What is self-love? What does self-love mean? How can you achieve and practice self-love? 

We spoke with our founder, Gina Holzer, about her journey to self-love to give you some tips and practices you can implement into your everyday life to embrace self-love and begin your journey to self-love and happiness.

This was hard for me as I was at a constant battle with myself and never was happy in my own skin, which led me to always wear makeup whenever I left the house or came into contact with someone – whether that was to go to the gym, get the mail outside, or even answer the door.

How Does Self-Love Play a Part in the Story of Wholy Dose?

My journey of self-love is what started Wholy Dose. I grew up always trying to cover and change how I looked, when I should’ve tried to improve myself instead. During the time I finally got the results that I wanted for over 10 years, I decided to start Wholy Dose to help others reach their fullest potential in becoming better, happier, and healthier – inside and out.

At Wholy Dose, we believe everything you need to be beautiful is already in you. We help you achieve self-acceptance, through supplementing the natural beautifying properties your body already creates, and self-progress, through the continuous journey of nourishing your body with ingredients that improve you, inside and out – ultimately attaining self-love. Our products help give you what you deserve, to make you feel comfortable and confident in your own skin, because you’re the only person who can define your own beauty – Beauty not founded in comparison, but self-acceptance, self-progress, and self-love.

Why is It Important for Everybody to Embrace Self-Love?

Self-love has a huge effect on everyone’s lives and it’s so important to recognize that and implement it into your daily life. If you’re not gentle or appreciative of yourself, it’s much harder to prevail at other things in life, such as your career, love life, friendships, daily decisions, what you put in your body, what you put on the outside of your body, and even how you treat others.

Once you embrace self-love, you feel gratification, are happier, and can focus better on yourself and on the areas in your life that help you propel forward – including your career and personal life. Self-love can help you achieve better mental and physical health – when you recognize that you deserve happiness and to feel your best, you become more aware of your mental wellbeing and physical health. It’s a win win for everybody, including your mind, body, and spirit. 

When you embrace self-love, you become content with yourself, and don’t need anyone or anything else to fill that void. You begin to focus on what you have and improve on those areas, instead of focusing on what you don’t have.

What is Your Advice to Someone Who is on Their Own Journey or is Struggling With Their Journey to Self-Love?

My main piece of advice is to recognize your pain points and seek for ways to start your journey to self-love. The path to self-love isn’t quite clear and can be difficult to know where to even begin, but once you recognize what’s holding you back from achieving it, you know where to best begin.

Take for example, if you’re someone who struggles with your self-esteem, ask yourself, why do you think you have low self-esteem? What do you think is driving your feelings of self doubt and apprehension for yourself? Is it a physical or mental factor? Okay, so now that you’ve identified the driving cause of this, what do you think would make you feel better? What can you do starting today, to try to eliminate those feelings and replace them with feelings of appreciation instead? Now that you identified that, begin to work on those areas that will help you get to where you want to be – with respect for your health, body, and being gentle with yourself.

Just remember that things take time, and good things take time, patience, and progress.

How Can We Implement Greater Self-Love Into Our Everyday Practices and Routines?

Implementing greater self-love can vary from person to person, because we all have our own struggles, goals, and feelings of what makes us happy and grateful. But some ways we can implement greater self-love into our everyday practices include:

• Let go of unrealistic expectations and the perception of comparing yourself; work on progress, not perfection
• Tell yourself or make a list of things you’re grateful for about yourself – and repeat this
• Become aware of when you’re feeling low and when you’re feeling high/happy, and try to understand why. Repeat the things that make you feel your best such as working out, your favorite hobby, helping others, etc.
• When you have a negative thought, stop and recognize that you are having that negative thought instead of allowing it to consume your mind
• Protect your energy and happiness, recognize what drains your energy or takes away from your happiness, and set boundaries or remove toxic areas and relationships in your life
• Don’t feel guilty for feeling happy, being yourself, or reaching your goals
• Practice kindness and help others; doing so can increase your optimism and self-esteem, lower blood pressure, and help deal with stress and anxiety better
• Set aside time for yourself, keep a journal or talk to someone daily to collect your thoughts, process them, and understand yourself and your feelings better. It is so important and helpful to yourself, to become aware of your emotions and feelings
• Live a healthy life to keep your mind, body, and soul nourished and feeling good. This can be implemented through healthy eating, working out, getting rid of toxic sources around you, allowing your body to rest, and so forth
• Don’t be afraid of failure and don’t make excuses for yourself. Remember, you have to try, fail, and try again in order to grow
• Lastly, remember you are in control of how you show up in the world and for yourself. Work on showing up the best you can