I once met an amazing spiritual teacher in India who taught me something I will never forget. This teacher told me that, “Love is like you’ve got some mango in your hands. It is the most amazing mango you have ever tasted. You pick it up, and it’s so juicy. It smells amazing! You put it to your lips and you taste the best mango in the world!”

Then, someone comes up to you, asks for the mango, and you share it with them and you both have this amazing, incredible experience of how this mango just satisfies your taste buds and you enjoy its incredible smell.

Then, somebody comes up to you again and asks for some mango, but you look at your hands and realise you have none. If you don’t have any mango, you can’t share it with others.”

According to this teacher, that’s what we’re doing with love. Often we try to give love that we don’t truly have within ourselves. You can’t give something until you have it, can hold it, experience it and truly feel it and have it within you.

Most importantly, you won’t be able to share it and give it to others if you feel you’re running out of it.

This story happened many years ago, but the lesson really stayed with me because at that time, I’d gone to stay in an Ashram in India to work on some things that were coming up within myself.

It is so true that we cannot give what we don’t have and unconsciously, if we aren’t filled up with self-love it can manifest in behaviours of needy, dependency or seeking external love/approval or in contrast, pushing others away for fear of not being lovable. What is within us speaks much louder than the words we use or how we hope to come across. People can feel when we are out of alignment. So the greatest gift we can give to ourselves and others is working on our inner world and loving ourselves more.

Now, let’s look at your sense of self-love. Are there parts of yourself or your personality that you criticise? Are there things that you feel ashamed of?

If you do, begin to explore speaking to yourself in a kinder, more loving way, like you might speak to a young child or your younger self or if you had a young baby.

5 Affirmations Your Can Say to Yourself

1. <Your Name>, I love you.
2. I love myself.
3. I am beautiful.
4. I am kind.
5. I AM LOVE.

Say and repeat these positive affirmations, releasing judgements and allowing more self-love to grow within.

Rather than allowing large amounts of attachment, anger or frustration about something, ask yourself:

1. Isn’t that interesting?
2. What am I so angry about?
3. What’s triggering me right now?

If something’s triggering you, then there’s something lying within you whether it’s a memory, a fear, a self judgement, or resentment that you can work on to release and heal and replace with something that is positive and affirming in your life.

Those are simple actions. You can take simple affirmations, do them on a daily basis to help you to love yourself more and fill yourself up. As you do, see how your relationships, your health, your business, your career, your family relationships and your friendships evolve and blossom.

See how inspired you’ll become, how free you feel and how much you start to discover about yourself!

Be conscious about loving yourself and start to discover how wonderful you truly are.