English Conversations on Self-Love | Advanced-Level Vocabulary

Aren't self-care and self-love the same thing?

You might be asking yourself that question right now,

if you've worked hard to develop a self-care practice,

or if you've watched a previous lesson I did on conversations

related to the topic of self-care.

While there is some overlap between the two there's an important distinction:

self-care is about your actions,

the things that you do for your physical and mental wellbeing.

For example, making time for fitness regularly in your schedule,

or giving yourself 10 minutes every day to read something just for fun.

Self-love, however,

is focused on the thoughts and feelings you have about yourself.

It's about showing kindness to yourself,

and I think you might agree with me that self-love is the harder

of those two things to develop.

We tend to be our own strongest critic. Now,

before we go any further,

let me pause for a moment and introduce myself just in case

this is your first time watching one of my Confident English lessons.

I'm Annemarie the founder of Speak Confident English,

the creator of Fluency School and the Confident Women Community.

Everything I do is designed to help you get the confidence you want for your

life and to work in English. If developing a self-care practice,

and if developing a practice of self-love is something that's important to you,

I want you to know exactly how to talk about it in English.

From start to finish with this Confident English lesson today,

you're going to learn powerful verbs, phrasal verbs,

collocations and idioms English speakers use to talk about self-love.

As a result, you'll be a hundred percent ready to talk about this in English,

and you'll have some helpful strategies to help you cultivate your own

self-love practice. Be sure to stick with me to the end,

because I have two final questions for you that will allow you to immediately

practice some of the vocabulary that you learn today.

Based on my explanation of self-love,

you might think that it's this static feeling of positivity toward

yourself, but that's not exactly right.

Before we get into the key vocabulary you need to talk

about this, let's be a hundred percent clear on what self-love really is.

Self-love is a dynamic or ever-changing state of gratitude

and appreciation for who you are.

You can cultivate a self-love practice through intentional actions

that support your spiritual, psychological, and physical growth.

When you practice self-love,

you commit to prioritizing your wellbeing and expanding your happiness

in a way that chooses to definitely never settle for less

than what you deserve. To help this lesson flow today,

I've divided it into four sections.

First powerful verbs we use when talking about self-love,

then why it's important to prioritize self-love with some key vocabulary.

In section three,

common obstacles you might face while aiming to create a self-love

practice and we'll focus on some important nouns that you might use.

And finally,

we'll finish with several strategies you can use to cultivate a self-love

practice with a focus on some idioms and collocations.

So let's start with that first section,

powerful verbs we can use when talking about self-love.

The first verb on our list is one I've already used today to cultivate,

to cultivate means to develop or promote the growth of something.

For example, in order to be at peace with yourself,

it's important to cultivate self-love.

And that leads me to the second word on our list today to practice.

In order to cultivate,

in order to create or promote an opportunity to grow

in your self-love,

you have to practice just like you might with your language learning skills

or your English speaking skills.

To practice means to create a habit or do something repeatedly.

For example, every morning,

I practice self-love by setting aside 10 minutes for myself to paint.

Verb number three, to prioritize,

we certainly cannot cultivate or practice without

prioritizing. And here's how you might use that in a sentence.

Prioritizing daily exercise allows me to maintain a

self-love practice.

And now our last powerful verb for talking about self-love is to be intentional,

to be intentional means to be deliberate, conscious,

mindful. For example, this week I was intentional,

I was focused and deliberate in how I

handled negativity. And now section number two,

why should you prioritize self-love? Why is any of this important?

Through self-love we create patterns or habits that allow

us to break toxic comparisons or limits that

we put on ourselves. Let's talk about that word toxic.

Toxic comparisons. When something is toxic,

it's poisonous, and as I'm sure you know,

something that's poisonous is very harmful or unpleasant.

Constantly comparing ourselves to others can be toxic.

It can lead to discouragement and unfair self-judgment.

Instead when you prioritize self-love it allows you to be true or

stay true to your values and beliefs to who you are to stay to

true to something means to stay loyal or stay committed.

And we often use it with collocations such as to stay true to yourself,

to stay true to your values, to stay true to who you are.

In doing all of that,

you're more likely to overcome obstacles in your path and instead be

successful with your goals, which leads me to section number three,

talking about obstacles. When it comes to a self-love practice,

there are four common obstacles you might experience as you work to

cultivate a self-love practice, self criticism,

a lack of self-worth, a lack of self-care and weak boundaries.

Let's talk about each of those nouns.

Self criticism is when we are hyperfocused on our own

weaknesses or failures. For example,

we might self criticize when we compare ourselves to others.

And what that means is we point out all of our negative traits or flaws,

ultimately that can lead us down a toxic path of guilt

or even shame.

Self worth is the degree to which you value yourself.

And that makes it a foundation for self-esteem and self-respect. For example,

when you talk about a self-love practice, you might say,

I realized constantly seeking approval from others,

undermines my self-worth. Self-care,

as you might remember from one of my past Confident English lessons

is the deliberate act of taking care of your mental, emotional,

and physical health. For example,

if you're in a conversation on work/life balance,

you might say something like a lack of self-care in your daily routine

can eventually lead to the absence of self-love.

And now the fourth one on that list boundaries. When we think of boundaries,

we tend to think of physical limits,

but boundaries aren't always physical.

We can also create emotional boundaries in our communication and in our

relationships with others. When we lack boundaries,

we're more likely to be too lenient or allow others

to treat us in a way that makes us uncomfortable.

Creating or allowing ourselves to have weak boundaries is definitely

an obstacle to cultivating self-love. Okay.

Now that we've talked about what exactly self-love is why it's important and

what are some of the obstacles you might experience?

Let's talk about how you can cultivate self-love and along the way,

you're going to learn a variety of idioms and English collocations.

The first strategy is to get in tune with your needs and

desires. And while you're at it,

take stock of the behaviors or attitudes that prevent you

from meeting those needs and desires.

To get in tune with something means to have a good understanding of it.

So get a good understanding of your unique needs.

And to take stock means to do a review or overall assessment.

So do a review or assess the behaviors and attitudes

that may prevent you from having a self-love practice.

Strategy number two,

don't be afraid to turn over a new leaf.

This is a fantastic idiomatic expression to turn over a new leaf means

to start acting or behaving in a better or more responsible way.

It means recognizing that every single day is a new

opportunity for a fresh start,

just because something didn't work yesterday or just because you

weren't successful in an intention or a new routine that you

tried to implement a year ago.

It doesn't mean that you can't be successful in the future

every day. You have the opportunity to turn over a new leaf.

Strategy number three is to set clear boundaries and stick to

your guns. Now I'm not a fan of guns by any means,

but this idiomatic expression is a useful one to know.

To stick to your guns means to refuse,

to change or refuse to compromise.

Once you've set clear boundaries that help you to stay true to yourself.

It's important to stick to your guns strategy.

Number four is to commit to showing compassion to yourself.

You can do this by stop comparing yourself to others,

believing in yourself,

breaking toxic patterns and remembering that perfection is in the eye

of the beholder.

That phrase in the eye of beholder means that something is a matter

of personal opinion.

You'll often hear it in the expression beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

What is beautiful to one person may not be beautiful to another.

We all have our own opinion and the same is true with perfection.

What may be perfect to someone else doesn't mean that's also what

your definition of perfect needs to be.

Strategy number five on our list for creating a self-love practice is to

also develop a practice of self-care. Whether it's five minutes,

20 minutes or an hour a day,

it's essential to carve out time for yourself.

To carve out means to make or create time for something.

Your life is busy.

And there may be days when it seems unimaginable to find even

five minutes for yourself.

But as much as you can aim to carve out time for yourself,

find those little segments of the day where you can have time to just

meditate, breathe deeply, or do something that you love,

even if it's for five minutes.

And now our last strategy for today's lesson on self-love is to remember

that this is a journey just as I describe English confidence or English

fluency as a journey self-love is not a light switch.

We can't turn it on and off. It's not all or nothing.

Instead it is a daily journey,

an opportunity every day to take one step toward that final goal

of who we want to be and how we it to feel to finish this Confident English

lesson. Today. I have a couple of questions for you, and I want you to aim,

to use some of the new vocabulary you learned in this lesson.

When you share your answers, question number one,

how do you carve out time for yourself,

particularly when your schedule is crazy busy,

what advice or recommendations might you have for someone else who's really

struggling to do that. And question number two,

what is one thing you can do today or this week to

help you cultivate self-love in your life? As always,

you can share with me in the comment section below,

and if you found this lesson helpful to you,

you can tell me in one very simple way,

give this lesson a thumbs up here on YouTube. And while you do that,

subscribe to the Speak Confident English channel.

So you never miss one of my Confident English lessons.

Thank you so much for joining me. And I look forward to seeing you next time.