Having spent much of my later life learning about the importance of self-compassion — and what it truly means to love myself unconditionally — I’ve come to understand something essential:
Self-love, as I’ve come to know it, is not about ego or self-importance. It is about belonging — the quiet knowing that we are a reflection of the universe itself, and the universe does not create junk.
How can we genuinely love another
if we have not learned how to offer that same love to ourselves?
How can we give what we do not yet hold?
If self-compassion feels unfamiliar to you, I invite you to begin simply — perhaps by taking a few quiet moments with the self-compassion meditation shared here. Or by starting with something even smaller.
Years ago, one of the first affirmations I worked with was this:
“I am a good person.”
I remember telling my best friend about it — how I repeated it to myself over and over again. She looked at me, genuinely confused, and said, “But… you are a good person.”
I laughed and said, “Exactly.”
Sometimes the most obvious truths are the ones we struggle to receive.
Self-compassion isn’t about being perfect.
It’s about learning to love the full package — not just the polished parts, but the messy, tender, unfinished ones too.
It took years for me to recognize the critical inner voice that lived within me — a voice that was often harsh, demanding, and at times deeply unkind. No matter what I did, it felt as though it was never enough. Over time, I came to see this inner critic not as truth, but as a learned response — shaped by a childhood that was, at times, deeply dysfunctional.
Awareness was the first step.
Little by little, something began to shift.
I began treating myself the same way I would my dearest friend — with patience instead of punishment, with understanding instead of judgment, and with kindness in moments when I once would have been hardest on myself.
And slowly, compassion replaced criticism.
This practice of self-compassion did not make me weaker or complacent — it made me more whole. It allowed love to become something I lived from, rather than something I had long denied myself.
And now, love includes me.
And there is nothing more powerful than love.
Always, 🤍G*