Radical Self-Love – A Guide to Loving Yourself

February is my month of Radical Self-Love around here?so it feels very natural to share the book Radical Self-Love – A Guide to Loving Yourself and Living Your Dreams, right now. It’s written by Gala Darling, a blogger I truly admire. This book is very much a self-help book for those of us that needs a nudge (or ten) in the direction of being kinder and more loving towards ourselves. And maybe that is most of us?

Radical Self-Love by Gala Darling a guide to loving yourself and living your dreams

In the workshop?video I recently recorded for the class The Journey Within, I said something like:

It should be the easiest thing in the world to love ourselves, because love is such a beautiful and important thing – but it is not easy. It is sometimes the hardest part of life.

It is especially hard to love yourself when life gets hard, and that is when we need it the most. Having a daily practice of some kind can help us be a bit more gentle with ourselves in everyday life. Doing something specific, like getting into the habit of reminding ourselves that we are worth loving, is the first step. Gala has several really great ideas for how you can set up a practice of self-love, some I’ve seen many times before and elsewhere – and most of them are not that radical but rather many small steps that together will build you up. The radical thing with this book though, is how the importance of self-love for once is put in front of us as something to take serious. And I love that!

Some of the suggestions for self-love practice are more silly and whimsical suggestion to play along with, but all in all, I’m sure you’ll want to implement at least a few of the ideas in your own life.

I consider this book to be perfect for rather young people. If you are in your twenties or you’ve got teen girls in your life, this is a perfect gift and maybe even a must-read-book that will act as a guide to get you on track. For me, I felt a bit too old for some of the content in Radical Self-Love, but I still enjoyed reading through it, mostly because I need to implement a self-love practice in my own life. ASAP! At times, there is a bit too much woo-woo for me, and sometimes it becomes a life-guide for almost everything, from relationships to style. But what the heck, that’s important too.

It’s the tone and vibe of the book that sometimes had me feeling old(er than normal). I’ve never read a book with this many exclamation-marks (!) for example. Or maybe it’s the fact that I should not need these words at my age that bothers me? I want to always be full of self-love and do everything with grace (my word of the year)… But then I procrastinate important to-dos, and self-loathing and inner critique comes hasting back – a bit too easy unfortunately.

But I did enjoy the extrem self-confident vibe that oozes from Gala’s words, and even when I’m skeptic I can’t help but to be a bit positively influenced by her belief that we are our own masters in every way possible. She writes:

So what do you want to be, and what do you want to have in your life? Do you want to be well-dressed, outspoken, brave and spontaneous? […] It’s never to late to start! All you need to do is make a choice, and then start living in that direction! It may take time for all the pieces to fall in place, but even that isn’t necessarily true. You can date anyone, do whatever you want for work, live in any city which takes your fancy, and dress however you like. All it takes is a decision and some conscious action.

It sounds so incredibly easy when you read it, doesn’t it?

The advice in this quick read ranges from how to talk to yourself with more kindness to how to “infuse your day with magic”. There are plenty of ideas on how to “be good to yourself”, surround yourself with positive people, how to fight sadness, manifesting, and how to set “amazing goals”. Many of the chapters includes lists with general advice for improvement and well-being, and I feel encouraged to make my own lists of things that are important to me. For example, eating chocolate,something that is suggested in the book as a happiness boost, never lifts my mood especially much. Instead I’d put doodling, drawing, knitting or painting on my own happy-list.

All in all I adore Gala’s style, and I’ve followed her work and blog online for many years. This is her first book and I think it’s worth a read.

I got Radical Self-Love as soon as it was self-published by Gala herself?last year, but now it’s on the book shelf everywhere?because it was bought by Hay House Inc., and published again by them this month – which is just great?news for everyone. Not only is it cool that the book will now be sold in regular book stores but she got the book deal after the book had already been self-published! I love that, especially since it is often said that you shouldn’t sell or put out too much on the internet yourself (art or writing vise) if you want to sell it “for real” later.

Further Radical Self-Love

* Radical Self-Love – A Guide to Loving Yourself and Living Your Dreams
* 10 really easy ways that you can love yourself more today – on of Gala Darling’s radical self love blog posts
* Self-Love & Self-Compassion – My recent post contains great links to inspiration elsewhere
* Studio iHanna – on Facebook is where I’m sharing a lot of ideas on self-love too