Loving You: Affirmations For Self Worth
Experience the transformative power of loving yourself just as you are with these affirmations for self worth.
Self worth is a feeling of care, respect, and love for yourself. Let’s talk about why self worth matters, and how you can use these affirmations for self worth to work on developing your self worth. Plus, I’ll show you a couple other resources including a free printable, for improving your self worth!
What is self worth?
I once felt confused about what self worth is and wondered why it didn’t seem confusing to other people. I remember learning about self worth in elementary school and being absolutely perplexed; we sang a song with lyrics that said, “I’m special, you’re special, too,” and I just remember thinking, “How does that even make sense?” In hindsight, I understand that my childhood experiences taught me that self worth was a bad thing to have. I also now understand that plenty of other people also find self worth to be a confusing topic.
So what is self worth? Self worth is a feeling (a felt connection) to yourself as a person deserving of care, respect, and love. One of the reasons self worth was so confusing to me was because I would have intellectually agreed that I deserved care, respect, and love, but I couldn’t feel any of that. In fact, I couldn’t feel much of anything because I was pretty disassociated and didn’t know it. There was also a whole subconscious part of me that didn’t believe I was worthy of care, respect, and love, because I didn’t experience much of that as a child. Until I could learn to connect with that part o me, the feeling of self worth was pretty elusive.
Why does self worth matter?
Now, as an adult, I can finally say that I feel self worth. And what a difference feeling self worth has made! Feeling self worth allows me to navigate the world in a way that places priority on my own feelings, desires, and needs. Self worth helps me to step back from a situation when it’s unsafe or unhelpful for me, and it helps me to set boundaries around how I’m treated. Self worth also helps me to honor and recognize other people’s right to set those same boundaries for themselves, so in a lot of ways self worth is the glue that holds healthy relationships together.
How do you develop self worth?
So, if self worth is so important, how do you get it? At one point as a young adult, I remember thinking something along the lines of, “I would say that I love and care about myself, but sometimes I don’t act like someone who loves and cares about themselves. Why am I doing this, and how can I fix it?” This was a really frustrating go around with myself for quite a long time.
Eventually, I realized that one important way I could improve my sense of self worth was changing the way I talk to myself. I started really small by just asking myself a few times a day, “How am I feeling? What do I need?” (If you want to try this out, check out the Self Check-In Free Printable.) As this practice grew, I became more comfortable saying positive things to myself and this helped further develop my sense of self worth.
Affirmations for self worth
As I became more comfortable saying positive things to myself, I tried to practice affirming my self worth with phrases I’d thought out in advance. This might sound a little cold and calculated, but since this wasn’t something I was taught to do growing up, I had to consciously teach myself to do this. This was really uncomfortable at first; it felt fake and make it me squirm. But practicing these affirmations for self worth helped me to develop more positive and affirming self talk over time, and soon it became much more natural and comfortable.
The best affirmations for self worth are those that feel natural for you, but it can definitely help to have some examples to work with. Here are a few of my favorite example affirmations for self worth to get you started!
My feelings are important to me.
I care about myself.
I love myself.
I am allowed to step away from things that don’t feel safe to me.
I matter.
I honor my physical needs.
I honor my emotional needs.
Other people don’t get to decide who I am. I decide who I am.
My time belongs to me. I decide how I use my time.
I take a break when I need a break.
I’m grateful that I’m me.
I trust myself.
I’m imperfect and human and that’s okay.
I’m doing a good job.
I believe in myself.
I’m proud of myself.
I’m strong enough to do this.
My body is my home.
I feel confident.
I’m intelligent.
I love and accept myself.
What I need matters.
What I want matters.
I deserve love.
I deserve happiness.
I’m worthy of attention.
What I need is not too much.
I am capable, and I am strong enough to ask for help.
My best is enough.
Who I am matters.
I’m enough.
I’m worthy of compassion.
It’s okay to enjoy myself and feel good.
I accept myself just as I am.
I hope these affirmations for self worth are helpful to you!
P.S. If you want to work on your self talk more generally, take a look at these Journal Prompts for Positive Self Talk that will help you take a self talk inventory, explore the roots of your self talk, and make a plan for improving your self talk.
Photos for this article were created with Adobe Firefly.
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