Self-Love Comes From Small Actions

If you struggle with food addiction, an eating disorder, or body image issues, it’s likely that you have a complicated relationship with self-love and self-appreciation. With a lifelong history of starting diets, making promises, blowing diets, and cheating on our promise, our relationship with ourselves can get pretty grim.

And it can sometimes seem so unreachable to feel that self-love that we actually just abandon the goal all together. But when we try to abandon ourselves, we’re still stuck with a painful reality. 

Because here’s the truth: there’s two relationships we can never escape – one is your relationship with food, and one is with yourself.

Contrary to what many people believe about self-love, it doesn’t happen overnight, or with one single “Ah-ha!” moment. Self-love is a series of small actions. We repair the harm to ourselves and rebuild a new, loving relationship every day we choose to do the nurturing thing. Because self-love is an action, you have the opportunity to build self-love through your actions every day. Here are a few places you can start:

1. Pausing in a difficult moment and asking yourself “What is the loving thing to do for myself?”
2. Using coping skills and reaching out for help in a challenging moment instead of binge eating
3. Planning your day out and setting up a system (such as phone reminders) to help you reach your goals
4. Setting a morning or night routine to help you feel settled at the beginning or end of your day
5. Set aside time for yourself to do a fun activity or just relax
6. Tell someone else about how you’re feeling without apologizing or cutting yourself short
7. Choosing food in your day that loves you back
8. Say “no” to plans when you’re feeling too tired, vulnerable, or just don’t want to do it
9. Tell yourself one thing that you appreciate about yourself every morning when you wake up

Doing these self-loving actions doesn’t mean your internal negative voice goes away overnight. But it does mean you’re working towards a new way of being, a new way relating to yourself and your body. 

With consistent, self-loving action toward yourself, you’re bound to start to shift your beliefs and feelings toward yourself. When you’re a good parent to yourself, you begin to establish the trust and confidence that was lost in the years of body shaming and engaging in your unhealthy relationship with food and dieting. Self-loving actions get us close to the peace and self-love so many of us are looking for.

Want more support? Check out Molly’s youtube channel and subscribe to the Sunday Love Letter to get support, information, and motivation on your journey to create a loving relationship with food.