Self improvement, self love and self growth are tremendously important activities to upgrade how we feel about ourselves, our lives, and the world around us.

However, I’ve seen it backfire on people, including myself.

In the pursuit of wanting to feel better, and experience more joy, love, acceptance and approval — usually from others — thoughts that start to creep in like, “Maybe there’s something more I can do to change who I am and how I am to be better.”

When what you really mean is, “Maybe I can become more acceptable so something or someone will love me more, and then I can feel better inside.”

So maybe you become immersed in what my friend calls “navel gazing” — looking at all the ways you can fix your “damaged” and “unacceptable” parts. But that can lead down a slippery slope of self bashing, continuing the feeling “not enough.”

What if believing you’re enough, feeling loved and accepted had nothing to do with “fixing” yourself?

Inner Kindness

What if you only had to discover the best ways to love and care for yourself by asking, “What’s the most nourishing and loving thing I can do for myself right now?”

What if changing who you are to get another’s approval was not the goal — and YOU gave yourself the reinforcement, kindness and love you most crave?

Wouldn’t you feel free to just be?

And that freedom would bring relief and ease.

And with yourSelf at ease, you’d probably be without (dis)ease too.

Because when we are off course, our bodies and the world around us give us signals that feel unpleasant to nudge us back to a better direction, but all too often we ignore them.

When we treat ourselves well, we experience more goodness, wholeness, self-acceptance and love.

This is part of what I discussed in a recent podcast interview I had the honor of being invited to do with The Natural “We Tried Wellness” show.

You can hear my interview in Episode 8: Kristen Arnett + We Tried Positive Affirmations: Go beyond cosmetics to recognize your true beauty — but not in a cheesy way.

We first covered a bit of history about my career, and then dove into the “Healthy Beauty Philosophy.”

Self-Love Tools

Prior to the show I gave the hosts some Mirror Affirmation Exercises to do, which I learned from a spiritual teacher and tweaked for my own use. Before now, I’d only ever released the exercises to a small group of people.

It’s a shockingly powerful way to begin an authentic upgrade for how you see, feel, talk to and treat yourself.

And the hosts were genuinely blown away by what they uncovered about themselves after having done the 5-minute exercise.

Now you can try it out too, and add it to your self-love toolbox!

Download a free copy of the Self Image Confidence Booster exercise here.

I love how the hosts Alison and Jillian summarized the show:

“It’s all about making peace with reality, shaking off the saccharine, and learning to appreciate that person staring back at you in the mirror.….no matter how ​’snatched’. Think you’re going to love what she has to say!”

If you want a cheat sheet of times, check out their article that will tell you the highlight moments and give you a heads up about the long giggle fest they have in the intro.

Also before you listen, I wanted to clarify one moment in the episode, which is that if you feel totally 100% great about yourself, then you’re doing amazing – so keep it up!

However, if you are telling yourself empty words and pretending you believe them without actually deepening your own self-love, then get (gently) real…it’s not OK to say lies and keep them as a secret shame, and avoid self-growth work.

I’m not saying doubt your confidence. I’m saying make sure the words you speak are authentically positive in a way that feels true to you.

If you’d like to get a copy of the affirmations exercises I had them do, just head on over to this page!