Stress management advice abounds, but I'm the only one I know who is actively recommending learning to love yourself as a master key for stress relief.

Loving yourself, or having self-compassion, is not taught in schools, churches or in most families. In fact, just the opposite is promoted. Self-love is usually squashed. It is placed squarely in the category of selfish, greedy, narcissistic, self-aggrandizing and so forth, all "not good." You are taught to love others first and put yourself last.

Self esteem has been widely promoted but is a little different from self-love.

As I see it, self esteem comes from positive accomplishments. You do something productive and earn the satisfaction and ego boost of a job well done. You build a sense of competence and contribution to society. As a result, you respect or esteem yourself.

Self-love, as I work with it, involves actively sharing your loving energy with yourself as a foundation for happiness, success, inner peace and unconditional love for others.

Having self-compassion does not make you selfish or anti-social. It gives you a depth of resilience that allows you to handle stress with greater ease.

In my extensive experience, it's also true that more you can love yourself, the more you can truly love another, and the more you can allow yourself to be loved. But that's a subject for another article!

Gentle and Gradual Transformation

Below are a few ways I suggest to practice loving yourself. These are not quick fixes. They are gentle techniques for transformation over the long term.

As you explore, you may find that stressful situations do not evaporate instantly. But if you consistently experiment with practical ways to share love and compassion with yourself, you will quite likely look back in a month or two and realize that your life has smoothed out, or you are handling stressful situations with more calm and peace.

Play with these techniques. Give yourself freedom to let your own loving in. See which ones give you the most mileage.

When you find one or two that work well for you, repeat often! Repetition helps this new message to take root and grow in your mind and heart, and in the so-called second brain, or your gut feelings.

1. Sincerely tell yourself "I love you."

Literally tell yourself, "I love you," with heartfelt sincerity. You can speak out loud, in a whisper, or silently in your mind.

You may feel weird or self-conscious at first. You may notice ingrained patterns of self-judgment and unworthiness popping up and lasting up to a few weeks.

Simply persisting with your loving statements, you can move beyond these reactions and into a sparkling, authentic experience of self-loving.

To reinforce your heartfelt words, you might want to give yourself a hug, place one hand on your stomach or heart for comfort, or look into your eyes in a mirror.

For best results, make a couple of minutes for self-loving a part of your daily routine. When you anchor your words with consistent repetition, over time you will find it easier to make choices that release stress and support your joy and inner peace.

2. See yourself with eyes of compassion.

View yourself struggling with stress with the same compassion you would have for a young child striving to master a difficult lesson. In the grand scheme of things, you are just as deserving of compassion as that youngster.

How would you treat that child? I hope it would be with praise for steps in the right direction, plenty of tender "there-there's" for mistakes, and lots of encouragement to keep going.

You might want to practice "seeing through the eyes of the Master," as you cultivate deep compassion for yourself. Seeing with compassion gives you room to learn from your mistakes as you grow into reduced stress and greater inner peace.

3. Take loving care of yourself.

Show your love for yourself by taking good care of you. Become like a loving, wise and non-inflictive parent for yourself.

For most, this means things like loving yourself enough to get to bed at a decent hour. It means doing simple things that support your health and well-being. It means nurturing and pampering yourself from time to time.

You might want to make a long list of the ways you can take good care of yourself. When you are stressed, look at your list and ask yourself, "What is the most loving way I can take care of myself now?" Then do that.

4. Lovingly support yourself on all levels.

Nurture and support yourself physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

Going for a walk in nature might be an act of self-compassion for your physical, emotional and even spiritual aspects. Reading a self-help book could be mentally nurturing, and when you practice what you have read, you could be supporting any of these other aspects of yourself.

Your body, feelings, thoughts and spirit are closely intertwined and interact dynamically with each other all the time. When you nurture yourself on one level, you begin to create a new alignment on all levels -- an alignment based on greater loving and inner peace.

Print this as a reminder.

To get the most out of these simple strategies, you might want to print this article and refer back to it occasionally. If you persist, you will find that your lifestyle gradually becomes less stressful, and you are securely anchored in a flexible, resilient but powerful foundation of self-loving. Naturally, you enjoy the benefits of stress reduction!

If you want more helpful hints for stress relief, I encourage and invite you to sign up for my free Simple Stress Solutions newsletter, at http://www.powerofpersonalpeace.com/optin.htm If you are really ready to make changes for a more peaceful lifestyle, check out my e-book, The Power of Personal Peace: Reducing Stress by Loving Yourself from the Inside Out, at http://www.powerofpersonalpeace.com/info.htm

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