The ABCs of Self Love: A Simple Guide to Loving Yourself, Reclaiming Your Worth, and Changing Your Life

by Melody Godfred

From the author of highly acclaimed Self Love Poetry: for Thinkers & Feelers comes The ABCs of Self Love: A Simple Guide to Loving Yourself, Reclaiming Your Worth, and Changing Your Life.

From the author of Self Love Poetry: For Thinkers and Feelers comes an uplifting guide that teaches what self love actually is. In The ABCs of Self Love, Melody Godfred offers a unique blend of inspiration, education, and action to make self love an instinctual part of your daily life.
 
Self Love Philosopher Melody Godfred wrote The ABCs of Self Love after supporting the personal journeys of thousands of people around the world. In The ABCs, she joyfully shares her discoveries with you. With a refreshing take on every letter of the alphabet, this illustrated self love workbook uses poetry, real-life examples, and journaling prompts to help you intuitively understand foundational concepts like authenticity, boundaries, forgiveness, and progress over perfection.
 
Whether you read it by yourself or with a group of close friends, The ABCs of Self Love is designed for you to move at your own pace. You can read one chapter a week or the whole book in one sitting. What matters most is that you’re doing this for you.
 
Let The ABCs of Self Love show you how to cast off shame, regret, self-doubt, and fear so you can love yourself, reclaim your worth, and change your life.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Poetry

208 pages, Paperback

Published January 4, 2022

About the author

Melody Godfred is a poet, author, and speaker who is passionate about empowering people to love themselves and transform their lives.

Melody started her career as a litigation attorney, but soon realized a disconnect between her work and essence, so she left a prestigious position at a top law firm to launch Write In Color, her personal branding and career development company. She quickly established her reputation as a leader in the career development space. Through her work as a coach exploring the narratives of hundreds of women, and after undergoing several life transitions herself -- including motherhood -- Melody discovered a common trend: in their quest to fuel their careers and relationships, women were increasingly sacrificing their authentic selves, happiness and well-being.

Melody needed a reminder to choose herself each and every day and believed that other women did too, so she created the Self Love Pinky Ring, a self-commitment ring for women, and launched Fred and Far, her self love movement and community. Her ring and community instantly went viral around the world (Vogue, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, and more), and started a global conversation around self love.

In 2020, Melody published Self Love Poetry: For Thinkers & Feelers, a collection of 200 poems that instantly became and remains a bestseller. One of her poems (“I thought 2020 would be the year I got everything I wanted. Now I know 2020 is the year I appreciate everything I have.”) was shared on social media by Oprah Magazine just before the Thanksgiving Holiday, quickly going viral and eventually reaching hundreds of millions of people, in addition to earning a feature on Today with Hoda and Jenna. In early 2021, Melody signed a book deal with Andrews McMeel Publishing, re-releasing Self Love Poetry and publishing two more books, The ABCs of Self Love, an illustrated guided journal, and The Shift: Poetry for a New Perspective. Her latest collection, Moon Garden: Poetry for Manifestation is coming out on October 21, 2025.

In 2025, Melody began leading moon circles blending poetry, movement, meditation and more.

Melody is a trusted thought leader whose advice has been featured on Inc., Forbes, Huff Post, Bustle, PayScale, Motherly, Mashable, The Muse, and Fairygodboss, among others. Melody was a featured speaker at the Teen Vogue Summit and The Massachusetts Conference for Women, and has led personal branding and operational workshops for Farfetch, Murad, The YWCA, and more. She received her law degree from Loyola Law School with honors.

Melody lives in Los Angeles, CA with her husband Aaron Godfred and three kids, twin daughters Stella and Violet and son Teddy.

Her latest book, The Shift: Poetry for a New Perspective was released on September 27, 2022 (Andrews McMeel Publishing) and is a Goodreads Choice Award nominee for Best Poetry Book of 2022.

Reviews

[Nas · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a self help enthusiast, I always believe in the power of writing as a healing process. There’s so much healing power in writing.

However, I have this kind of love-hate relationship with writing/journaling out my thoughts onto paper. I find it daunting most of the times.

When I got this workbook, I couldn’t help but in awe with it. I tried to overcome my difficulty in pouring out my thoughts onto paper by writing in it and answered the prompts given.

I would say, this workbook changed my relationship with writing and journaling. I didn’t find writing as a confronting task anymore.

The pages were so beautifully illustrated and colourful with a bunch of quotes on self love! It was arranged according to the alphabetical order.

The author delivered beneficial advice regarding self love according to her own experiences. I would say this guided journal was aesthetically pleasing.

Highly recommended for anyone who loves journaling and wants to heal by the means of journaling!

[Tiesha Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

TL;DR: The ABCs of Self Love serves as a companion for the on-going journey to loving yourself, reclaiming your worth, and changing your life. With journal prompts and lessons that will stick with you long after you’ve closed the book. Never get ‘stuck’ again in your self love journey.

Ready to start your self love journey? This book will make it easy as A,B, C. With colourful typography, illustrations to put a smile on your face and expanded journal prompts, the revamped ABCs of Self Love makes harnessing a daily practice enjoyable.

As you might have already guessed from the title, each letter of the alphabet builds upon one another to form a foundation for an on-going self love practice. To make the most of this interactive book you’ll need a pen (and if you had the e-book like me, a journal) to realise the activities. After all, what you get out of this book is exactly what you put in.

As we all know, self-love is highly subjective, and looks different on everyone - this author gets that. She makes sure that you are the sole focus throughout the entire book. It’s quite refreshing, considering other books in this space often get caught up in the author’s journey.

A few little snippets that continue to stay with me are:
- Practice makes progress.
- Shake up your routine to experience greater joy.
- Question negativity, because how you think and how you feel are your choice.
- If I’m not working myself to death, I’m realising my potential.

My favourite quote, happens to be one of the first things you’ll read when pick up the book:
‘Of all the things I’ve ever learned. Loving myself changed things the most’ - Melody Godfred

In a few instances I found myself getting uncomfortable, wishing that there were additional questions/s to make some of the meaty activities bite-sized and easier to tackle. In the end, I found myself breaking down tricky questions with the 5 W's (who, what, where, when and why). At large, this is the crux of the book, feeling the discomfort, putting in the work and understanding yourself and the questions that work best for you to make your own breakthrough in your self-love journey .

Special shout out to self love philosopher Melody Godfred, the talented Leanne Aranador, Andrews McMeel Publishing and NetGalley for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Arlian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apparently I am in the minority here. I found this book to be rather surface level and unimpressive.

I was looking for a guided journal, which this is, but I don't feel it has helpful prompts. They are incurring basic like "reflect on setting boundaries" and then gives vague examples like "don't associate with negative people". That's not actually a boundary. An example of a boundary is "when people start stressing me out by being to negative, I will change the subject. If they repeatedly do this I will tell them they are giving me anxiety. If that continues, I won't initiate hangouts with them." That's a actually a series of boundaries haha.

Anyway, rather vapid and not likely to help me feel I am changing my habits.

[Hanna K. Brojan · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you follow every step in here, this book could change your life!

[Joni Owens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful journal to help focus on healing and focusing on taking care of yourself. The graphics are pretty. Highly recommend.

[Isabel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring and bittersweet. Got me bawling right from the first page. I think this is a good tool for meditation.

[Laura Ramsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a way to end this year.
I was super excited to read this book as I loved her last book, "Self Love Poetry".

This book is much more interactive and really encourages you to really think about how you think and if you naturally lean more towards more positive or negative thinking first.

The book talks about all aspects of self love including cutting out negative people and influences from your life, how to amend your thinking so that you're kinder to yourself, the dangers of comparing your life to social media, and challenges you to be honest and to really dig deep.

Each letter of the alphabet focuses on a different area and the one that resonated with me the most was R - rest. I have a stressful job with long hours and rest is something that's really important for me. I try to enjoy my life outside of work as much as possible, but sometimes it's hard as there's always other responsibilities that pile up, pushing much needed rest to the side. This is something I really want to work on.

Although I did enjoy the digital version of this book, I really want to get a physical copy of the book as well to try out the challenges. You could easily do them in a separate notebook, but there's so much space and so many templates already in the book that I feel to get the most out of it, getting a physical copy would be more beneficial.

I would also have loved to have seen more poetry just sprinkled throughout the book. Just because I enjoyed her poetry so much in her last book. 😊

Overall, this was a great book to reset with at the end of the year. I'm already looking forward to seeing what else Melody Godfred brings to us in the future.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Mariah · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are a lot of self-care, self-love and all sorts of books that are supposed to tell you and help you make your life better and this book is honestly one of the best versions of that type of book that I have come across in a long time.
The author herself states that this book can be completed in whatever way the read wants to do it. There are some sections that make mention of other parts but nothing that would stop the reader from completing the prompts. That means that the reader can do this book starting from page one or they can open the book each day to a random page and do it like that or they can even decide to do the book from Z to A in complete reverse order. This book is set up so that the reader can do whatever they want to complete the book and feel accomplished.
There is not much to be said about this book that can be said beyond that this is a fabulous gift from anybody, especially yourself.
This book will be released in January of 2022

[Alejandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

a complete book, with space for you to reflect and make changes in your life. The mix between journal and book allows the book to be more interactive. This book is a good option to start the year making good changes or to use it as a challenge during the year, it is also a good joint reading with your group of friends who have as a New Year's resolution to raise their self-esteem and love each other more

[Tamara Mubarak · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars. Because I feel like it's a little short, but it leaves you with a strong message about how to love yourself. It offers you many options for reflecting and loving yourself in a very profound way, especially if you are between the ages of 11 and 18, and it gives you lessons for your life about how to accept yourself and how positive actions and thoughts can make you feel more confident. I feel that the book sometimes repeated ideas, but it didn't change the powerful message about reflecting on yourself and how you think about yourself. It also makes you reflect on your past actions and how to improve them for the future.

I think this book relates a lot to my hero's journey right now, because to be honest, I am very insecure about myself, and when I started reading it, I began to feel better and loving myself more and more. There is a quote that says, “Love yourself first, and everything else will fall into place.” – Lucille Ball. This quote taught me a lot.
One rule I like to follow is to always appreciate the good things you have because many people don't have them. Therefore, I suggest that you love yourself and appreciate yourself for who you are, even the things you like least about yourself. Little by little, they may become your favorite things about yourself.

Well, I especially, as a reader, don't like to read, but when I saw this book that will help me love myself and be more confident, I will obviously buy it, or if I see a book that I really like, I will also buy it. Something about me is that I get bored reading, but when I read this book at first it caught my attention, and I couldn't stop reading it on the plane, I read it everywhere. As I got further into the book, I began to notice that I really liked reading books of that type, and I remembered something very important to think about, which is that the first thing you notice in a person. There is a famous phrase that says, “When you look at someone, the first thing you should notice is their smile because that shows who they are.” So don't think that the first thing people will see is how you dress or who you're with. The most important thing is that they say, “Wow, she looks so confident and strong.” Continue to be strong because you still have many pages left in your life. I would totally recommend this book to my friends who are insecure because they are so beautiful and don't see their beauty, so I would definitely give them this book so they can read it and find out how beautiful it is to love yourself. So, I would recommend this book because it's very important to love yourself, and I think they would both love it because it's very nice to feel good about yourself and your skin. I think they would really be interested in this book, so yes, but I think I would also recommend the book to someone who is looking for being confident because that prep can open up many thoughts in your heart that say “I loved it.” You could also learn a lot about how to help other people.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Low 3. Mostly filled with the cheesy mumbo jumboey self love talk that you would expect from a tv guru. The concepts as a whole are solid (though pretty basic), and there are a few good nuggets in there, but as a whole, this is written in a style that is too cheesy and new agey for my tastes.

Furthermore, the exercises are written for a very specific type of "normal" person, and some of them might be hurtful rather than helpful to certain audiences. The suggestion to have a set time to dream about things and to get a good friend to do the same as well (so you both can share your dreams with each other) could be upsetting to those who feel isolated and don't have close relationships at the moment. The emphasis on physical movement throughout the book makes no mention of how those with limited mobility or physical disabilities can modify the ideas to suit their needs, and honestly, why should it always be on these audiences to figure that out for themselves? And the advice to try new things by taking a week where you ONLY do new things, from new restaurants and meals all the way down to the little details like new shampoo? Yeah, that's going to be more upsetting than freeing for a lot of neurodivergents who thrive on routine. Taking it slow with new experiences is a better fit for many. That said, respect to the author for making allowances for those with childhood trauma in her mentions of loving one's inner child.

Overall, the A through Z concepts are helpful starting points for those unfamiliar with self love, and the feelings wheel was a great thing to include, but the author's expanded thoughts on her concepts were minimally helpful for me.

[Lady · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is brilliant for those who love journals and already have an insight into self love. I adored the layout of this book it was so nice and crisp and bright colours with an amazing spaces to fill in your answers to the questions or prompts. I got this book as I have little understanding of the concept and really wanted to learn more about it to help improve my mood. However, due to my lack of knowledge I found this book didn't fully explain it in a way a beginner might need or just this beginner didn't fully understand what it wanted me to write. It does have examples but I couldn't grap it. Maybe its just me and you would understand it better. I always suggest you try a sample of the book first as it could really work and help you. It could really be an autistic thing for me. If you already have an understanding on the subject then this book would be perfect for you.
Many thanks to the author and publishers for producing this beautiful and very useful guide to help improve peoples mood and to better understand ourselves.

[Natasha Ardelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book soooo much! It holds so much power and knowledge in such a small package! If you’re struggling to love yourself, this book is the first step in learning! This book teaches you about what some of us never learned, to love yourself first.

Love every word, every story, every quote and most of all everything it did for me and my self love/self worth journey! One piece of advic that I had to learn that I also share is “too much of anything can be bad…” meaning that I loved too hard too much that I lost myself when doing that. I needed to find my balance. Being too selfless and allowing too much was a hard lesson I still work on daily. E.g An individual needs a balance of almost everything, it’s ok to be selfish but too selfish can damage any relationship, eating a too much junk food can damage someone’s health, loving oneself too little will damage not only yourself but others as well. Learning never stops and I will continue to learn healthy balance, healthy boundaries.

[Virginia Alice Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so pleased to “happen upon” The ABCs of Self Love. I’m all about LOVE in all its shapes and sizes and how everyone of us can learn to love each other, and ourselves, more. Each letter of Melody Godfred’s ABC book on self-love is filled with a wise reflection of how to better love ourselves as we journey the road of life. Each letter has a little exercise, mostly written but sometimes something else, of how we felt about the letter we just read and how we can let this new knowledge affect and improve the world around us. If you enjoy discovering more about yourself, in a self-paced and gentle way, this book is worthy of your time. I loved it and am looking forward to sharing it with all my friends and family. I think you will, too.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the beginning she says read how you will, a letter a day, randomly, all at once whatever works for you. I decided to do a letter a day to start the year, however for me I think it would have been more helpful to space it out. Some letters are a single in the moment exercise others are 21 days or 30 days exercises that I felt would have been too much to layer all at the same time with my letter a day plan. Yes I could have changed my plan but stuck with my goal and will revisit throughout the year

[Natasha Quinonez · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay. It’s hard to know who my “authentic self” is when my earliest memories are all about pleasing my mother and walking on egg shells to avoid waking the beast inside her. Some of the journal prompts to help me find my authentic self also needed more direction because the sentence frame “I believe” can mean so many things.

[OjoAusana · Rating 5 out of 5]

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* really great guide/workbook, would love to have this as a hard copy (the ebook was easy to use as well i just enjoy having the physical copies of workbooks)

[Joni Owens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful journal to help focus on healing and focusing on taking care of yourself. The graphics are pretty. Highly recommend.

[jenaiya ross · Rating 2 out of 5]

lmao only read this for my 75 hard challenge 🫣

[A.j. Kimmerly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an empowering read! A deeply thoughtful take on the ABC’s, with concepts that are just as essential.

[Talon Crist · Rating 5 out of 5]

A cute and fun book/journal! I love that you can read it in one sitting or go at a slow pace by each letter. Such a great self help tool!

[Leielle B · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love love love this book. Definitely recommend reading!!

[Lexie Kattelman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick easy, digestible read where you can spend as much or little time on each topic. I love that it offers action items, reflection questions, and journaling space as well.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of good things to revisit and work on. I liked that that gave things to do after each letter.

[Syeda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book helpful on my journey. Definitely would recommend. It works if you use it.

[Kaycee Rae (kayceeraereads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure, I did not work my way through this book. I received a copy of The ABCs of Self Love as an eARC through NetGalley. I only read through the book. With that being said, I can safely say I love everything about this workbook.

I am a 27 year old woman who is barely hanging on to the hot mess express: we are medicated and barely making it most days. As you probably assumed, I have some experience with self help books. A lot of these self love books feel very preachy or from sources that do not seem approachable. This one feels very real and authentic, in my opinion. Godfred makes you laugh and makes you cry as you look inward and it feels like she's holding your hand along with way because she's been there, and now she's helping you through it. I also appreciate so psychological theories mentioned, so you can tell that she did in fact do her own homework.

It was beautiful to look at, the set up of the pages was fun and unique, and it gave adequate space to actually work through the book. Ya girl is long winded, especially when trying to express myself. The doodles added enough levity and joy to the workbook, but did not take away from the overall message and theme. I enjoyed reading through it so much, I am actually going to purchase a copy for myself to work through this year.

[ftnrsnn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ABCs of SELF LOVE is a light yet powerful self love workbook, and I was so taken by it that I read it in one sitting. Author Melody Godfred shares her insights on loving yourself through the lens of each letter of the alphabet. With every page you turn, you'll be inspired as the author gently guides you towards a compassionate path that is uniquely yours. And best of all, she does it with a simple yet powerful approach that's easy to read and genuinely entertaining.

The book is very encouraging in its tone, but not judgmental or preachy—it doesn't even use any big words! I'm so glad I found this book when I did —it's the perfect thing to read when you're feeling a little down or self-conscious about yourself. I think it would make a great gift for almost anyone too.

Melody's approach is realistic yet encouraging, assuring you throughout the book that it's okay to be imperfect and real; you don't have to live up to any kind of expectations other than your own. It's an accessible book for someone just starting out with their self-improvement goals as well as more advanced practitioners with years of practice under their belt. It is easy to comprehend and follow because of the way it is written. The author also used vibrant colors and attractive fonts to illustrate her book, which I thought was a winning combination because it helps to set the tone of the book and adds another nice layer onto the experience of reading it.


If you're looking for a book that will inspire you to love and appreciate yourself more, I highly recommend reading The ABCs of SELF LOVE. It will make you feel better and help you move forward with a more positive outlook on life – light and feel-good book, but also has a deeper theme of self-love. It is the perfect choice for anyone looking for light reading when they don't have much time to read.

Thank you Times Reads for sending me a review copy of this book in return for an honest review. This book is available in all good bookstores Malaysia and Singapore.

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[Elise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Melody hosted a workshop for the women at my company during 2022’s Women’s History Month, based upon her book “The ABC’s of Self Love.” It’s no stretch to say many women in the entertainment & tech industries face difficulties with self-confidence and self-worth, as they are historically male-dominated fields. In the ABC’s of Self Love, Melody has found a way to clearly translate concepts that typically feel very “woo woo” into concepts we can not only understand, but directly act upon to shift our mindsets. I really appreciate that her book provides direct, but simple, actions that one can take to kickstart change from within, learn to understand and accept oneself, and ultimately impart bigger change on the world around us. Thank you, Melody!

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Self-love is one of my priorities this year (and for many years to come!) and I’m really enjoying this beautiful, colorful book filled with many reminders of ways that I can shower myself with kindness, compassion, and love. I especially appreciate that there are lots of pages for me to write, and draw, and follow through on the suggestions that the author gives.

Also loved the Emotions Wheel and the playlist idea, to name a few.

This will make an excellent gift for loved ones who need these reminders as well

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Susie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was great, useful in that I loved that it prompted you to write your own thoughts and feelings down.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.