Fall in Love with Yourself

One Breath at a Time

It took me a long time to trust that everything I was searching for—kindness, compassion, forgiveness, courage, strength, and love—was already within me. For years, I looked outside myself for acceptance, appreciation, attention, and affection. I had expectations of what love should look like, how it should feel. And when reality didn’t match those expectations, my heart felt disappointed, hurt, and even broken.

In an effort to protect myself, I unknowingly built walls around my heart, closing myself off from the very love I longed for. I had been taught to put others first, to be kind, compassionate, and forgiving toward others—but never to extend that same care to myself. Yet, how could I offer love to the world if I wasn’t rooted in love for myself? Kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and love are all extensions of the heart. And if my own heart wasn’t grounded in those truths, then I wasn’t being fully true to myself or to others.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that self-care and self-love are selfish. But they’re not. They are essential. When we practice self-care, we become more authentic. When I am kind to myself, that kindness naturally extends to you—not as an effort, but as an effortless expression of who I am. The same is true for compassion, forgiveness, and, ultimately, love.

So, how do we begin to fall in love with ourselves again? How do we allow ourselves to embrace and accept our whole being? To love every part of ourselves—not in an effort to fix, change, or perfect anything, but simply to love what is?

Today, let’s start with self-kindness. Instead of just thinking kind thoughts about yourself, take a moment to feel kindness within you. Let it settle in your body. Let it soften the places that feel tense, guarded, or unseen. Over time, self-kindness will evolve into self-compassion, self-forgiveness, and, finally, self-love. And from that place, love flows more freely—within us and beyond us.

Let’s begin.

Let’s start loving ourselves—one breath at a time.

Much love,

Lindsay