Turns out, the trickiest masks we wear are the ones we call self-love. And in this part of my journey through Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani’s From Awesome to Flawesome program on Mindvalley, it’s not letting me off the hook.
When you think of love, what comes to mind?
Those rom-coms where the guy holds a boombox over his head, blasting out Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes”?
Maybe your child coming home from school and running straight into your arms?
One-on-one time with your mom or dad, perhaps?
Or hanging out with your friends?
Or all of the above?
…Now, what about self-love?
When the topic of “love” comes up, it’s not often we think of ourselves. More than anything, we always think of others.
Is that the curse of being human? Doing, giving, feeling so much for others that we forget to do so for ourselves?
Or is it our conditioning, where we’ve continuously been told that doing, giving, feeling for ourselves is equivalent to selfishness?
Kristina seems to think otherwise. She says, “I believe that the lack of self-love is the curse of contemporary society.”
And I believe her.
What is self-love (as we understand it)?
When most of us say “self-love,” we think of trendy self-love techniques: face masks, long walks, green smoothies, meditation apps, and maybe a vision board or two. It’s the curated stuff that looks good on “the grid” alongside #selflove.
But that is actually self-maintenance. The reality is, you can do all of it and still hate the person in the mirror.
Many of the things we chase in the name of self-esteem, as research has found, including appearance upgrades, achievement streaks, and social validation, do not actually lead to long-term self-worth. In fact, the more we obsess over self-care as performance, the more we risk reinforcing the idea that we’re only lovable when we’re optimized.
All your self-care rituals are not going to solve the wounds of your lack of self-love.
— Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani
I, myself, with a background as an aromatherapist, thought that self-love included getting a massage. Or writing down the good and popping it into my gratitude jar. Even after being diagnosed and cleared of cancer, being untypically optimistic about having a baby (regardless of being in medically induced menopause) was, I thought, self-love. (You can read about that story in Part 3).
But, as Kristina points out, “All your self-care rituals are not going to solve the wounds of your lack of self-love.”
So yes, we can convince ourselves to be upbeat and “grateful” and tell ourselves, “I deserve this.” But if that’s not self-love, then what the hell is?
Self-love, the way Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani explains it
Self-love, according to Kristina, isn’t how many self-care boxes you check. It’s the relationship you have with yourself, especially when you’re at your worst.
That means:
- Setting boundaries in your relationships without guilt
- Saying no when it’s easier to say yes
- Forgiving yourself faster than you punish yourself
- Embracing your flaws without turning them into excuses
- Choosing growth over perfection
In an interview that I did with Kristina once, she explains it as something that’s “not like a goal or a destination” but more like “taking a shower.”
Long story short, it’s less about feeling good about yourself and more about being good to yourself. And like any neglected ritual, skip it long enough and yep, “you’ll stink,” as Kristina points out.
Granted, this might sound like self-care, but don’t get it twisted. There is a difference between the two:
Let me tell you how loud the DING! in that aha moment was…
“The truth is that you don’t need to negotiate for your love; you don’t need to earn it,” Kristina says. “You are the person who has to give you love first. And you absolutely deserve it right now without having done anything at all.”
The way to self-love, according to Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani
I’ll admit, my expectation of loving myself is that it’s meant to come naturally. I’ve never understood how people can self-deprecate so often or assume the worst of themselves by default. Then again, doing this program has made me realize there’s a part of me that does the same.
It seems that I’ve missed the point of self-love completely. I thought it was about confidence, self-belief, maybe even a little resilience. But Kristina says it’s something much simpler and more doable: kindness.
“I think that we are overromanticizing love and not giving enough attention to kindness,” she explains. “Kindness doesn’t require such a level of perfection of you. Where it’s hard to love, it is always possible to be kind.”
This part hurt to admit
It reminds me of something Kristin Neff once said about self-compassion. In a Greater Good Science Center’s YouTube video, she says, “Self-compassion is about self-acceptance. I fully accept myself as I am, flaws and all. I have compassion, kindness, love, even though I’m not perfect, even though I don’t fail.”
What it isn’t is about fixing yourself or chasing constant improvement just to feel worthy. It’s not a performance review of whether you’re “good enough” yet.
That’s a revelation I had when I was going through Bibi Brzozka’s Waves of Pleasure program. I hadn’t realized how hard I was on myself prior to being diagnosed, and how much of that actually carried over till today.
Interestingly, I was recently asked if I thought my scare with cancer had anything to do with my emotional state at the time. I do believe so, and there’s research on it:
- Long-term stress can mess with your immune system and increase inflammation, creating conditions that may help cancer grow.
- Bottling up emotions is linked to higher depression, especially in breast cancer patients, which can slow down healing and weaken the immune system.
- People who regularly suppress their emotions have a higher risk of early death, and some of those deaths are from cancer.
That said, there have also been studies that show there’s no relation. Even if stress seems connected to cancer, the link might not be direct. People who are stressed for a long time tend to pick up unhealthy habits such as smoking, overeating, drinking more, or being less active. And those habits can raise the risk of cancer.
There have been several people I’ve talked to who also talked about their emotional state prior to their cancer diagnosis, and they, too, were carrying a load.
So what if we had shown ourselves self-compassion and kindness? Would we have avoided the catastrophic experience altogether? Would we have more self-love?
It’s really hard to tell. But there is proof that self-compassion and kindness help lower anxiety and depression and make life feel better. And even post-cancer, there is research that shows how compassion-based interventions can improve negative symptoms such as emotional distress, fatigue, and body image.
It’s no wonder Kristina says, “The journey to self-love and to true transformation and growth starts with kindness.”
Because without it, self-love doesn’t stand a chance.
And you?
Maybe you’ve gone through something too and only later realized how unkind you were to yourself in the process. Or maybe you’re just now noticing the quiet, constant, and unspoken pressure you’ve been living under.
“If you truly love yourself,” says Kristina, “you’re not going to be selfish, complacent, and indulgent.”
But if that’s where you are, I see you. And as always, I’m creating space for conversations that don’t rush to fix but simply make room.
So if self-compassion is something you’re still figuring out, or if kindness feels harder than love, send me a message. Let’s talk. xo