Self-Love Group
Self-Love Rainbow Workbook
This week was the first week of our Self-Love Group returning at the office. We started offering this free group to the community last semester when a couple of students needed to get some group hours for their practicum/internship classes. Since it was such a hit, we decided to offer it again this semester.
Throughout the group, we use the Self-Love Rainbow Workbook by Dominee Calderon. It can be found on Amazon. It’s such a pretty and fun workbook! The reasons that I chose to use this workbook for this group are because the workbook was created by a fellow LGBTQIA+ person, it is very vibrant and colorful, it talks about self-love in a very approachable way, and I actually completed the workbook myself prior to us offering the group to others. I loved my experience with the workbook and with how my self-love and self-care have improved since then.
(Image from Amazon listing)
The workbook and our group cover the following topics:
Introduction
Physical Self-Love
Emotional Self-Love
Personal Self-Love
Social Self-Love
Spiritual Self-Love
Practical Self-Love
Self-Care Check-Ins
We have seen a great response to these topics. The discussions have been very rich and fruitful. It was no surprise to us last semester that the Spiritual Self-Love topic was the most complex and challenging for the group, however, I am grateful that people accepted the challenge and pushed themselves to open up to the idea of discussing spirituality. I believe in a holistic approach to wellness meaning that in order to be a healthy, whole, and complete person you have to care for your mind, body, and spirit (aka mental health, physical health, and spiritual health). Not only can we be mentally and physically malnourished, but we can also be spiritually malnourished.
Even though this round of the group has only met once so far, we have already received an abundance of positive feedback. Several group members have been saying that they have loved the discussions and the sense of community forming around the topic. We have even had some people from last semester who have returned for their second round of the group this semester. They said that last semester’s group experience had “completely changed my life for the better!” They wanted to come back again this semester to deepen their knowledge, understanding, and practices of self-love and self-care. They also enjoy having a community of people who value the conversation and who are striving to be a healthier version of themselves.
One thing I’ve learned about self-love is that the more you love yourself the more you can love others. You can only go as deep with others as you have gone with yourself. Usually when I’m working with people in therapy, I often have conversations with them about their internal world. We work together to improve the inner experience so that we can also enhance the outer experience. The change starts from within. Love yourself, in a healthy way, and you will notice a huge difference in your life.