How to develop Self-Love in a quick, easy way

Are you good to yourself? Do you treat yourself with kindness and love? Do you let go of the people that constantly put you down? Do you establish clear boundaries in relationships? Do you take rest when needed instead of over-extending yourself? Do you honor your choices, your heart, and your intuition, above all?

If your answer to any of these questions is not a resounding “Yes!”, then my dear friend, you might want to consider developing more love, kindness, and compassion towards yourself.

Chances are you might be wondering how the heck does one develop self-love that is tangible, self-sustaining, and ever-present? A kind of love that will turn you into your biggest confidante & admirer? Stay with me; I promise to answer your question.

A month ago, I had an idea for an experiment in developing self-love. The idea was to sit in silence for 1 hour every single day for 30 days and see if it would lead to any tangible increase in self-love?

Silence and self-love – that’s an unusual combination, one would think. But actually, these two are intricately connected. You can’t love yourself unless you know yourself intimately. And to do that, you have to be able to develop the art of observation, which silence enables.

I have practiced sitting in silence before, just not consistently. I promised myself that I would document my experiences and share them with others if something intriguing/ interesting, or worthwhile surfaced.

The Process

The process of my 30-day challenge was pretty simple. Every single day, I would sit on my meditation cushion, set timer to 1 hour, close my eyes, and that’s it! 

The Outcome

The results of this experiment surprised (actually shocked) me, in a good way. Everything that I learned in these 30 days culminated towards developing more self-love, self-care, and intuition.

Here are the top 6 lessons I learned in the 30 days challenge:

Number 1 - Sitting with discomfort

Sitting in silence for 30 days taught me that developing self-love sometimes meant learning to sit through discomfort, both literally and figuratively. As a society, none of us are taught to sit with discomfort or pain. If anything, our world is filled with distractions, be it – social media, shopping, eating, drinking, drugs, and the likes. If given a choice, would you look for ways to dislodge your emotional pain, or would you prefer to sit with it? I rest my case.

In learning to become emotionally resilient, I have come to understand that emotional pain does not disappear on its own. You have to address it and be willing to sit with it until its gone.

What I noticed with this experiment was that I could no longer turn a blind eye on people/circumstances/emotions that bothered me or caused me pain. I had to confront these situations head-on, and sitting in silence provided ample space and opportunity. 

Sitting cross-legged on a cushion for an hour was no mean feat. Eventually, my body started to ease into the sitting posture, which strengthened my backbone muscles, a welcome side-effect.

Number 2 - Silencing the mind

Through the 30-day challenge, I really got present to the chatter in my head. On days my mind felt excessively busy - I would sit with my thoughts and compassionately witness them; not change them, or judge them, but just let them be.

I would always notice that after 10-20 mins, my breathing would eventually slow down, and my mind would feel more calm and relaxed, letting go off the busyness. Learning to silence the mind is what helps dissolve ego programming and negative beliefs.

Through this experience, it dawned on me that perhaps, you don’t need to wrestle with every problem that comes your way, sometimes there is grace in just letting things be.

Number 3 - Facing yourself

When you commit to sitting in silence, you are committing to face yourself and your choices - every single day. What this meant was if I made poor choices in my day-to-day life, I would feel the heat during my meditation. My heart would contract as if telling me that I was off-course, and I needed to make course corrections.

I have often heard that the most important person you need to be honest with, is yourself. And this 30-day experiment gave me a glimpse of what that meant. When you are honest with yourself, there is an underlying peace and tranquility in your thoughts and decisions which is often hard to miss.

Number 4 - Honing intuition

How do you know if you are following your intuition? What I discovered in this experiment was when I followed my intuition, I felt a sense of ease in my body, and the times I went against it, my thoughts felt scattered and in turmoil.

I also uncovered that when I trusted my intuition (aka gut instincts), then my heart & my mind were at peace. Slowly, it dawned on me that if I didn’t get a ‘hell yes’ from my inner self for the projects I had in mind, then that meant the answer is a ‘no,’ at least for the time being.  

Number 5 - Enhanced creativity

Increased creativity was perhaps the most unexpected and pleasant side-effect of the silence experiment. I discovered a love for painting that I didn’t know existed in me.

Aside from that, I always got creative insights whenever I sat in silence. If I ever felt creatively blocked in my projects, all I had to do was to close my eyes, and the solutions and ideas would come in my mind.

Number 6 - Creating space for inner resilience & strength

I didn’t realize that sitting in silence would create a space for inner child healing. Something, I couldn’t have predicted at the start of the experiment! By the end of 30 days, I developed a heightened sense of trust and love in myself. I felt inner confidence and conviction that all my problems would eventually disappear by connecting with my inner self.

In conclusion,

Your willingness to face the shadow will help you develop a deep level of trust and acceptance for yourself. Eventually, you will uncover an endless reservoir of self-love and compassion inside you.

I hope you enjoyed the article and gained valuable insights from it. Perhaps, you might consider taking on a similar 30-day silence challenge? If so, then do share with me what you learned from the undertaking.

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A few months back, I published my first book on ‘Overcoming Fear and Failure – A guide for people with Overthink and Overanalyze.’ It’s an absolute must-read for anyone stopped by fears or failures in their life, career, or relationships. Please make sure to check it out here.