The best books to read if you want to learn how to love yourself

The key to loving yourself is knowing yourself and accepting that person entirely. That is, not just the polished, perfect parts of you but the inner layers. The insecurities. The vulnerabilities. The pain. The mistakes. Written as a bite-sized self-help book of prose that can be easily digested in one or two sittings, Mind Platter is brimming with pieces that changed my perspective of my healing journey for the better. 

If you’re learning to love yourself better, Mind Platter is a great book to dive into for many reasons. It’s a book that unveiled many truths for me, such as the cause of my discomfort and pain (often hidden in my unrealistic expectations of myself and me ‘making a home’ in other people), how to be more forgiving, and the importance of growth and moving on. This book taught me how to be kinder to myself through its discussion of human imperfection, failure, and emotions. It’s a book that paves the way out of the darkness that so many of us believe lies at the end of the tunnel for us. 

This is one of the first self-help books I read that didn’t feel like too much ‘hard work’ and was still incredibly helpful. What I mean by that is that often self-help books can get a little too theoretical, or hard to digest, and this makes it difficult to uncover the tools that we need without getting lost in all the words. Vex’s book wasn’t like that at all. Vex King breaks down self-love into positive vibes, emphasising that the way to become your greatest self is to welcome and experience these good vibes in various areas of your life. Vex’s approach to self-love is to unpack concepts such as lifestyle, mindset, acceptance, manifestation, and good habits and what they can do to promote your best life. 

To love yourself, then, would be to ensure that you’ve adopted a healthy way of practising all, or most of the above. The book is highly intuitive and loved by millions around the world, finding a place for itself even with those who aren’t avid readers because of how accessible the writing is, making it easy to comprehend and practice in our day-to-day life. 

This book was such a great read. One of the main goals of this book is for readers to understand what, and how much, they deserve and how this contributes to an increase in self-love. Just like Vex, Dani emphasises the importance of the Law of Attraction and manifestation. She uses examples from her experiences to shed light on the various tools she adopted over the years to build her confidence and create the life she deserves. I love a good self-help book filled with personal examples and what worked/didn’t work in the author’s life, and Watson does that really well. Maybe, I’m nosey, or maybe it's because that’s the way I write my own books and I enjoy diving into other people’s experiences to see how similar we can all be in our healing. 

This book is for anyone spiritual, or readers who believe in the law of attraction, vibes, and the universe making things happen for us, but it also presses on individual responsibility and taking action to make a positive change in your life. Self-love isn’t just theoretical, it’s not just about affirmations and the way that you speak to/about yourself. Self-love is about taking control. Making changes. Acting in a way that betters your life. If you’re looking for a book that’s not ‘all talk’ and provides you with daily practices to incorporate in your life, then this book is for you.

Louise Hay is a phenomenal author, having proven her skill through the incredible success of her book You Can Heal Your Body. For those who are familiar with Louise’s personal journey will be aware that all the concepts that she discusses in her books are incorporated as practices in her life that have healed her mentally, emotionally, and even physically. This book was a great read for me because it delved into themes that I haven’t come across before, and how important they can be in healing us. For instance, this book talks about states of mind, causes of disease, and the importance of manifestation, making the mind-body relation not only literal, but also vital in practicing self-love. 

Self-love takes many facets, and two of them are self-acceptance and forgiveness, and Louise discusses this at length in her book. I really enjoyed this book because it approached self-love from a health/scientific perspective – which was incredibly unique – and its relation to our thoughts, affirmations, and mindset. It was truly a life-changing book.

I really enjoyed reading Shannon’s book! There were some really useful tools in this one and although Shannon’s self-love journey stemmed from her insecurity in relation to her weight, it is still very applicable to other self-love journeys. The principles that Shannon mentions at the start of her book are life savers, and she is a true beacon of light for those who are struggling with their self-worth. Shannon demonstrates, through her book and her own experiences that changing the way you think about yourself is the key to journeying towards true joy and contentment.