this area. If this is you, take advantage of our February offer aimed at helping you find the self love needed to care for yourself. That is, the Putting on Your Oxygen Mask First package which aims to help you care for your needs so that you are better able to support your family’s needs.
I’ve also shared some thoughts on how self love and compassion make your parenting journey easier (and more enjoyable) in the highlighted post and by suggesting 10 Ways to Build Self Love. I would love to hear from you so that we talk about how I can help you to learn to love yourself and cut yourself some slack. Please get in touch!
February Offer – 10% off the Putting on Your Own Oxygen Mask First package
To help you focus on self love and compassion, I’m offering you 10% off the Putting on Your Oxygen Mask First Package.
This package is for you if you have been taking care of everyone and everything else at the expense of your own needs.
With this package, you get 3 sessions over 6 weeks or 6 sessions over 3 months (recommended) to support you to prioritise yourself and your self care.
This package will help you to value yourself and learn to see yourself as your own and your family’s greatest asset whose needs are important.
Please get in touch to book a free exploratory call.
Tapping Into Self Love and Compassion to Heal and Love Your Parenting Journey
This is me leaning into a few hours at a spa when my son was 3 months old – best birthday gift EVER! I felt so resourced and calm when I came out to find him starting to cry for me.
In this post, I talk about how self love and compassion can help you heal from distressing or traumatic experiences on your parenting journey AND feel more joy. I share my recent personal experience to show how focusing on self love and compassion can benefit you as a parent. And I touch on when it feels hard to feel self love and compassion and how to overcome these challenges (including the support available). Have a read here.
10 Ways to Build Self Love
To help you learn to love yourself or boost your self love, here are some tips on how to shift your focus so that you can really appreciate yourself and your worth.
Notice how you feel now and how you feel after you’ve tried some of these ideas.
If this list of suggestions makes you feel uncomfortable, I challenge you to give it a try anyway. And perhaps ask yourself what is making the idea of loving yourself so difficult?
If you start to work through this list and still find it hard to connect with self love, please contact me as I would love to talk about how I can support you on your journey to loving yourself.
Let’s get started: 1. Write down 5 things you love about yourself. Put this somewhere that you’ll see it each day so that you can read it as a reminder. 2. Then write down 5 things you love about yourself as a parent. Add them to the same list. 3. Celebrate your achievements – including what you you have done well as a parent. This could mean taking a moment to acknowledge what you have accomplished and congratulate yourself. You can also write these down to read each day to boost your confidence.
4. Notice your expectations for yourself. Are they realistic and actually achievable? Are you being too hard on yourself? If you say yes to either of these questions, think about how you could be kinder to yourself. You might find this post helpful as it talks about challenging these expectations (the ‘shoulds’ and ‘musts’ we place on ourselves).
5. Stop comparing yourself to others. When we’re struggling with self love, we often compare ourselves to others and see ourselves as falling short. We also tend to focus on an idealised version of other people which may not reflect their reality. Focus on yourself. You are not them. And you each have your own story.
6. Ask your loved ones what they love about you. You’ll potentially be surprised by their answers and what they see in you. Do this even (especially) if it feels uncomfortable.
7. Try to accept the love others express for you and any compliments they give you. Really receive what other people say they love about you. Don’t try to deny what they tell you or shy away from that love. Sit with it, hear it, thank them. It may feel uncomfortable to do this and that’s okay. It will get easier with practice.
8. Do something nice for yourself. Don’t try to justify it. Just do it because you are worth it.
9. Look at your boundaries. Is what you are doing or agreeing to feeling good for you? If not, can start saying no to requests that do not feel good to you? How is saying no to things that don’t feel aligned for you a way of showing love to yourself?
10. Take care of yourself. Is there something that you are doing or not doing that needs to change so that you can take care of yourself better? When you engage in self care, it sends you a strong message that you are worth the investment. The Self Care Advent Calendar might provide you with inspiration.
I’m celebrating you massively for taking steps towards self love or taking the time to focus on the love you feel for yourself.