The greatest love
image credit - Pinterest
It’s Valentine’s Day, a day dedicated to love.
However you choose to spend the day, whether it be with a significant other, friends or with yourself it has become another holiday to celebrate relationships that don’t necessarily have to be romantic. In my opinion, there is no other relationship more important than the one you have with yourself.
Self-love is the best love.
Self-love means having a high regard for your own well-being and happiness. Self-love means taking care of your own needs and not sacrificing your well-being to please others. Self-love means not settling for less than you deserve. Self-love is the foundation of other successful relationships in your life and for this reason, it is not to be disregarded or unprioritised.
Confession time. I haven’t been taking care of myself and instead have been focusing on putting others' needs before my own. My reasons for doing this were partially to avoid the guilt of letting others down but mainly to prove to myself that I was able to do all the things I committed to. Unfortunately, this led to burnout as well as physical and emotional distress, something I haven’t had to deal with for a significant amount of time due to practising self-love regularly.
The last few weeks of my life have highlighted to me that I still have some progress to make with my self-love journey but this doesn’t negate everything I have learnt thus far and for that reason, I wanted to share a few of my self-love lessons.
Not everything is in your control. Giving power to things that you have no control over wastes energy that could be better spent focusing on your passions and time you could be dedicating to yourself. You are doing yourself a disservice by letting uncontrollable factors dictate your life and sometimes the universe has a better plan than you do for yourself.
Quality over quantity. Try not to overload your plate and when/if you do you must take a break when you need it. You are no good to anyone burnout giving 25% to everything and anything. By committing to less you have a higher chance of giving your best to the important things in your life.
Those times when you feel like looking after yourself the least are when you need it the most. Let me give you some examples. You don’t feel like cooking yourself a wholesome homemade meal but your worn-out body is probably craving one. Those moments when you don’t feel like going for a walk or doing some gentle exercise, your brain is crying out for it. Most importantly in a world where we are ruled by productivity, no matter how many things are on your to-do list, if what’s best for you is sitting on the sofa watching Netflix for an hour then honour yourself and do it.
Your relationship with you is the only one you are guaranteed to keep for life so you have to nurture it and fill your cups before you can fill others. In the words of the great Ru Paul Charles…
If you can’t love yourself how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else? Can I get an amen?