Cozy up with these self love prompts for your journal

What does it mean to love yourself? If this question feels hard to answer, that’s okay. We get a lot of conflicting messages from the world around us about what self love looks like and those messages can be hard to wade through. These journal prompts for self love are designed to help you connect with yourself so that you can hear what you have to say about feeling loved by yourself. Grab your journal and pen and cozy up for a conversation with yourself about loving you.

Journal prompts for self love

Think of a moment when you felt really loved by yourself. Write about this self love memory and include all the details you remember about this experience. What emotions did you experience? What physical sensations were associated with those emotions? What thoughts were associated with this experience? What led up to this experience? How did you feel beforehand? How did you feel afterwards? Why did this experience make you experience self love so intensely? How did this experience impact you in the moment? Has this experience with self love continued to impact you? If so, how?

How do you most commonly show yourself love? Do the ways you commonly show self love help you to feel loved? How do you know when you’re feeling loved by yourself?
How does showing yourself love impact your life? How would feeling even more self love impact your life?
What new ideas do you have about how you could show yourself love? How do you think doing these things would make you feel?
Are there things about the concept of self love that seem confusing to you? If yes, write about what seems confusing about self love.
How is feeling loved by yourself different than feeling loved by someone else? How is feeling loved by yourself similar to feeling loved by someone else? Are the emotions and thoughts you experience when you feel self love different than the emotions and thoughts you experience when you feel loved by someone else? Does feeling self love and feeling loved by someone else impact your life differently? If so, how?
Make a list of memories where you felt loved by someone else. Are there similarities between the memories on this list? What does this list tell you about the kind of things that help you feel loved by someone else? Are there ways that you can use this information to help yourself feel more self love?
Imagine that you’re planning a day with the sole purpose of making yourself feel loved. What does your plan for this day look like? Re-read your plan for the day. How often do you incorporate these things in your daily life? Are you happy with how often you incorporate these things in your daily life? If not, how can you begin to incorporate more of these self love activities in your day-to-day life?
What’s difficult about self love for you? Why do you think this is difficult? How can you honor the fact that this aspect of self love is difficult for you?
What thoughts do you have about the concept of self love? How do you talk to yourself about the concept of self love? What stories do you tell yourself about self love? Where do you think these ideas, stories, and self talk come from? In other words, how did you come to view self love the way you do?
How were you talked to about self love growing up? How did you witness the adults in your life approach self love when you were growing up? Has what you were taught and shown about self loving growing up impacted you? If so, how?

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Imagine that there are two of you in a room talking. If you asked yourself, “What makes you feel like I love you?” how would you respond?
On an average day, where is self love on your priority list? Are there things that make it difficult to prioritize self love? What do you say to yourself (i.e., what thoughts go through your mind) about how to prioritize self love in relation to other things going on in your life?
Who in your life sets a great example for self love? (This can be someone you know personally, a celebrity, a fictional character, etc.) How does this person set a great example for self love? What do you admire about the way this person loves themself?
Do you have any fears or discomfort related to loving yourself? If so, write about those fears/discomforts. What do you fear, or what makes you feel uncomfortable? Why do you think you fear this, or why does this cause you discomfort? What physical sensations are associated with this fear or discomfort? When does this fear or discomfort tend to arise?
Think about the culture and sub-cultures you live in. What does these cultures/sub-culture tell you about what self love looks like? What does this culture/sub-culture tell you about where self love should fall on your priority list? Does this culture/sub-culture send any mixed signals about self love? What do you agree with about what this culture/sub-culture says about self love? What do you disagree with about what this culture/sub-culture says about self love? How do you think the cultural messages you’ve received about self love impact you?
What’s one thing you love about your mind?
What’s one thing you love about your heart?
What’s one thing you love about your body?
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from this self love journaling exercise?

Photos for this article were created with Adobe Firefly.