Self-Love and Self-Care Bill of Rights

In December, I learned about The Mourner’s Bill of Rights, by Dr. Alan Wolfelt. It is a very heartfelt list of “rights” for grieving people so that they may fully process and experience their grief.

I felt so supported while hearing those rights that it inspired me to create my own Self-Love and Self-Care Bill of Rights. The whole point of this site is to empower others to become experts in being their awesome selves and this felt like a beautiful tool of empowerment.

To start off, I asked my heart what kinds of “rights” I could give to myself to make it really clear that I had the right to give myself self-love and self-care. I came up with a long list and it felt so wonderful. Like I could give myself permission to show myself how much I matter through any of those actions.

I have created an infographic of my top 12 favorite rights and below there is a text version for greater accessibility. You can download the infographic or copy and paste the text version of some example rights. I’ve also added additional ones to inspire you to create your own Self-Love and Self-Care Bill of Rights. Please know that you can make up any that make you happy, my list is only meant as a guide to empower you to put yourself first!

Self-Love and Self-Care Bill of Rights: infographic version

Self-Love and Self-Care Bill of Rights: text version

What follows is a copy and paste version of a long list of rights that you can “give” yourself with regards to self-love and self-care. Most are from my heart, and the last nine are from participants from a presentation I did on this topic at work! Thank you to all those lovely participants who shared and inspired me too!

I have the right to:

• make healthy choices
• know my tremendous worth
• love and care for myself
• rest instead of always doing
• stop what I am doing to check in with myself 
• compliment myself and say the things to my heart that I would love others to say to me
• be honest with myself
• breathe deeply a few times before moving on to the next task
• prioritize self-care over everything else
• be gentle with myself
• experiment with self-love and self-care practices to find what works best for me
• adapt, grow, regress, progress, get in a slump, feel bad, be joyful and everything in between
• treat myself with kindness and compassion
• rest even when everyone else is busy
• follow my intuition even if other people tell me to do something different
• not be okay or to be more than okay
• give myself more love, not less* (from Matt Kahn’s teachings www.mattkahn.org)
• give myself permission to live my life from the inside out
• praise myself for the good things I do each day, even the small ones
• look at myself in the mirror and smile
• enjoy my own company or to learn how to
• feel exactly as I am feeling without needing to rush or hurry those feelings away
• do things my own way
• love and be loved
• set boundaries
• be myself
• say no to uncomfortable situations
• work at my own pace
• just feel what I’m feeling
• do and enjoy whatever I love even if others don’t love that!
• stop doing what I am doing and take a break to process things

Thanks so much for reading until the end of this long post! I would love to hear what your favorite rights are. If you feel like sharing, please leave me a comment below. Please feel free to share the infographic, the bulleted list or any list you make with others to inspire them to care for their awesome selves.

Big hugs!

 © Bradlee Zrudlo 2023. All Rights Reserved.