Loving Myself Henceforth and Forevermore

One of the most rewarding things a person can do is love themselves.

We give so much to the world and rarely love on ourselves.

For once, let’s commit to focusing on loving ourselves instead of showing our love and admiration to others. Of course we love them but it’s time we give ourselves the attention we deserve.

Yelp! We are going to be a little selfish!

Let’s start this self-love journey by releasing our negative thoughts and energy. I’ve found it to be more relaxing when you accept, admit, and release.

So we are going to practice that here.

I’ll go first: make sure you have your pen and journal handy.

Accept: I accept that I have a temper.

Admit: I admit that I hold things in for too long.

Release: I release everything I’ve kept hidden in my mind and heart (name them).

Your turn!

Now, doesn’t that feel better?

Once we accept responsibility for our actions, we are able to admit our problems. Once we’ve taken those steps, we are able to release the burdens we’ve had to carry while hiding behind our issues. When I learned to accept, admit, and release, life began to flow easier. I also began to love myself through my actions.

Make the decision to no longer suppress and hide from your issues and situations. It creates a revolving door of issues: stress, illness, sleep deprivation, tempers, low work ethic, etc.

Those problems can hinder us from truly loving ourselves. It’s possible to spend so much time on those things that we neglect who we truly are. That’s just not something we can afford; the cost is extremely too expensive.

Imagine holding on to experiences and situations that bring us joy, just as we hold on to disappointment and hurt. Let’s harp on joy, peace, fun, and love. Being intentional with your time and attention is a form of self-love. I’ve begun to write every weekday about my moments of happiness. When I use to think back over the week, I’d think about all the bad things that happened. I’m now able to open the pages of my notebook, unveil my happy moments, and have a more positive moment of reflection. Through this process, I realized that I was giving negativity too much space in my mind. This shift in writing my happy moments, helped me to see that my moments of happiness outweighed my bad moments drastically. I just wasn’t giving them the attention they deserved. I’m sure, if you took the time to write about your happy moments, you would begin to see the same is true in your life. Create space to love yourself for the positive things you have going for yourself.

Another shift you could partake in is alone time. Watching everyone around me who enjoyed being in groups, created a question for me at a young age: Why don’t I like people? I later realized that this was a form of self-care that I indulged in early in life. My quiet and alone time are, hands down, my favorite times. If I don’t take the time to unplug at least twice weekly, my life is completely off-center. Alone time allows you to quiet the noise from everybody else in your life. This is your opportunity to focus solely on yourself. Most importantly, you can listen to yourself.

Your mind and body are screaming for your attention and during this time, you can hear them the loudest. You won’t always be proud of what you’re unearthing about yourself, but you have to let those things rise to the surface. You also have to deal with them; you can only hide from yourself for so long. Until you master being alone and loving yourself, you can’t truly give to others the love they deserve. So, let’s commit to spending time and working on self first. Keep in mind, I’m not telling you to be alone 24/7 because we all need some form of community. If you're a person who loves your alone time as much as I do, I’m sure you squirmed when you read that last sentence, but it’s true.

In all honesty, self-love comes in an array of forms; only you can define what loving yourself looks like. Maybe facing fears is how you love yourself. You could be a person who likes to spend, so saving is a form of self-love. Perhaps, you sing, write, blow kisses (me), or create art to give to yourself. Whatever you do, do it more and if you don’t do anything, now is the perfect time to start.

Preparation. Fight. Elevation...

Jassmine