Self-Love & Self-Worth

Yoga for Self Love and the Voice That Narrates Your Own Practice

Name: Yoga for Self Love
Creator: Manish Rana

Notice what you say to yourself when a pose doesn't work, when your balance wobbles, when you're clearly the least flexible person in the room. For a lot of people it's harsher than anything they'd ever say to a friend attempting the exact same thing. Self-love isn't about feeling great all the time. It's about not being cruel to yourself while you're figuring something out.

None of these poses fix that on their own. What they can do is give you repeated, low-stakes practice at noticing the harsh voice and choosing not to follow it, staying in a wobble without narrating it as failure, resting without feeling like you need to earn it first.

This sits at Anahata, the heart centre, the same one heart-opening poses lean on elsewhere. The difference here is direction. Heart-opening is often about being open to others. This page is about turning some of that same gentleness back toward yourself.

Who this guide is for

Signs this guide was written for you

Maybe it's a habit of comparing your practice to everyone else's in the room, or a running commentary on your own body that you'd never say out loud. Maybe it's just noticing you rest less than you probably should, because resting feels like it needs to be justified first. These poses aren't a fix for that. They're just practice at doing something imperfectly and staying kind about it anyway.

The asanas

The yoga poses that matter for Self-Love & Self-Worth

Grouped by what each one asks the body to do. Tap any pose to see how it is done, what it works on and who should leave it out.

Standing — Practising Without Perfecting

Mountain Pose

Tadasana

Tree Pose B

Vrkasana B

High Lunge

Anjaneyasana

Revolved Chair Pose

Parivrtta Utkatasana

Standing Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose C

Eka Hasta Padangusthasana C

Dancer Pose

Natarajasana

Kneeling — Gentleness as the Whole Point

Cat Pose

Marjaryasana

Child's Pose

Balasana

Heart-Melting Pose

Anahatasana

One-Legged King Pigeon

Eka Pada Rajakapotasana

Lying Down — Resting Without Earning It

Happy Baby Pose

Ananda Balasana

Knees to Chest Pose

Apanasana

Reclining Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose

Supta Hasta Padangusthasana

Seated, Prone and Arm Support — The Body Doing Its Own Thing

Head-to-Knee Forward Bend

Janu Shirsana

High Cobra Pose

Bhujangasana

Wild Thing

Camatkarasana

A 20-Minute Self-Love Sequence

Same idea as always. Not five random poses, there's a build to it: arrive gently, build through poses that will wobble or vary from day to day, meet the most intense hold of the practice, then wind back down deliberately, not as a consolation.

1
Child's Pose1 minute
Arrive. Available any time, mid-practice, for any reason or none.
2
Cat Pose8 rounds
Build. No version of this movement counts as wrong.
3
Tree Pose B5 breaths each side
Build. A wobble here is normal, not a failure.
4
One-Legged King Pigeon8 breaths each side
Peak. Meeting real intensity with curiosity instead of frustration.
5
Heart-Melting Pose1 minute
Release. Softening rather than effort, on purpose.
6
Happy Baby Pose2 minutes
Close. A shape that's hard to take too seriously, and that's fine.

The pose that asks the most of you, King Pigeon, sits in the middle, not the end. Everything after it is gentler, on purpose, a reminder that the practice doesn't have to end on the hardest thing to have been worthwhile.

For yoga teachers

Teaching a class for Self-Love & Self-Worth

Avoid language that implies a single correct depth for a pose, "wherever you are today is fine" does more than a demonstration of the deepest version. Normalize falling out of balances and resting mid-sequence without treating either as a setback. Building a full class around this theme: the Sequence Builder lets you start from any of these poses and adjust hold times, order and how much standing versus floor work you want.

Build your own

Put together your own class for Self-Love & Self-Worth

The sequence builder gives you all 108 asanas and lets you arrange them yourself. While you build, it watches the shape of the class: whether the intensity rises and falls the way a practice should, whether every strong pose gets its counterpose, and whether the order makes anatomical sense.

Save what you build, come back to it, and teach it. It is the fastest way to turn what you just read into a class of your own.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes a yoga pose good for practising self-love?

Less about the specific pose and more about how you meet it, poses that wobble, that vary a lot between bodies, or that ask you to rest without earning it first all give you something concrete to practise being kind about.

Isn't self-love more of a mental practice than something a yoga pose can address?

Partly, but the body gives you real, immediate situations to practise on, a wobble, a fall, an intense stretch, rather than just thinking about self-kindness in the abstract.

How long should I hold a self-love pose?

As long as feels genuinely okay, and no longer just to prove something. Resting poses like Child's Pose can be held as long as you want.

Are these poses suitable for beginners?

Yes, the whole point is that difficulty isn't the measure here. Start with Mountain Pose, Cat Pose and Child's Pose. This is general information, not medical advice. See the medical disclaimer.

Related Practices

Heart Opening Self-Confidence Letting Go & Acceptance

Creator of this guide

Manish Rana

Founder of Asanaverse.de. Manish writes about yoga, Ayurveda and meditation, and owes his deep connection to yoga to his Indian roots. With over 1,000 hours of Yoga Alliance Teacher Training, he shares his knowledge with the community.

More about Manish →

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