Affirmations for self-love
Self-love affirmations work best when they sound like something a good friend would say. A billboard line like "I love everything about myself" is a big claim to make on a bad day. "I can talk to myself the way I'd talk to a friend who's struggling" is something you can do.
Choose the line you can say without arguing with it. You can save it as an image.
If saying an affirmation makes you feel worse, let it go. That's common, and a smaller, truer sentence may fit better. If you're thinking about harming yourself, call or text 988 in the US, or see crisis resources.
The friend test
Before you keep any self-love affirmation, imagine saying it to a friend who just had a rough week. Would it sound kind and true? Or like a greeting card? If you'd never say it to them, it probably won't land with you either.
The test comes from self-compassion. That's the idea researcher Kristin Neff described in 2003. It has three parts: being kind to yourself instead of harshly critical, seeing your struggles as part of being human, and noticing painful feelings without getting swept up in them.1 The lines on this page each lean on one of those parts.
| Line | Which part it uses |
|---|---|
| "I can talk to myself the way I'd talk to a friend who's struggling." | Kindness instead of criticism |
| "A mistake is part of being human, not proof that I'm not enough." | Shared humanity |
| "I'm learning to be on my own side." | Kindness, said as something in progress |
| "I'm allowed to have needs." | Noticing what you feel and need |
"I snapped at my partner and spent the night replaying it. The line that helped: a mistake is part of being human, not proof that I'm not enough. Then I wrote down what I'd say when I apologized."
More lines for self-love
Sixteen more. Run each through the friend test before you keep it.
When the inner critic is loud
- "I wouldn't talk to a friend this way, so I can stop talking to me this way."
- "Harsh voice, gentle answer."
- "A bad day is a bad day. That's all it is."
- "I'm doing what I can with what I have today."
When you need rest
- "Break before empty."
- "I can cancel when I need to and still be a good friend."
- "Taking care of myself isn't selfish."
- "I can go to bed early without a reason."
For your body
- "I can feed myself something good today."
- "I can treat my body like it belongs to someone I love."
- "Water. A stretch. That's care."
- "I can rest my eyes from screens for ten minutes."
With other people
- "I can be loved and still be a work in progress."
- "I deserve the kindness I give other people."
- "A compliment can land. I don't have to bat it away."
- "I can spend my free evenings with people who are kind to me, and less of them with people who aren't."
Kindness after a failed test
Self-compassion isn't letting yourself off the hook. Students who failed a hard test and were prompted to be kind to themselves about it studied longer for a retest than students prompted to boost their self-esteem, in one set of experiments.2 Pooled over 27 randomized trials, self-compassion programs reduced self-criticism and rumination.3
Plain positive self-talk has weaker support: people with low self-esteem felt worse after repeating "I am a lovable person" in a 2009 study (more on that one).4
Every line here describes something you can do or are learning, and none of them declares how you already feel about yourself.
What would you say to a friend who did exactly what you're being hard on yourself for? Write it to yourself, word for word.
Answer this with JoyRight after the mistake, and two other times
- Right after a mistake, when the inner critic is loudest.
- When you're comparing yourself to someone online.
- At the end of the day, as one line in your journal before you write what happened.
Questions people ask about self-love affirmations
What are some self-love affirmations?
Twenty are on this page and six are in the picker. A good first one is "I don't have to earn rest", because you can test it tonight: go to bed with something left on the list, and notice what the critic says.
Why do self-love affirmations feel fake?
Often because they claim a feeling you don't have yet. Try a line about something you're practicing instead, like "I'm learning to be kinder to myself." It's easier to believe a direction than a destination.
Is self-love selfish?
The students in the failed-test experiments above who were kind to themselves studied longer for the retest.2 Looking after yourself also tends to leave you with more to give the people you care about.
Related
- Positive affirmations: more situations, and how to write a line you'd say to a friend.
- Affirmations for confidence, for before something hard.
- Affirmations for depression, for heavy days.