Lauren Alaina learned a powerful lesson from a therapist a while back: “You’re the only you you’ll ever have. Be nice to yourself.”
Alaina has long chronicled her journey to self-love and acceptance in her music. Her first No. 1 song, “Road Less Traveled,” was inspired by her experience with bulimia. Her new album “Sitting Pretty On Top of the World” also showcases her personal and professional growth with songs about love, loss, responsibility, and moving on. She took all the self-help lessons she’s learned over the years and put them in a book – “Good at Being You: Learning to Love Who God Made You to Be.” And now, after she’s inducted into the Grand Ole Opry Saturday night, she’ll launch her headlining Top of the World Tour presented by Maurices.
“That album is really just me wanting to start loving myself and learning to love myself and sharing that message for other young women and men and everyone,” Alaina told People. “It’s been a really hard journey for me to find self-acceptance and find self-worth. This tour really feels like a celebration of all of the growth I’ve had over the last 10 years in my career and my personal life.”
The tour launches on Feb. 24 and will stretch through mid-April with stops in New York City, Boston, Rosemont, Illinois and Nashville, Tennessee, and more. Her book’s advice will be vital for her to remember on tour. Alaina talks about speaking to yourself with kindness, how to chase your dreams, identify self-sabotaging behavior and build meaningful relationships. The first chapter – If I Was My Best Friend – sets the tone for the book.
“It’s about talking to yourself the way you would your best friend,” Alaina said. “We spend every day, all day long with ourselves. We are the one person we can’t get away from, and that can be negative, or that can be positive. What I really try to do is love on myself. I am very much a words of affirmation person. I genuinely try to find something beautiful about everyone, but I would find the flaws in myself. I think we all do that to a certain extent.”
The “Getting Over Him” singer said she hasn’t “figured it all out.”
“This is a journey I’ll always be on,” she said. “It’s kind of my thing that I have to struggle with … every single day.”
Alaina explained she got up that morning, ate a healthy breakfast, and planned to work out with her trainer on FaceTime after the phone interview.
“I have to do those things to keep myself in a good place,” she said. “I try to have a little checklist throughout the day of, ’What do I think will make me feel good about myself today?’ But I just think it’s so important to be your own best friend and try to see yourself in the outside looking in, rather than the inside looking out.”
Alaina’s diet and fitness routine are about to pay off in more ways than one. The singer and fellow country singer Craig Morgan are joining a cast of seven other celebrities for CBS’s new extreme reality series “Beyond The Edge.” Filmed in the Panamanian jungle, “Beyond The Edge” also includes Super Bowl MVP Ray Lewis, NBA champion Metta World Peace, supermodel Paulina Porizkova, NFL legend Mike Singletary, “Full House” actress Jodie Sweetin and television personalities Colton Underwood (“The Bachelor”) and Eboni K. Williams (“The Real Housewives of New York City”). The show premieres 9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT Wednesday, March 16 on the CBS Television Network and will be available to stream live and on-demand on Paramount+*.