How many times do you feel alone every single day? How many times do you feel like you are fighting an uphill battle against your surroundings? Why in your daily life do you always run into situations that make you feel inadequate or misunderstood?

If you relate to these lines as you read them, it is possible that you find yourself trapped in a state of emotional blockage and you are struggling to find a way to achieve your inner balance. Perhaps you still have to live in a hostile environment where some outdated cultural expectations make you feel like an outcast. Or perhaps you simply want more from life and you are fighting to get it, but the sense of inadequacy or helplessness oppresses you so that you cannot go on as you would like.

If you see yourself in all of that, the only way to get out of this spiral of malaise is self-love. Yes, you have probably heard a lot about self-love, but maybe you have never really understood what it means, how to actually achieve it, or you haven’t found the right tools that introduce you to it. This self-love guide, dear woman of color, is designed for you; it will not sell you magical solutions, but it will show you a way.

Remember, loving yourself is not for everyone—it is a great act of courage and sincerity toward oneself.

To love yourself and cultivate your uniqueness, you must start from your roots. You must know and re-evaluate them; to go where you want and make your star shine, you must first know where you come from. This guide was born exactly with the intention of reawakening the values of a community, making you feel like a part of it, and laying the foundations for your path of spiritual growth through this experience. On your journey through this book:

You will rediscover and revisit the values that are innate in the Black culture and experience and gain an almost ancestral sense of community.
You will finally realize why Black women in prominent positions seem to have something more, and why their way of being as well as their contagious empathy are so powerful and able to make all the difference.
You will draw inspiration from stories of ordinary (and not) women of color who have achieved success starting from very difficult situations and rising through adversity.
You will understand the real meaning of self-love, how to experience it, and the impact it can have on the subconscious to change your disempowering beliefs, help you regain inner strength and discover your true nature.
You will find the single most practical techniques to reach self-love step by step and have access to a whole chapter of exercises that give you the opportunity to track your daily progress for a period of 12 weeks.

The tools in this book can be small but effective supports in your daily life if you choose to embrace them. Take the book with you when you go to work, take a walk, look after the family or in all those situations where you feel alone or out of place. If you believe this is not necessary for you, give this guide as a gift or share it with someone—a mate, a friend, or a relative who isn’t doing so well or is striving for a better life.

Dolores Maaike