The best thing we can do for ourselves is to love who we are. And by that, I mean accept everything about who we are. It’s a tough process, but ultimately it will help our lives and all our relationships, including the one with ourselves (and isn’t that the most important one?). So, this Valentines Day, let’s focus on what self-love really means.
“Body Positivity” is on everyone’s lips these days. And for good reason. However, as easy it is for us to boost up other women and accept each other, there are days where we often do not love and accept our own bodies. Whether it is because of weight gain, injury, body changes, etc, we have frustrations and moments where we just can’t embrace ourselves. However, part of loving ourselves it to acknowledge and accept that we can’t always embrace 100% body positivity towards our own bodies. We must stop beating ourselves up for not being perfect, and that includes not being perfect models of body positivity.
How is another way we can embrace self love? Forgiving ourselves. Many of us are highly driven perfectionists. We want to have it all. We are told, from an early age, that we can and should have it all. To achieve all our dreams. But what happens when we encounter failure and road blocks? When we don’t get to those goals as fast as we wanted. Maybe our mental health has caused hiccups in our game plan. Maybe we hurt someone, or let someone hurt us. There are so many reasons for self hatred and brutal self criticism. However, loving ourselves means acknowledging our “failures”, accepting them, and then forgiving ourselves. This doesn’t mean that we sweep our faults and mistakes under the rug. It just means that we stop brutally beating ourselves up. We work on areas that need work. We accept ourselves fully. The good and the bad. The painful times and the happy moments. Victories and losses.
There are many ways to journey down the path of self love. Techniques like mindfulness and meditation are a wonderful way to look at our thought processes and our emotions (good, bad, and everything in between). Go out in nature, if you can. Maybe cook yourself a wonderful meal or go out to eat. Whatever you prefer. Do little things to care for yourself. Mental health check-ups are great too and there is nothing wrong with knowing that “it’s ok to not be ok”. So, this Valentines Day (and every day of the year), start working on loving yourself. You are so worth it.