YOU DON’T HAVE TO LOVE YOURSELF TO BE LOVED.

It's old school wisdom (and outdated science) that says you have to love yourself fully before someone else can love you.

Say what?? If you're brain just exploded and you don't believe me, check out my favorite book on this topic: Your Brain on Love. The Neurobiology of Healthy Relationships. By: Stan Tatkin PsyD.

And a gentle reminder:

It’s ok to learn to love yourself by letting others love you.

Let's explore this!

Love is Love.

Take a moment to think about love as a frequency.

When you are feeling love, giving love, or receiving love....love is just love. It's not more vibrant or less vibrant depending on who's giving it or receiving it. Divine love, platonic love, romantic love....it's all a radiant frequency that grounds us and surrounds us.

So from this perspective, I want to invite you into a practice, a way to continually bring yourself back to the ever present frequency of love in your life. When you increase the ways you can experience love in your day to day, you will increase the love you feel for yourself. So if you want to love yourself more, you can find more ways to love others, and also spend more time letting yourself be loved.

Some intentional self-love practices could be:

• Spending time in nature (being loved by mother earth)

• Contemplative practices like meditation or yoga (letting the universe love you)

• Enjoying time with friends (letting friends love you)

• Conscious parenting (intentional time showering love on your kiddos)

• Letting your beloved adore you in any way you feel comfortable (being loved by your lover)

The invitation is to drop the old story that you have to be worthy of love before you can experience it, and reprogram your mind, body and heart to open up and surrender to receiving love.

And if you're reading this and noticing a freeze response in your body, take a deep breath (or 5) and then keep reading.

Love Can Feel Scary. And That's OK.

If you've worked with me for therapy, or read any of my work, you have heard me say this over and again: your brain will always choose what is known, and resist anything new. This is true even when it comes to love.

So, if you were raise in an environment that lacked the type of love that made you feel safe, seen and unconditionally cared for, then that part of you will be defended against and even rejecting of love that is safe, healing and expansive.

And while this might feel like a bummer, it's something that can be changed. The good news is your brain is capable of changing, and you can rewire it from fearing love, to welcoming love.

Healing Through Connection

So how do we change our mind? How do we heal?

As with all things, change happens 1% at a time and is best supported with a daily self-love practice.

Ways to practice self-love could look like:

• Spending time in devotion, whether that's listening to kirtan, attending a gathering with your spiritual community or reading spiritual texts

• Spending time doing anything that brings you into flow state (like writing, stream of consciousness journaling, or making art)

• Spending time with loved ones (friends, family, pets), with the conscious intention to let yourself be seen and loved (and yes even a tiny bit more vulnerability counts, there's no 'perfect' on the healing journey)

If you're looking for more inspiration on your self-love journey, download my guide: How To Love yourself More!

Inside you’ll find practices for learning how to deeply love and care for yourself, so you can experience more calm, more ease and more love in your life. Written by a holistic psychotherapist (me!), this guide includes actionable + practical steps you can take to fold self-love into your daily life.

Support Your Self-Love Journey with Holistic Therapy.

If you've gotten this far, I hope you've learned one thing: we don't heal alone, we heal together. If you're here, it's probably because you've found yourself asking this very beautiful question:

How Can I Learn to Love Myself More?

Me and my team offer holistic psychotherapy that can support you on your self-love journey. We take traditional talk therapy and infuse it with mindfulness, spiritual wisdom, and tools for change and transformation rooted in the latest research from neuroscience, to support you on your healing journey.

We offer a variety of modalities and types of therapy including: CBT, IFS, Somatic Therapy, Mindfulness, Solution-Focused, Psychodynamic and Transpersonal Psychotherapy.

We are currently accepting new clients for psychotherapy both online and in-person from our El Dorado Hills, CA location, and have evening and weekend appointments available. You can learn more about working together by booking a free consultation call here:

About the author

Kim Burris, LMFT is a licensed holistic psychotherapist, founder of The Holistic Counseling Center, and author of ‘The First 90 Days After Birth.’

She honors the mind, body, spirit connection and offers evidence-based psychotherapy with a heart centered approach that helps people find relief from anxiety and self-sabotage so they can live life with more joy, freedom and ease.

Kim and her team currently offer holistic counseling to individuals in California. Click HERE to book a no-cost consultation call.

PS. Are we connected on Instagram? Come find me at @kim.burris.psychotherapy.