Self-Love

It’s 9:00 on a Friday night, and I am sitting in my room eating pizza, pepperoni and mushroom to be specific, and watching one of my favorite shows, Gossip girl. (No judgment if you haven’t seen the show) So I was thinking, wouldn’t this be an amazing time to talk about self love. The thing I love most about self love, is that it looks different for everybody.. Because everybody is different. 

Self love used to be a phrase I would hear and I wouldn’t think much about it. I did not understand the importance of it until a few years ago, when my life changed drastically. I had a lot of unexpected events occur in my life in a short period of time, and I was very overwhelmed. At the time, I already had the idea that I wanted to go to school to be a therapist, therefore I had knowledge about mental health, and I knew the importance of being aware of mental health. I have always been one to give advice on how to improve others mental health, but I am not the best at advocating for myself.  I remember after those specific events happened in my life, I looked up articles on how to create a routine for myself where I could practice self love. I think for so many people, life just feels like a constant merry go round, where we can never really stop, and do the things we love. It felt like that for me, and even after I understood the importance of self love, it still would feel like that from time to time. 

For me, self love looks like a bubble bath, with a candle going, and a glass of my favorite wine.It can also look like taking a walk outside, or going to the gym, while listening to my favorite music. I am even practicing self love while blogging, eating my pizza, and having gossip girl on in the background. There are many things I do that I consider self love, but I think the hardest thing for me was believing that I deserved self love. I believe it is common to feel like we are not worthy of good things throughout our lives. I am not saying it is okay to feel like that, but with myself and after working with mental health patients, I think it is “normal”. There have been many times in my life where I have not felt worthy of taking care of myself. But once I realized that this thought was not true, and that it was a thinking error of mine, I was able to really dig into what made me happy. I always would have excuses for not having enough time because I would be working constantly. Then I would get home late from work, eat, and go straight to bed. I had to make time in my schedule to ensure that I was taking care of myself, and that is harder than it sounds. Once I realized the importance of doing the things I loved on a daily basis, I found it easier to make time. I just had to believe I deserved it, and I believe that everybody deserves it. We all go through times in our lives that are difficult, and we all have insecurities .Self love allows us to remind ourselves we are important, and that we are worthy of living a happy and healthy life. 

I saw a Tiktok the other day that I keep referencing. It said, “ Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for that special day, because today is special.” This has really stuck with me. We are not promised tomorrow. We need to do things every day that make us happy. I know burning a candle isn’t everybody’s thing, but modify this quote and make it your own! We only have one life, and self love is essential!