Self-Love: The Most Beautiful Jewel You Can Wear

Hi, I am Thalia, founder of Thalia & Co.

Today, I wanted to share something with you that I deeply missed in my life until I realized that no one but myself could offer it to me: Self-Love! 

You know... sometimes, we go through life wearing an armor that is far too heavy for us. We move forward because we have to move forward, we smile because we have to hold on... And I am certain that many of you know this feeling. Deep inside, a small voice is often ignored, the one we never truly listen to, the one calling us to return to ourselves. 

In all confidence, I’d like to tell you something, just between us. You are magnificent, you are worthy, and you have the right to exist exactly as you are. You have the right to be loved in every nuance of yourself, even the ones you hide, even the ones you find fragile. You deserve to treat yourself with the same gentleness you offer to others. You deserve a space where you can finally lay down your fatigue, your doubts, your old wounds... without the fear of being "too much" or, worse, "not enough."

At Thalia & Co., every piece of jewelry is not just an accessory; it is like a hand gently placed on your heart that whispers: "I see you. You are unique. You are you, and the world needs your light." Our mission has never been to offer simple fashion accessories. Our jewelry serves as intentional reminders: symbols that you wear close to your heart, so you don't forget yourself along the way. They represent the gentleness you deserve, the space to set down what you've carried for too long, the permission to reclaim your place... without apologizing.

Why is it so Difficult to Love Ourselves?

From childhood, we are taught to be good, helpful, and available. To smile, to help, to please... but rarely to take care of ourselves, to listen to our needs, to set boundaries, or to offer ourselves the same kindness we give to others.

Humanistic psychology reminds us that many of us grow up with a feeling of conditional worth: we believe that love, attention, or recognition must be earned, achieved through performance or conformity. And if this belief takes hold, we spend our lives seeking externally what we never learned to cultivate internally.

As Laura Elsa highlights in her beautiful book, Je choisis d'avancer (I Choose to Move Forward), the true path begins when we choose to accept ourselves unconditionally. Learning to love yourself means becoming your priority again, respecting your needs, and looking at yourself with kindness, even in your flaws, your fragilities, and your scars.

I deeply believe that self-love is an act of courage and power. It is not selfishness, nor arrogance. It is a return to one’s integrity, a daily gesture that anchors your inner light and allows you to shine in the world without losing yourself.

Carl Rogers expressed it beautifully: true growth begins when you fully accept yourself. Because your worth has never depended on what you accomplish, but simply on the fact that you exist. And it is this return to self, this reconnection to your own light, that our jewelry symbolizes, small, gentle, and powerful reminders to accompany you on this path of inner emancipation.

The Five Wounds of the Soul: The Imprints That Sabotage Self-Love

The Five Wounds of the Soul... this concept deserves an article all on its own. But to understand self-love, it’s impossible to ignore.

The Quebec therapist Lise Bourbeau, in her book The Five Wounds That Keep You From Being Yourself, explains that our deepest sufferings are often rooted in five fundamental emotional wounds: rejection, abandonment, humiliation, betrayal, and injustice.

When they are not recognized or embraced, these wounds silently shape how we see ourselves, influence our relationships, and, above all, impair our capacity to love ourselves fully.

The Five Wounds of the Soul

1. Rejection: "I don't deserve to be here." We disappear, minimize our needs, and self-love becomes almost invisible.
2. Abandonment: "I'm not enough for them to stay." We seek external validation, believing our worth depends on others' perception.
3. Humiliation: The shame that prevents us from expressing ourselves, shining, or showing vulnerability.
4. Betrayal: Distrust toward others... and toward oneself, which undermines inner confidence.
5. Injustice: Perfection as a shield, conditional love, harshness toward oneself.

Recognizing these wounds is finally understanding why loving oneself can sometimes feel so difficult... and, most importantly, it is the first step toward reclaiming your power. Every wound embraced becomes a bridge to your heart, a gentle yet powerful invitation to free yourself, to forgive yourself, and to relearn how to love yourself fully, with all your fragilities and strengths.

Because true strength does not lie in the absence of scars, but in the ability to transform them into light, to make every pain a springboard toward your own inner beauty.

 

The Invisible Weight of Lacking Self-Love

Failing to love yourself is like keeping a precious jewel locked away, never letting it shine.

Fears of rejection, abandonment, and the feeling of never being "enough." These wounds, often rooted in childhood, silently shape our relationships, our choices, and the way we see ourselves.

The lack of self-love resonates everywhere: in how we allow others to treat us, in our friendships and romantic relationships, in our professional decisions, and even in how we view our bodies and emotions. It pushes us to accept less than we deserve, to tolerate situations or behaviors that hurt us, to constantly compare ourselves... and above all, to self-sabotage. We push away our own dreams, doubt our abilities, and sabotage our successes before they even materialize, as if subconsciously we don't believe ourselves worthy of happiness or fulfillment.

In her book, Laura Elsa talks about these invisible burdens: expectations, comparisons, self-judgments that weigh on us every day. And Stoic philosophy reminds us of a timeless truth: peace, worth, and strength are never found externally; they are born within.

When we stop chasing approval and begin to nurture self-acceptance, a profound transformation occurs: we transition from surviving to shining. We rediscover that our light was never lost. Every act of self-love becomes an act of healing, every boundary sets a silent victory, every aligned choice a step toward inner freedom.

It is in this light that we reclaim our power, find our integrity, and relearn to love ourselves fully, with all our fragilities and strengths, to finally stop sabotaging ourselves and start elevating.

Rebuilding Self-Love: From Fragile Child to Flourishing Adult

Self-love is built from childhood, in those moments when we are seen, heard, and accepted as we are. Psychologist Kristin Neff explains that this feeling is born when our emotions are welcomed, our needs are not minimized, and we understand that our value does not depend on our performance. Yet, life can undermine this inner love, and many, as adults, have to relearn how to love themselves.

I am what one might call a neuro-atypical person. A highly sensitive person who feels everything with a heightened intensity, sometimes to the point of being lost. This sensitivity brings its share of challenges, and I would like to dedicate an article to it, as I know many will recognize themselves in this experience.

From a young age, my refuge was art. Music, singing, drawing, the imaginary worlds I created in my head... all of this formed a secret territory where I could breathe and invent myself. I was a child who lived between two dimensions: the real one, often harsh and misunderstood, and the one of my inner universe, vast, luminous, and infinitely softer. This disconnect with others accentuated my feeling of strangeness. Physically present, my soul was always seeking elsewhere. I wasn't running from reality: I was transforming it to survive.

This sensitivity and creativity shaped my earliest wounds. Very early on, I understood that the world could be cruel and that my way of being, highly sensitive, dreamy, artistic, intuitive, emotional, contemplative, and deeply empathetic, was disturbing or simply misunderstood.

In my journey, I went through bullying at school, social rejection at different times in my life, and the silent wounds of a dysfunctional family environment. Very young, I was confronted with unkindness, psychological, and sometimes even physical violence. At school, I didn't belong. At home, I kept a low profile. It was an imperfect environment, unsuitable for my condition, but paradoxically secure, simply because it was the only one I knew. Materially, I lacked nothing, but emotionally, I was in profound deficit. I had very few friends, suffering in silence, living between caution and imagination, unable to understand why existence felt so heavy. This solitude, almost constant, became the silent backdrop of my youth, a space where my dreams, my escapes, and, paradoxically, my resilience, were woven.

Entering adulthood, this inner fracture revealed itself in my choices: relationships that didn't respect me, workplaces where I faded into the background, a tendency to disappear until I forgot who I truly was. For a long time, I believed that love had to be earned, that I had to give more than myself, be faultless, carry the burdens of others, save others, pacify the chaos, over-adapt to gain a little space. I thought I would be loved if I became "lovable" or "perfect."

A subtle irony: the more I tried to be lovable, the less loved I felt. The more exhausted I became trying to be "enough," the less accepted I felt. And one day, I realized why, like an epiphany: I lacked love for myself, as simple as that.

I was trying to fill an inner void with external gestures... a void that, in reality, was only waiting for my own gaze, my own tenderness, my own presence.

You know, the saying "understand where you come from to know where you are going" is not just an inspiring phrase. It is a vibrant truth. Exploring your story is daring to look at the places where you learned to diminish yourself, to be silent, to disappear. It is the first step on the path to healing. The one where you stop surviving and start rebuilding, with gentleness, clarity, and strength.

According to Lise Bourbeau, we all carry the five wounds to different degrees, but one or two always dominate our history. In my case, these wounds long shaped my self-perception and made me believe that my worth depended on the approval of others. Yet, over time, I understood that this path, however challenging, held a universal lesson: everything that weakens self-love can become the most powerful opportunity to rebuild it.

And believe me, self-love is not a destination; it is a process. A path that we walk every day, with patience, gentleness, and courage. I would be lying to say that I have arrived and that everything is perfect, because often, even very often, I fall back into my old patterns, my old reflexes. But it is in these moments of fragility that I am still learning to embrace myself, to reach out to myself, to recognize that even my flaws deserve to be loved.

To you who are reading this, know this: you are enough, you deserve love, even in your doubts, your imperfections, and your scars. You don't have to carry everything, or understand everything. Every step you take toward yourself, no matter how small, is an act of courage and love.

Allow yourself to breathe, to forgive yourself, to reach out to yourself, and to fully embrace yourself, exactly as you are.

Choosing Yourself: An Act of Healing and Freedom

Loving oneself is not an abstract concept; it is a daily practice. It is waking up and saying, "I deserve gentleness. I deserve to shine." It is learning to say no, to listen to your intuition, to forgive yourself. It is realizing that love, not knowledge, transforms pain into strength.

10 Powerful Phrases to Learn to Love and Heal Yourself

1. I learn to love myself each time I choose inner peace over reliving stories my soul has already outgrown.
2. I heal when I speak to myself the way my spirit longed to be spoken to when I was a child.
3. I grow stronger when I honor my sacred boundaries instead of explaining them.
4. I rise when I transform my silenced truths into expressions of my soul.
5. I choose myself when I release the connections that require me to abandon my essence to feel worthy.
6. I heal when I allow my heart to feel fully without apologizing for the human experience my soul came here to live.
7. I learn to love myself when I give my spirit permission to move slowly in a world that rushes the sacred.
8. I reclaim my power when I stop asking for permission to exist as the soul I truly am.
9. I rebuild myself when I treat my vulnerability as a sacred temple rather than a shadow to hide.
10. I heal by remembering that my worth has always existed beyond the eyes that failed to see it.

Thalia & Co.: Jewelry to Remember to Love Yourself

Dear Precious Heart, know that our jewelry collections are designed to remind you of your worth, especially in moments when you forget it. Because you have nothing to prove. Because you are worthy. Because your story deserves to be worn with pride.

And when you wear one of our pieces, we want you to feel a presence, a support, a symbolic hand on your heart that whispers: "You matter. You are enough. Keep moving toward yourself." 

Disclaimer: This article is intended to share reflections on self-love and emotional wounds. It is informative and inspiring, but it does not replace the advice or support of a mental health professional. If you are going through difficult times or intense emotions, we strongly encourage you to consult a qualified therapist or professional. Your well-being is important.