We live in a world full of judgements, comparisons, and a desire of being accepted by others. Notifications, messages, and alerts from social media, that we view daily as we scroll through our phones, can have a negative effect on how we feel about ourselves. Leaving us to face a difficult fight against those negative messages we read and see.
Our society craves “likes or comments” on our Instagram posts to feel worthy. Which sometimes makes us go to extreme measures to make ourselves fit some mold of perfection...to feel accepted.
Most of the time, we end up losing ourselves and begin to forget who we really are. We stop loving ourselves and start hating ourselves. I realized that in my life. I lost myself completely and had to learn how to love myself again. I had to practice self-love every day and still continue to do so.
What is SELF-LOVE?
Well it took me awhile to figure out what self-love is. Recently, I learned that self-love is about being confident in who you are. It’s about being proud of yourself for your accomplishments. Knowing when you were right and owning up to when you were wrong. It’s knowing your weakness and your strengths. It’s about looking into the mirror and saying I am alive and I desire to be alive. Lastly, it is about loving yourself for all your imperfections
Self-love is not I am better than you. It is I am GOOD ENOUGH and SO ARE YOU.
I do not believe Self-Love is something you wake up having. I think self-love is a practice. I, myself, do not have self-love down completely yet. And if I said I did…I would be lying. I will always be genuine and transparent with you, I promise.
I still have to practice Self-Love every day. I have a FEW Self-Love tips and techniques I use. DON’T WORRY, I will share!!!
First, every time I wake up I always look into my mirror. Why? Well, when returning home from treatment I covered my mirrors in inspirational quotes. In the inpatient treatment program, I was at, we had inspirational quotes all over the mirrors, such as “You’re Beautiful,” “Don’t Give Up,” and (MY FAVORITE) “Don’t need to look honey, You have always been perfect.”These quotes were there to help prevent us from body-checking. For me it worked and helped a lot! I am sucker for inspirational quotes. So, looking into my mirror every morning and seeing an inspirational quote, helps me begin the day on a positive note!
Second, unfollow people or accounts on social media that do not positively impact your life. Why? Because, we live in a world so focused on social media. I used to follow accounts that made me feel bad about myself. I knew it was making me more insecure, but I still followed them anyways. When I left treatment, I unfollowed and deleted accounts that made me feel poorly about myself. I starting following pages that had inspiration, positivity, through INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES. I also followed well known influencers like Jay Shetty and Brene Brown. My new following impacted my life because it never made me compare or judge myself the way I used to.
Third, at night I write down one thing I am grateful for. I love to write in my journals. It is the BEST coping skill I learned in therapy. The reason I write one thing I am grateful for at night is because it helps me remember that there is something good in every day. Even when I have the worst day, I still try to write something down; even if it’s just being grateful that I woke up that day. When you are grateful for even the littlest thing, you are allowing yourself to love your life.
Now, these are just a FEW things I do to practice Self-Love, and there are many different things you can do that work for you.
Try exploring and finding out ways that help you practice Self-Love!
Email BeautifuLivingBlog@gmail.comand share some of your own Self-Loving practices!
Remember, A LITTLE SELF-LOVE NEVER KILLED NOBODY!
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