6 Transformative Self-Love Habits to Practice Now

On your journey to loving yourself, practice makes perfect, these are my top self-love habits to help you along the way.

Self-love and self-care are buzzwords thrown around a lot in the last couple of years but being in sync with yourself should never be a trend.

I am not embarrassed to admit that loving myself has been a life-long battle. I’d bet that most people, especially women, probably struggle with this on a daily as well.

While I still have not completely harnessed the power of self-love, I have developed habits over the years that I can truly say have changed my life, and I think they can help you too.

The six self-love habits I’m going to share with you are below:

1. Investigate Yourself
2. Invest in Yourself
3. Rest, But Like For Real
4. Listen to Your Body
5. Listen to Your Mind
6. Cherish Your Body

This article is dedicated to the most transformative self-love habits that everyone should start practicing, right now.

Self-Love Habits

1. Investigate Yourself

Do you know who you are? I mean like really know who you are. Have you ever asked yourself what makes you when you strip away your family titles, friendships, career, accomplishments, etc?

For some reason, I have been asking myself a version of these questions for as long as I can remember. I have a natural curiosity when it comes to learning and investigating just about anything that piques my interest.

Over the years, I’ve utilized many methods to help me to learn more about who I am. From numerology, astrology, and tarot readings to human design. Take it from me, once you start digging in, you won’t be able to get enough.

Where to Begin

There are many ways you can adopt this self-love habit but the main thing you need to remember is to take in all information with a grain of salt. If you get a numerology report done on your name and date of birth, you may find really spot-on sentiments that just make sense to you and others that maybe you don’t fully agree with, and that’s ok!

The point of this habit is to get you involved with yourself. To get your focus on you, internally, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Forcing you to go beneath the surface because self-love is a journey, not a destination. 

You should investigate yourself as much as possible, especially when you feel lost. Over the years my numerology reports and human design map have helped to center me during times of grief and self-doubt. 

Do not discount this powerful self-love habit. Investigate yourself, you won’t regret it.

Resources to help you Investigate Yourself:

• Numerology Report
• First Name Analysis
• Astrology Reading
• Human Design Chart
• Diakonia Report

2. Invest in Yourself

This habit has been one of the hardest for me to adopt and I am constantly working on it. If you are a middle child, you might relate to me on this one.

Growing up, I came from a family of five children and I was number three, right in the middle. Middle children have many stereotypes—not all of which I agree with—but one that is probably most accurate is the diplomatic role we tend to take.

So, as a natural diplomat, it is easy for me to set aside my own personal desires, wants, and even needs if I feel it will help the greater good. If you do this too, middle child or not, baby girl, it’s time to stop.

I’m not telling you to stop helping others or to be selfish. No, stop overextending yourself and giving everything to everyone else while leaving YOU with nothing. You cannot pour anything from an empty glass—or whatever the actual quote is.

We all only have a finite number of moments we get to experience in this life before we’re gone. Embrace the fleeting reality that is your life and invest in yourself.

How can you invest in yourself?

• Invest time for things that matter to you, things that bring you joy and fulfillment.
• Stop doing things because you think it’s what is expected of you or what you should do, you don’t owe anyone anything, especially your time.
• Physically invest money and energy into that dream that has been calling out to you forever. This can mean taking on that hobby, trying out that new class or literally starting a business.

3. Rest, but like, for Real

This habit should probably be number one, especially considering the current hustle culture that we are living in. Again, I am not perfect and this is personally THE most underutilized self-love habit but the one with the biggest ROI (return on investment).

If you are someone with a lot of ideas, big dreams, and even bigger goals, then the idea of resting is probably comical to you. Believe me, I get it, I used to be and still am very much of the mentality that the harder and longer I work, the closer I am to making things happen. My personal motto is to make it happen and just keep moving forward.

For the first 2-3 decades of my life, that strategy seemed to work out just fine. I crushed every goal I set for myself. In high school, I got the grades I needed to in order to secure grants and scholarships to take me to college. In college, I excelled in my fashion design classes and graduated with first-place prizes for my senior fashion show.

Even in my career, I took on new challenges, and new businesses and learned quickly to constantly bring the best solutions to solve day-to-day problems. All in all, Sharae was an asset to any team she joined. BUT…

Sharae was also struggling mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Sharae was battling insomnia, and anxiety attacks and was diagnosed with PCOS, and struggling with deep depression!

Ok, I’ll stop talking in the third person. But I think you see the point I’m trying to illustrate here, being a high-achieving person isn’t always the best thing for your body, mind, and soul. I had to learn that the hard way.

Make a Restful Change

So, take it from me, and rest. If you usually pride yourself on being able to tackle 200 hours of work every week, try and cut that back to 100 hours. And if you really pride yourself on being the best, cut that back even more. What would life look like if you worked a ‘normal’ 40-hour work week? How about a 20-hour week?

What would that feel like for your body? What if you could actually be more efficient and crush even bigger goals by, dare I say it, doing less?

I’m sure this will be the habit that is skipped over by most people and that’s ok. Because when you get to that point in your life where your body demands that you rest over everything, this will become a non-negotiable. This leads me to the fourth habit…

4. Listen to Your Body

I started having bad migraines back in 2015. They seemed to appear out of nowhere and were closely aligned with my menstrual cycle. Back then, I was very uninformed about my body, my cycle, and why any of it would affect my daily life, outside of my 7-day period window. I’m seriously laughing as I write this because oh boy, you don’t know what you don’t know.

Fast forward a few years to 2017/2018 and I am now having much bigger issues with my cycle. The migraines are even worse, affecting my daily life in big ways. I started a new job that year and during the first week of work, I spent my time running to the bathroom, vomiting from severe migraines. It was awful.

What I didn’t know then, but can clearly see now, is that my body was trying to tell me something. It was desperately sending me signs and signals that I kept ignoring.

The migraines escalated to an irregular cycle. The irregular cycle escalated to a severe hormonal imbalance and all that that entails. And the imbalance led to heartbreaking & soul-crushing infertility. Until one fateful day in May 2019, I finally got the official PCOS diagnosis.

As fate would have it, almost a month later, my nineteen-year-old sister died. It felt like my entire life was over. The hopeful future that I had worked my entire life for seemed to vanish in the span of 30 days.

Don’t Ignore What Your Body is Telling You

We all have our own story, this is just a fraction of mine. The common thread throughout my life has been to disregard the signals coming from my body, especially during hard times. I am programmed to push forward, no matter the cost because sometimes sitting in the pain of the present is just too unbearable.

If you find yourself doing this too, I want you to be gentle with yourself, especially if you are currently living through a difficult time. You’re doing the best you can and if pushing past the pain is what gets you through today, do what you need to do.

But, when you are ready when the dust settles and your heart no longer feels like it’s shattered into a million pieces, it’s time to listen to what your body is trying to tell you.

How to Listen to your Body:

• If something doesn’t feel right, it’s probably because it isn’t.
• Go to the doctor, therapist, or specialist, (insert help here) now, don’t wait.
• Your body is not failing you, it’s trying to help you. Take note of what your signs and symptoms are and use them as a guide to figure out what is going on.
• Advocate for yourself and don’t settle, always seek a second opinion until you find the help you need and deserve.

5. Listen to Your Mind

While my body was sending me physical signs, as mentioned above, my mind was also telling me that something was off.

Rushing thoughts that never seem to end. Struggling to get to sleep at night because literally, every idea is passing through your brain. Feeling like you’re unable to formulate the right words during a meeting because the brain fog is so freaking thick, it’s insane.

These are just some of the ways my mind was again, clearly telling me that I needed to chill the fuck out.

Mental health is not something that is commonly discussed, especially if like me, you come from a minority community. Growing up, we were taught that you can do anything if you put your mind to it. Mind over matter was a sentiment I read every year, plastered on posters in my 90s teacher’s classrooms.

I grew up believing that my mind could help me overcome the hardest obstacles in life. And there is truth to this, what we think about can transform our lives because whatever we focus on, focuses on us.

Mind Over Matter, Not Always

But, what happens when your mind is not operating at 100% capacity because you have neglected your body? What happens when you truly cannot just make things happen and it’s no longer as simple as mind over matter?

I can tell you that for me, it was and is devastating. The moment I felt I couldn’t find the right word to illustrate a point I wanted to make or to convey an idea to someone, it felt like my world was ending. Because my mind, more than my body, has always been the thing about me I cherish most.

For me, listening to my mind was much easier than listening to my body. Adopting more mindful habits was easier for me because as I mentioned above, I valued my mind more than my body.

Here are a few ideas to help you listen to your mind:

• Start writing, even if you hate it. I started doing the morning pages after I heard about it on a podcast. I don’t do them anymore but I do write content for this blog almost every day and that has become very healing for me.
• Find some way to meditate. I cannot just sit and meditate with the apps and someone walking me through it. I don’t know why, but I have found that I can go on a walk and just be silent in nature, I think it works in the same way. Find your bliss & meditate.
• If you tend to have racing thoughts, start pinpointing each thought and try to figure out where the hell it even came from. I started doing this at night when I couldn’t fall asleep because of the racing thoughts and trying to pinpoint a thought is so exhausting, that I’d fall asleep—ha!
• Look into your blood sugar, this is something I’ve just started digging into after finding the Glucose Goddess’s Instagram and reading her book in two days. I’ll come back to share more about her hacks after I’ve implemented them for a while but so far, so good!

6. Cherish your Body, as it is, Right Now

Oh man, I’ve heard so many women over the years tell me in some capacity, to be happy for my body as it is right now because one day, I’ll look back and wish I could look like and feel like that again.

I think as women, we struggle with our body image so much more than our male counterparts. We are always trying to be more of whatever the trendy beauty ideal is of the moment that usually isn’t obtainable or sustainable for the everyday girl.

This leaves us feeling like our bodies literally ain’t shit most of the time. I can attest that I have this thought daily. Living with PCOS and waking up with hair in places that it shouldn’t be and my body not doing what I think it should be most of the time makes me hate my body most days.

I’m learning to love my body and to actually cherish it, as it is, right now. And it’s tough y’all. It’s so hard to love something that feels like it’s betraying you every single day.

But, as I said in self-love habit #4, your body is not failing you and it is not actively trying to hold you back. If you are battling a chronic condition or disease, know that your body is actively trying to heal itself. It’s trying to get better.

Change Your Mindset

This has personally been a major mindset shift over the last six months. Each month that I see a negative pregnancy test, for example, I have to choose to love my body. I choose to love my body because it is telling me that it’s just not the right time. I need to keep investigating, keep listening and keep giving myself the attention that it needs before I’ll be ready to bring in new life.

Choosing to cherish your body when it feels like it’s betraying you, is the ultimate act of self-love. You will never be whatever age you are right now again. Cherish your body today for all that it does for you.

Your body is your home, here are a few ways to start cherishing it today:

• Recognize that your body is not working against you.
• Listen to your body, see self-love habit #4.
• Listen to your mind, see self-love habit #5.
• Look in the mirror and find at least 3 things about your body right now that you know you will wish you still had 30-40 years from now.
• Tell your body thank you for taking care of you and keeping you safe all these years.

There are many more self-love habits out there that you can adopt but these are my top 6 that have truly helped me over the last couple of years. I’ve relied on these habits to pull me out of the darkness and I’m still a work in progress, aren’t we all? Don’t give up on yourself, you deserve to be loved and that love starts with you.

These are the 6 transformative self-love habits that everyone should know about & should start practicing today!