Powerful and Positive Affirmations to Support You on Your Weight Loss Journey

Any form of physical transformation is a process and can certainly take you on a personal transformation journey.  Not only do you have the goals of creating a specific change to your body, but you also have new education, systems and routines, and mindset that must also be incorporated.

It is important to arm yourself with the right tools and support to accompany you and to create a path of encouragement and clarity to bring you to your point of success. 

Positive affirmations are just one of many tools that can support your progression forward.  Affirmations are powerful tools that reinforce positive thoughts, promote a lifted presence, and create a strong emotional set point.  Powerful and positive affirmation can serve as a means of encouragement even when moving through particularly difficult stages of your weight loss journey.

Incorporate the use of positive affirmations regularly and feel empowered through confidence, self-encouragement, and self-acceptance. 

JUMP to 50 Powerful Affirmations to Support Your Weight Loss Journey

How Positive Affirmations Support You on Your Weight Loss Journey

While transitioning your body may require adjustments to your daily regimen, your nutritional planning, and your physical activity, changing your habit of thought is equally important.  

Positive affirmations can provide an encouraging, uplifting, and powerful pattern of self-talk that can help to shift your mindset and the mental image of yourself.  While you have identified that change is necessary for your body, this does not mean that you simultaneously promote disfavor for your body in its current state.  In other words, you do not have to motivate yourself to be healthy by habitually putting yourself down for not being at your healthiest.  

Instead, use positive affirmations and other forms of self-care and self-love to influence gratitude for your body.  Personal physical changes can create improvement in your bodily function, appearance, and movement.  But you can still have gratitude that you start with a body that provides you the gift of life and the ability to change and transform as you need it to.  Reinforce this knowing and acceptance through regular use of positive affirmations. 

Positive Affirmations and Negative Self-Talk

When you are not currently at the weight you would prefer or believe to be necessary for your optimal health, you can feel discouraged.  These feelings of discouragement can often translate into unfavorable thoughts and words that you repeat to yourself.  

Positive affirmations can offer a means to break the chain of negative self-talk and influence better thoughts and feelings to you from you.  Try these methods as examples of how to introduce positive affirmations to combat your negative self-talk habit:

• Pause and redirect.  When you are in midst of telling yourself that you are “too fat” or “just unhealthy”, take a pause and just breath.  Acknowledge at that moment that these type of comments are not helpful and unnecessary.  Then softly redirect with a positive affirmation that you truly believe, such as, “I have a genuine love and care for myself”.  Know that if this statement is true, then your negative self-talk has no place in your life, and release it. 

• Adopt a daily mantra.  Choose a positive affirmation that resonates with you and feels powerful.  Power statements can stand strong in front of other thoughts that do not feel good to you and that do not serve you.  Use an affirmation, such as, “I am dedicated to being my best self” and let it be the refrain in your mind throughout the day.  You will notice that it is difficult to utter your normal negative self-talk behind such a powerful statement.  And this can help cut down the frequency of negative thoughts in your normal thought cycle. 

• Create visuals.  In the course of your day, it can be easy to forget to interject new sayings and instead repeat what you have always said.  Placing your positive affirmations within your daily line of sight can assist with creating your new positive habit.  Write your positive affirmations in your daily planner.  Print out and frame your positive affirmations and place them by your bathroom sink.  Change your phone screensaver or schedule an alarm to remind you to repeat your positive affirmations during the day and watch what happens. 

Positive Affirmations and Negative Outside Influences

Positive affirmations can also help you to combat the unwanted input you may receive from others. 

It is unfortunate, but sometimes true, that others may reflect negatively to you.  You may be subject to family, friends, and others expressing their negative thoughts and opinions about your current weight or physical appearance.  

Reducing your exposure to these negative influences can be extremely beneficial.  But when that is not possible or realistic, you can alternatively use positive affirmations repeated to yourself to combat the influence of their negative disposition towards you. 

Challenge yourself in midst of or immediately after receiving negative feedback and recant your positive affirmations in your mind to yourself.  Or, find ways to transform the negative feedback you received into a new, powerful affirmation moving forward.  Take the time to empower yourself with the right words versus falling victim to someone else’s poorly selected words that do not fit the narrative you want to live. 

50 Positive Affirmations to Support Your Weight Loss Journey

What I Believe About Me

1. I have a genuine love and care for myself
2. I encourage myself to be better and better
3. I support my dreams through my actions 
4. I believe in my ability to achieve my goals 
5. I am fully capable of personal change
6. I love myself and so I do my best for myself
7. I will never be willing to give up on me
8. When I want to change I create change
9. I am strong and powerful
10. I am excited about what I am destined to become

How I Treat My Body

1. My body is my temple
2. I honor my body through my care and attention to it
3. I give myself love, care, and tenderness
4. I am thankful for all that my body does for me each day
5. I am grateful for every single thing my body can do, big or small
6. I love myself as I am and see my potential to be even more
7. I reflect to myself the beauty that I possess every day
8. I look for the beauty in myself and celebrate it
9. I honor my body by speaking of my body with respect
10. I look upon myself with loving eyes and an open heart

What I Believe About My Focus

1. I put time and energy into what is important to me
2. I prioritize myself because I deserve to be a priority
3. I am consistent even when it is hard 
4. I have tremendous internal strength
5. I focus on what I want and release distractions that do not serve me
6. I take command of my mind and direct my actions with intention
7. I fulfill my dreams by keeping my commitments  
8. I am a force to be reckoned with
9. I possess mental toughness and fortitude
10. I am strong

 How I Treat Myself

1. I make promises to myself and I keep them
2. I am dedicated to being my best self
3. I commit to loving myself through my thoughts, words, and actions
4. I remind myself every day how beautiful I am
5. I acknowledge to myself every step I have made in the right direction
6. I forgive my mistakes and love myself for my attempts
7. I am my biggest supporter
8. I treat myself like a champion
9. I never lose sight of my wins
10. I take time every day to encourage myself

How I See My Future

1. I am excited for the energy, strength, and flexibility I have created for myself
2. I am happy to be all that I knew I could be
3. I take pride in staying true to myself
4. I am a reflection of the love that I feel for myself
5. I represent confidence, love, and self-care
6. I commit to caring for myself, mind, body, and soul, always
7. I make habit of taking care of myself in the best way possible
8. I love myself for who and what I am
9. I respect my commitment of love and honor to myself
10. I am an amazing human being

Looking for More Motivation

Read these posts and keep your momentum to be at your best and love yourself to the fullest!

• 5 Simple Emotional Self Care Ideas to Relieve Your Stress and Improve Your Mental Health
• 5 Simple and Practical Tips to Make Physical Self Care Your New Best Habit
• How to Use Law of Attraction Affirmations

What words do you say to keep your mind pointed in the right direction when you are creating change in your life?  How have affirmations helped you to improve your mindset?  Share your comments in the Comments section below.  And if you think these affirmations can help someone you know, be sure to Share this post!

How to Use Your Intuition as Your Superpower

Are you aware that you possess a superpower? If you have not been regularly using your intuition then you may be leaving the best parts of you at the door.

Tapping into your intuition can be a significant way to build your confidence, create a pattern of making solid decisions, and gain a sense of trust and self esteem beyond what you have at this moment.

Let’s explore the true power that intuition can be for you in your daily life and ways to make it a strong presence in your daily life decisions.

What is Intuition?

Your intuition is a form of guidance that directs your thoughts, actions, or emotions based on your independent and personal judgment.  Different than an opinion or assessment, your intuition can at times appear to be derived without preliminary thought or analysis, but almost spontaneously arise in your mind. 

Because the act of intuition can appear suddenly and without forethought or forenotice it can be said to be Divinely-derived or downloaded.  It otherwise can be described as a gut reaction or an innate knowing that has no other origin than its being. 

If your intuition is simply guidance from an unknown origin, spontaneously derived from nothing, why does it matter?  Intuition often is said to be important or even critical when making important decisions, adopting a certain direction, or moving quickly and precisely when needed. How can something so loosely derived be so concretely necessary?

Why is Using Your Intuition Valuable?

While intuition can appear to be a nice-to-have but unnecessary tool, in many instances it is invaluable.  It may be cloudy to you of how you derive your intuition, you still act in good faith because of your intuition.  It is valuable because it moves you and, unexplainably, it is right!

When you are moved to impact your life in significant ways because of the intuition you have received, you find it that much more important that you have a strong sense of trust in your intuitive power.  If you have developed a strong relationship with your intuitive power, you can become more confident and well-connected in the life decisions that you make. 

Alternatively, if you believe your intuition to be faulty or if you are not well-versed in using your intuition successfully, you may feel at a disadvantage or even as if you work against yourself in your independent decision-making.  As a result, you may abandon the use of your intuition altogether. 

Developing your intuitive abilities, recognizing your intuition when it appears, and acting in alignment with your intuition can provide you with better self-awareness, self-confidence, and clarity in your decisions and life balance overall. 

How to Recognize Your Intuition at Work

When faced with a decision or choice, you immediately without pause make a decision about which direction to move forward.  You may consider this your ability to make a quick judgment call or you may infer this to be your intuition at work. 

At other times, when you arrive in a space and read the room or have a sense of the people around you. As a result, you innately determine if you feel safe or if you feel welcomed or unwelcomed. When interacting with others you know if you have had honest interactions or have been deceived.  These unsaid, unnamed perceptions of a situation may be evidence of your emotional intelligence or observation skills or these may also be signs of your intuition at work. 

Still more elusive are the circumstances when you are searching for an item and you seem to know exactly where to look for it without provocation.  Or you appear to predict a person’s arrival or phone call and then it occurs.  These could be matters of coincidence or accidental good timing or other evidence of your intuition at work. 

Whether or not you choose to identify these examples as evidence of intuition or not, it is important to note that they do exist.  It is highly likely that you have experienced one or possibly all of them. And, when using your ability to apply these skills intentionally, you can build true strength in your sense of self, your ability to trust in your thought, actions, and decisions, and move more fluidly in what otherwise could be troubling life choices. 

How to Use Your Intuition Intentionally

One important aspect in feeling confident in your intuition is to actively use it.  It may appear that intuition just shows up when it chooses to, but in fact, you can also call upon your intuitive guidance at any time. 

Ask yourself, what would I do if I had no choice but to make a decision?  If I didn’t have time to rethink my options over and over again or if I couldn’t ask that trusted friend for their opinion, what would I do?

• Act without deep thinking.  

• Take a chance and focus on how the option you selected feels, versus your potential fear of being forced to make a decision. 

• Take a moment to really remember times when you acted on faith and had a positive outcome as a result.

Using your intuition intentionally takes practice but it can also be as easy as applying it to your very next decision.  

The goal in using and recognizing your intuition more often is not to immediately trust that you will make perfect decisions, however.  It is to build your faith muscle so that you can rely on your decision-making ability and the presence of your intuition in those moments.

And should things go wrong, you can be inspired to move forward in an even better way.  In other words, even if you have a momentary failure of alignment with your intuition, you can trust in yourself to still thrive beyond any bad moment. 

RELATED POST: 7 Deadly Sins Killing Your Self Esteem and How to Conquer Them with Confidence

7 Quick Tips to Strengthen Your Intuition

1. Quiet Your Mind. 

When you are clouded with different thoughts, options, emotions, and questions, it may be hard to decipher what action you are inspired to take.  Quiet your mind through distraction, deep breathing, meditation, or even music.  When you find that you have taken hold of your disposition, then ask the question, “What should I do”, and follow what you receive as your answer. 

2. Use Your Emotional Intelligence.

Some answers come in words, others come through feelings.  As you are exploring options in your mind pay attention to how you feel and be intuitively guided to follow what option feels best to you.

3. Question Your Decisions.

When you have more than one option, question yourself why each one makes sense.  Allow yourself to intuitively (versus painstaking overthinking) determine why one particular decision is the right one.  Let the answers flow and expect them to come immediately.  If you have to create or conjure answers then you know you are forcing solutions instead of letting them intuitively flow. 

4. Embrace Risk.

Your intuition may already be a loud voice in your mind but may be outranked by the emotions in your heart.  If you are often plagued with fear and anxiety in making any decisions, ask yourself what you would do if you were not afraid.  If another person you trust who you find to be more confident were to take an action, what would they do?  Allow your intuition to temporarily find commune with the side of you that embraces risk.  Go further to ask yourself what you can do to reduce your fear so that you can take the action with more confidence. And let the answers come. 

5. Use Affirmations for Trust and Self-Confidence.

Negative self-talk can be a powerful foe when attempting to use your intuition.  Intentionally reframe your thinking and break the pattern of self-sabotage by creating a new, powerful, positive language for yourself.  Use affirmations specifically for building trust within yourself and empowering your self-confidence.  When you have shifted your presence, even if only for a few moments, tap into your intuition and see if it speaks louder to you then. 

Related Post: How to Convert Positive Affirmations for Confidence at Work into Powerful Journaling Prompts

6. Respect Small Actions.

Following your intuition on big decisions does not always mean that you must first take a big action.  Your first thought may be a small step in the right direction.  Before you quit a job, you may want to review your resume or look to see what jobs are available in your area.  Before you leave a relationship you may decide to schedule an appointment with a therapist or talk to a trusted close friend.  Do not test your intuition by making huge leaps that you may not be ready to take.  All intuitive action is immediately life-changing, even if only a small step of progression. You may need to walk the path a few steps before you run. 

7. Acknowledge Your Intuition Often. 

To build a strong relationship with your intuitive self, you want to acknowledge its presence in your life.  Reduce your usage of words like coincidence or luck, and emphasize to yourself when you have been able to make significant decisions with little to no obvious direction than an impulse.  It is okay to give credit to the practical knowledge you deploy, the information you have researched, or the analysis you have effectively conducted.  But it is equally important and relevant to give notice when you are inspired, Divinely-led, or intuitively guided.  All forms of influence are valid, present, and important and deserve acknowledgment when they occur. 

Conclusion

Your intuition is a super powerful tool and one that you want to strengthen and regularly use in your daily life.  Making hard decisions with confidence and self-assurance cannot always be a matter of deep study and analysis.  Sometimes you just need to know, feel a sense of relief, and have an inner belief that you are going the right way. 

When you regularly practice allowing yourself to be intuitively guided, you can learn how to better hear your internal voice and also gain more confidence that its direction can be trusted.  

We each possess tools that assist us in making the best decisions for our life.  Allow yourself to use your intuition and experience the superpower that can outrank all others at your disposal. 

Do you have your own unique ways of tapping into your superpower and strengthening your intuition? Share your success in the Comments section below.

7 Deadly Sins Killing Your Self Esteem and How to Conquer Them with Confidence

You may be creating more problems with your self esteem than you realize. Killing it in fact!

Your self esteem is tied to your vision of yourself, your presence with others and the image of you shared with the world.

When you lack self esteem, you lack a confident presence in your own life. You are hollow when you should be whole.

If you suffer from ongoing self esteem concerns, you likely are fighting a host of insecurities and self sabotaging actions. And it is easy to have these counterproductive thoughts and actions steal your enthusiasm, break down your momentum, and kill your self esteem one moment at a time.

Take a look at these deadly sins killing your self esteem and see how conquering these habits can help you regain your confidence.

Self Esteem Problem #1: Compromising Your Values

Your core values represent who you are and how you demonstrate yourself to others based on what you deem most important. Once you identify what your values are you act in accordance with these beliefs and allow them to shape your life. Use our Core Values Journal to explore your core values more fully and to understand your life’s priorities.

No matter what you choose to prioritize in your life, your core values stand at the forefront, sometimes even unconsciously coming to the surface. You know what you stand for and what you believe in. This knowing can contribute to your self esteem.

The effects of denying your core values

When you put your values to the side, it can only happen through conscious decision and effort. You have elected to be different or support actions different than what you believe in.

Compromising your values can take many forms:

• Looking the other way when a co-worker falsifies the numbers on a financial report
• Not inviting a relative to a family event because other family members don’t want you to do it
• Staying at work late when you have a game to attend for your child
• Fake smiling at a friend who has bitterly hurt your feelings nonchalantly in casual conversation

You know when you feel something is wrong or right, and most importantly when it is different than what you understand as your core values. And even if no one other than you knows or feels the disconnect, you know when you have compromised your own core values. The sinking, sick, uncomfortable sadness inside tells you that you have permitted a disconnect to occur.

Reclaim your self esteem by representing yourself authentically and in alignment with your values.

• Let others know when their actions or words do not align with your beliefs or standards
• Take on decisions and actions that your feel strongly about regardless of outside opinion
• Be honorable and act with integrity even when faced with difficult choices
• Acknowledge your emotions and be open about your feelings with others and allow the same to be received by you

Related Post: 5 Ways to Be More Authentic and Build Amazing Confidence

Self Esteem Problem #2: Putting Yourself Last

Overstated humility will often lead to putting yourself in the background instead of the foreground.

We are taught to hold the door for others, allow another person to step ahead in line, or give to those less fortunate than ourselves. While these acts are exemplary forms of chivalry and compassion, they also train a less desirable attribute. The attribute of diminishing self worth.

While an inaccurate conclusion, it is easy to assume that if putting others before yourself is commendable, it is not commendable to put yourself first.

Self prioritization can become unattractive when humility and charitable works are over-accentuated. True harmony lies in the balance of both.

Honor yourself and your self esteem by caring for yourself as much or more than you care for others. This healthy self love technique puts you in the best position to give the best of yourself in everything that you do. It also helps to thwart feelings or patterns of personal depletion by giving more than what your body, mind, and spirit can withstand to give at any given time.

Related Post: 5 Truly Intimate Ways to Practice Self Love and Feel Good Loving Yourself

Placing yourself in a position of priority is healing to your spirit and particularly to your self esteem.

Self Esteem Problem #3: Demonizing Self-Pride

The world is full of hope, inspiration, and optimism because of the actions that others have taken as a leap forward in their personal life progress.

To take pride in your accomplishments, your skills and talents, and your ability to overcome challenges is a reward for yourself and those able to witness your evolution.

To bask in self pride and personal acknowledgment provides a boost to your self esteem, an energetic elevation to your self worth, and an opportunity to experience more fullness in life. When we hide from experiencing self pride, we reduce our big wins as inconsequential and insignificant happenings and neutralize the difference between one experience and another. The world can become bland without the acknowledgment of good, better and great.

Key elements to remember when healthfully practicing self pride:

• Admiring your work or your own image is not the same thing as vanity
• Saying aloud what you did well is not the same thing as boasting
• Sharing your accomplishments with others is not the same thing as showing off
• Reflecting on how well you have done is not the same thing as gloating

When you recognize that exaggerated, mean-spirited, and intentionally hurtful forms of self pride are not the only forms of self pride, you give yourself permission to engage in healthy self acknowledgment, respect, and love.

Self pride is an important means to create and sustain healthy self esteem.

Self Esteem Problem #4: Devaluing Your Opinion

Knowing yourself is knowing what your independent thoughts and opinions are and owning them.

Your entire life experience is made up of instances where you learn yourself and the world around you. And while you gain significant influence from the world that builds your sense of opinion, your opinion is still yours alone.

To diminish your opinion is to remove your voice and to relinquish your sense of self in exchange for others.

Without your thoughts and your decisions of how to respond or act because of your thinking, you render your true self as almost invisible and inconsequential. This lack of presence can have a significant impact on your self esteem.

Sometimes you withhold your opinion and hamper your voice intentionally. You may choose when and where to share your opinion and determine if the share of your opinion is necessary or appropriate for the time and place. But even with this practical assessment you still honor that your opinion exists. And you use of tact is not the same as abandoning your opinion.

To preserve your voice and your self esteem it is important to practice authenticity in your thoughts and feelings.

• Be honest with your thoughts and opinions and genuine when asked how you feel on a subject
• Make a habit to respectfully share your thoughts when the opportunity presents itself
• Refrain from apologizing if your opinion is different than others. Difference of opinion is not a mistake or misstep and therefore do not require correction.
• Permit yourself to share your opinion with conviction. There is no need to force, pressure, or over-project your stance but energy and enthusiasm can provide necessary passion to a strong position.

Self Esteem Problem #5: Criticizing Yourself

Critical thinking and assessment are useful at the right time and place.  However, those who are apt at these skills often turn the looking glass upon themselves and many times way too intensely.

There is balance in reviewing ourselves, our work, or our interaction with others. But there can be burden with intentionally examining yourself to find youreslf flawed or erroneous in your actions.  Additionally, the presence of error does not equal total failure or complete lack in any person.

Criticizing yourself intensely or plaguing yourself with negative can become cruel, disheartening, and its own form of bullying toward yourself.  A pattern of negative self talk can be an even more damaging practice because you have the opportunity to repeat hurtful thoughts and words incessantly.

Changing the course of your self critique to regular positive and favorable feedback can have a significant impact on improving your self esteem. Particularly when imparting genuine and thoughtful commentary and reinforcing acknowledgment of your best attributes, you can become the cornerstone of self validation and self worth for yourself.

Self Esteem Problem #6: Comparison with Others

The strength of individuality can be muted by the comfort of conformity especially when you deem someone else to be better than you.

Comparing who you are and what you do with others can belittle your sense of self when you deem your source of comparison as superior. The difficult but necessary shift is in seeing others with strengths and abilities as inspiration rather than competition.

The world contains such variations of skills, achievements, forms of beauty, and talent that inevitably you will find those who present themselves better than you perceive yourself to be.

That said, it is also equally possible to find those who underperform in comparison to you or who perform similarly to you. The question then becomes, what are you seeking to find?

Look to admire, learn from, and be inspired by others and the world around you. This is a much better support to your self esteem than counting yourself lesser in the contrast. You have your own uniqueness that includes a countless number of aspects to be proud of.

Build confidence by looking for and celebrating the best in you and valuing the inspiration around you to become more.

Self Esteem Problem #7: Fear of Failure

There is no circumstance where you can live without ever trying and failing. But at same time every attempt does not end in failure. Therefore to stand in perpetual fear of failure, waiting for the worse to occur, can create an even worse outcome than the event itself.

Anxiety, stress, lack of confidence, and low self esteem are just some of the symptoms when you suffer serious fear of failure.

However, facing your fears, regardless of the outcome, can build an internal strength and fortitude that can bring good fortune.

• Take on a new task at work knowing that you may have to learn as you go
• Travel to an unfamiliar location and explore without a defined plan
• Talk to a new person in your favorite coffee shop even if they may not engage you back
• Ask for a raise or new position even if you think your boss is not a fan

Taking risks can feel beyond uncomfortable. But everything that feels bad is not bad for you.

And while you have a chance to have an unfavorable end result, you also have opportunity for more. Moving beyond fears creates opportunity for growth, learning, better experiences, and personal gains. Walking away from these opportunities limits your ability to have more friends, greater skills, and even more money.

Above all, taking a chance on yourself can lead to higher self esteem, more confidence, and a feeling of preparedness for the next challenge on your life journey.

Conclusion

When you suffer problems with your self esteem, look to see their true origin. When you can confront and repair the poor habits that compliment this negative outcome, you have the opportunity to build your confidence and sense of self worth.

Instead of allowing self criticism, sabotage, and comparison with others to kill how you perceive yourself, be authentic, positive, and expressive.

You hold the power to strengthen your self esteem and boost your confidence by allowing yourself to fully be you.

If you know someone who could use a confidence boost, share this post and inspire small changes that can make a big difference in their self esteem. And if you have more ideas of your own, share them in the comments for others to see.

5 Simple and Practical Tips to Make Physical Self Care Your New Best Habit

When you make the decision to place conscious and consistent effort toward your physical self care regimen, you are acknowledging the importance of your physical body to your overall life and your life experience. 

Honoring your physical self is

• Recognizing how your physical body contributes to the life you are able to live today
• Respecting the needs of your body and placing these needs as a priority

• Celebrating the gifts that your body provides you with access to engage with the world around you

• Realizing that your body gives to you always by way of an intricate system of health, healing, restoration and flow that harmonizes and synchronizes with your being at each and every moment

When you fully acknowledge how remarkable your body is and what it gives you instinctually, the practice of physical self care is more and more easy to see as a natural compliment.

What is Physical Self Care?

Physical self care is a form of self care where the emphasis is placed on the total body, its condition and health, and its maintenance and sustainability.  Wellness and preventative care can complement your physical self care regimen as well as actions to address, improve, or eliminate concerns related to your body’s functioning and well-being.

As with any other aspect of your life, you get to decide what physical self care is to you.  Regardless of your perceived health status or the perception of others, you decide what form of physical self care is a priority.

You may be motivated to place importance on this aspect of your life due to

• health conditions,
• personal goals to expand and become more,
• physical limitations you seek to have lifted,
• external influence that you trust to advise towards your betterment, or
• concerns that family, friends, and other loved ones have shared

Identifying what you want to achieve by way of physical self care can assist with clarifying your personal definition of self care and start a productive path towards achieving your personal goals.

How Do You Build a Physical Self Care Mindset?

Your body is a complex vehicle with many different components that contribute to your health and well-being.  When you possess a physical self care mindset, you respect, honor, and appreciate the care necessary to maintain such a complex system.

Part of respecting your physical form is to embody acceptance just as you are.  While you may have areas of improvement or a definition of optimal physical condition, you also have many positive attributes at this moment. 

When you can accept and then appreciate the body that you have, flaws and all, you can envision yourself in a balanced way.  You are not a project desperately in need of repair, but a beautiful gift that can be further enhanced and shared. From this healthy viewpoint, you can seek to further honor your body as a gift that you cherish and develop ways to improve or maintain its condition and sustain its ability to perform at its best.

Why is Physical Self Care Important?

Physical self care is important as a means to maintain or improve your health and bodily condition.  Just as with any other assets that you may own, better performance and longevity can be attained when focused on preventative care and timely response to concerns.

Alternatively, neglect of the body can result in a host of issues including:

• Fatigue
• Strain and sprain
• Stress
• Misalignment
• Deterioration
• Disease and illness

As you are the primary observer of your body, you are the first true caretaker of you.  Without you, your body cannot gain access to the care it needs whether you perform it yourself or alert others to its needs.

Your body needs you to survive and this is why physical self care is so important.

Physical Self Care Tips and Ideas

Physical Care Tip #1: Perform a Full Body Scan

A body scan is an excellent starting point on your physical self care journey as it provides opportunity to give focused attention to your well-being that you may not always do.

To scan your body fully is to permit your awareness to travel around your physical self, part by part, and to focus on and evaluate its condition. 

A full body scan has many benefits:

• You have the opportunity to focus your attention on any and all body parts, big and small, and acknowledge gratitude for its movement, flexibility, protection, or function that it provides

• Placing focus on different sections of your body opens the internal dialogue of any special needs or care required or healthful actions that you recommend to yourself

• You give yourself opportunity to know your body through personal self awareness.   This process may result in new learnings, understanding, and prediction of changes and concerns.  It also develops your own personal opinion regarding your condition.

Perform a brief scan daily and an in depth review of your body on a regular frequency that you feel matches the needs of sustaining your best health.

Physical Self Care Tip#2:  Educate Yourself on Your Version of Nutrition

Nutrition can sometimes be an underutilized educational opportunity.  With so much information on different forms of diet, an emphasis on restriction consciousness, and constant focus on weight loss initiatives, proper nutrition can easily get confusing.

Rather than taking fix-it-fast steps to ensure that you are providing your body with the nutrition it requires, study the subject of nutrition and yourself more.

Learn and know the basics of healthy eating. 

Investigate what maintaining a healthy diet really is.  The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) provides details on balanced nutrition on their website https://www.myplate.gov. 

In addition to general data, the USDA offers a customizable resource called MyPlate Plan that recommends the right food combinations and calories for you to have. See this service below:

You can also find a dietician or nutritionist who can guide you through the process of learning your body and your diet and nutrition needs.  The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has a website that provides you access to local professionals to perform one-on-one consultations to assist you in navigating your own personal health journey. 

Most importantly, gain an understanding of what food works for you:

• Some foods affect your energy levels differently.
• You may have allergies or food intolerances unique to you.
• At times you may experience ravenous cravings and respond to them unhealthfully because you never explored their origin.
• Your body may need small meals frequently or prefer intermittent fasting.

While different people can have common nutritional requirements, we are all unique in what exactly works for us. Take the time to know your version of proper nutrition and create meal plans that make you and your body happy and aligned.

Physical Self Care Tip#3: Stretch Daily

Your body helps you to experience yourself and the world around you.  When you are limited in your mobility or feel tension and pain when moving, you are more likely to disconnect and withdraw.  

Including stretching in your physical self care routine is another means of providing mindfulness and self awareness in your day. Stretching helps to open you up and to invite you to engage with movement, flexibility, and relaxation.

Yoga with Adriene has been providing routines and practices through stretching and yoga for 10 years. She acts as an excellent at-home companion if you are new to developing stretch routines. When performing your stretches, you do not need to overextend or challenge yourself to the point of discomfort. Instead focus on consistency in your movement and the gains achieved through repetition and commitment.

Participating in daily stretching allows you to be regularly mindful of the condition of your muscles and joints and to be purposeful in your routine makeup and execution. Physical self care in the form of a stretching regimen serves to honor your movement and the healthful engagement with life that your body provides.

Physical Self Care Tip#4:   Maintain a Sleep Routine

Sleeping is your body’s opportunity to experience rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation from your daily movement and mental engagement. Your mind and body take in many inputs throughout your day. And physically your body fluctuates in its energy levels, strength levels, agility, and flexibility while managing these various inputs.

Sleep gives you an opportunity to restabilize and bring your body and mind back into balance. If you repeatedly suffer from a lack of sleep then you may be experiencing issues with:

• Mental fatigue and lack of focus
• Irritability
• Forgetfulness
• Increased cravings for sugar or caffeine
• Lack of fluidity in motor functions
• Physical fatigue and tension

Developing a consistent, restful sleep schedule can be a great compliment to prevent or combat unwanted concerns. It also creates a positive expectation in your day of your care for yourself through preparation for rest, body consciousness, relaxing atmosphere and personal downtime. If you are ready to put new emphasis in creating a soothing sleep ritual or learning more about the process in general, read my post Wake Up Brand New by Creating a Sleep Ritual.

It is important to note that at times life will pull you away from restful sleep. A newborn baby, time-senstive and important project, or heavy personal problems often disturb your ability to sleep as long or as well as you would prefer.

Being ever mindful of your need for sleep can help to ensure that time is spent renewing your commitment to a full night’s rest, napping when needed, and otherwise being aware and prioritizing your physical health condition as it relates to your current sleep regime.

Physical Self Care Tip#5: Perform Exercises You Love

Some people love exercise and easily keep a workout routine as an excellent form of physical self care. But some of us struggle. If this is you, make a special effort to look for the best ways to keep your body moving that feels good to you and helps you to reach your goals.

How often do you think of exercise as something to look forward to?

Change your mindset for the better by creating a plan that makes consistency, good form, and enjoyment all part of the equation. Physical self care is not only doing exercises that keep your body healthy but sustaining a healthy mindset regarding your physical routine.

• Create a workout playlist that keeps you inspired
• Find videos, apps, or a physical trainer that keeps you engaged and interested
• Use a workout buddy when trying out a new class
• Engage your friends and family, including your kids, to encourage you on your workout journey
• Pay attention if you like to walk outdoors or use a treadmill, lift dumbells, or use bodyweight exercises only. Do what you can and what works for you!

Physical exercise is not just the gym and workout classes. Regular life can be physical, healthy, and fun.

• Take a long walk in a beautiful park.
• Go roller skating or ride a bike. 
• Jump rope (try double dutch).
• Play on a trampoline.
• Garden or mow your grass.
• Dance.

Just get moving.  And let what you love to do be a bigger part of how you give physical self care to yourself.

Physical Self Care Bonus Tip: Drink Water!

Drinking water is the most basic, common, and repeated physical self care recommendation there is and yet it is often the practice most neglected.

Whether you forget to drink water, don’t like the taste of it, or simply do not want to drink it, water is a key component of your health. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one significant reason to drink water is to prevent dehydration.  The regular deprivation of water to your bodily system can create a host of problems.  Alternatively, drinking water regularly strongly supports normal functions of the body like:

• Aiding in digestion
• Transporting oxygen and nutrients to your cells
• Regulating your body temperature
• Preventing constipation and
• Protecting organs and tissues

Drinking water directly is the easiest way to hydrate your system.  But you can also increase your daily water intake through your foods.  As a complement to your water intake, consider these foods with high water content:

• Cucumbers
• Celery
• Lettuce
• Watermelon
• Strawberries
• Oranges
• Peaches

In addition to eating these foods independently, they can also act as a nice enhancer to plain water as an enticement to drink more.

Build a daily hydration routine and watch your physical self care regimen flow right into place.

Conclusion

Physical self care is a much needed compliment to your daily regimen targeted on maintaining and sustaining your body.  Whether you are improving your sleep, drinking more water, or exploring fun ways to exercise your body, caring for your body with intention and regular frequency is a good way to demonstrate care for your body.

If you are looking for more ways to enhance your self care regimen, look at these posts:

• 3 Key Traits You MUST Use to Make Self Care at Work Actually Work
• 5 Simple Emotional Self Care Ideas to Relieve Your Stress and Improve Your Mental Health

• 5 Truly Intimate Ways to Practice Self Love and Feel Good Loving Yourself

Do you have the perfect add to your physical self care routine? Did you learn a new idea from this post? Share your comment below. Don’t forget to share this post with someone you know who may need a self care idea or reminder.

5 Simple Emotional Self Care Ideas to Relieve Your Stress and Improve Your Mental Health

Are you suffering through your busy life only to feel stressed and depleted at the end of the day? These 5 simple emotional self care ideas can be just what you need to decompress, release stress and improve your mental health.

Whether you incorporate 1 idea or all 5, you can experience a shift in how you approach changing your mental disposition by intentionally focusing on your emotional status. Acknowledge how you feel. Decide that you no longer want to feel the way you do at this moment. And take decisive action to move in another direction.

Your emotional state can impact your total well being and therefore it is important to identify the state that is healthiest for you in the moment and to do your best to direct yourself there.

This post provides 5 easy-to-.implement emotional self care ideas that can help you with your mental health and put you on the path to feeling better.

Emotional Self Care Ideas

#1 Watch a favorite movie or tv show from your childhood

Watching tv or movies can be the perfect way to ease your mind, lift your spirits, and transport your thoughts to a good place.

The magic begins when you truly allow yourself to be emersed in the experience. And particularly in movies or shows that have nostalgic origins, you can find yourself rekindling deep-seated positive emotions that you have not visited in years.

Allow an old movie to make you laugh out loud again. Or curl up under a blanket and binge-watch a show that you could never get enough of when you were younger.

While any light-hearted movie or show could do, when you relive a past positive experience you provide yourself a compounded effect of acting on your inspiration, reliving happy memories, enjoying fun, laughter and excitement, and it all being uniquely special to you.

The power of your personal joy rests within you and you made it come to life.

Choose your topic with the explicit goal in mind to be good to yourself and to be 10x happier than when you sat down and started watching. Keep a running list of go-to favorites to immediately enjoy the next time your day seems to wipe you out.

Share the Moment

Family time is a perfect time to pass on the magic of your favorite show or film. Not only can you share what you love with others, but you can also share the habit to relax and decompress after a hard day.

Let your family and friends know that when you think of moments that make you feel better, you think to include them in the process.

Honor these special moments even more by extending your favorites lists with new suggestions from your loved ones and scheduling regular nights to watch together.

#2 Start a diary

While a planner or a journal can be filled with agendas, to-do lists, journal prompts, and other predefined purposes, a diary can be a free and unlabeled space to simply express yourself, if you let it.

Enjoy a diary just for the fun of having one. Diaries often give space for the sharing of your story:  your hopes, your dreams, and your day gone by. 

What happened today and how did it make you feel?  Who are you excited to see tomorrow and what person made you feel crazy today?

Your life is a whirlwind experience and it’s a story worth telling and remembering. Emotional self care can be as simple as showing yourself that you actually care about your life by writing it all down.

#3 Expand your emotional intelligence

Knowing your feelings and how to express them is not easy.  We all learn as we go and it is helpful when we gain knowledge of how to feel connected and understand what we feel.

Too often emotions can come to the surface. And when they are more challenging feelings such as fear, doubt, hopelessness, or tension, it can be hard to know what to do with them now that they are here.

There are books, online assessments, tools, and more that are made to make you more aware of your feelings and to understand the plethura of feelings that exist. You also can spend time with yourself to think through the origin of your emotions, your triggers for certain emotions to appear, and your best methods to cope with or redirect emotions when they feel intense or unexpected.

Take the time to understand emotion as it relates solely to you. Seek to understand the impact your emotional status has on your life. Allow yourself to feel more attuned with your feeling body and your unique form of self expression.

#4 Connect with a professional for personal guidance

Your emotional well-being can be a very fragile thing amongst the harsh elements of the world. Not everyone is able to navigate alone through situations deemed important and impactful to their sense of well being.  

Seeking help from a professional, whether it is a therapist, physician, coach, or mentor, can make all the difference in learning how to cope with life challenges and gain assistance with emotional growth. Remember that your health insurance or employer may have referral recommendations in addition to trusted family and friends.

You can also use referral service platforms like BetterHelp that can link you with a trained professional who has experience with the specific issues that you are facing. These types of services are particularly helpful when you don’t even know where to start to seek help, feel apprehensive and you need guidance through the process.

Instead of forcing yourself to take on heavy or confusing emotional tasks alone, seeking help can be a much-needed form of self care for your emotional well being.

#5 Be intentional with your joy

Plan, with intention, opportunities for you to have happy and joyful experiences. 

This can include planning a special dinner with a friend but also taking time to pack your work bag the night before to avoid a frenzy in the morning.

Joy can represent itself as doing things that create calm when you feel that you are always anxious. Or adopting a new sleep ritual when you can’t remember the last time you got a good night’s sleep.

Don’t wait until life makes a way for your joy to happen. And don’t wait for permission from your job, your family, or your over=anxious mind worried about your never-ending to-do list. Make It Happen.

Practice self-awareness regularly and learn what brings joy and peace into your daily life. Then with this learning, intentionally make space for the people, activities, and circumstances that are most joyful to you. 

Conclusion

Your emotional and mental well being is an important facet of a well rounded, happy life. But when you feel disconnected from your emotional health, it can seem overwhelming to get through life’s everyday matters.

Use this list of emotional self care ideas as a starting point to direct yourself to prioritize your personal awareness and self care practices. Whether you use them daily or had them in your toolbox of things to do to enhance your well-being, emotional self care is an asset for a better you.

Was this list of emotional self care ideas useful to you? Did this list spark any new ideas for your self care overall? If so, please share your experience in the Comments below.