Having a self-love month 💞

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For most people, February equals love and that’s mainly because Valentine’s day is celebrated on the 14th and the hype around this day is seen even from January when the first ideas for gifts appear online on the feed of the influencers you follow or offline, in most of the stores.

I don’t have anything against any suggestion to let your partner know you love them by gifting something they like, I only want to point out that you should do that more often, not only on V-day, that you shouldn’t show your appreciation for the person you love just on some occasions like, the love holiday or their birthday or your couple’s anniversary. That said, I didn’t choose to have a self-love month because I’m single, even if yes, not having a romantic partner in my life let me explore the relationship with myself, gave me the opportunity to focus on my needs and wants, and not those of another person, helped me understand that I must love myself and not expect someone else to come into my life so they can shower their love upon me.

The main reason I wanted to do this is because yes, February is the month when love is in the air (or at least that’s how we’ve been let to perceive it) and I do like to see happy couples showing their affection more these days, but the thing is that, we have to first turn the love towards ourselves before giving it to other people. Also, we don’t have to wait to receive it from those around us because it is our job to love ourselves in the first place and not someone else’s. And that’s why I’ve decided to have a self-love month, it’s so I could give myself all the love I deserve and need, and I’m sharing this with you in the hope that you will feel inspired to do the same, because you too deserve to be loved the way you need and want. Self-love is the most important love and I believe it lays the foundation for learning to love others better and it helps us to create stronger, healthier relationships.

Since we all are different and unique, I’m very aware that we have diverse definitions for love and we feel/show it differently, so I encourage you to follow your own process on the self-love journey, to do it in your own way even if it means of choosing to have only a self-love day or not doing it at all at this moment because your head isn’t in the right space for that right now. But, what I’m asking you is to at least: show yourself more kindness in the next period of time; don’t compare yourself with those around you (especially if you’re single); focus on your needs/wants and prioritize your mental health. Sometimes the best way to love yourself is by taking things slow or taking a break from everything, so if that’s what you feel like doing this month, do it. Listen to yourself because that’s how you know what you really need. Search inside your heart for what self-love means to you, or for you now, because our needs/wants change over time and this is the case also when talking about self-love. So, find some time to reflect on where you are on your self-love journey and take it from there, but remember that is an ever evolving process and most importantly, it is your own unique journey, so don’t compare it with someone else’s, instead you can inspire from another person’s self-love story.

I do love myself, but what I’ve come to realize lately is that, I haven’t been doing it on a deeper level because I didn’t fully understand until recently what true self-love really means, beyond the surface stuff. And how did I recognize that I need to go in depth when coming to self-love? By neglecting my emotional health when a stressful time occurred, instead of taking measures early on so I could have avoided feeling so badly physically and mentally, as I did in the previous month. By letting a friend’s opinion affect me more than it should have and ruminating for weeks on end about that conversation, instead of forgetting sooner about it and letting it be in the past. By feeling very disappointed by the inaction of those around in showing their support, instead of accepting sooner that I don’t really need it from them because I am strong enough to move forward on my own, especially since I truly am my biggest supporter and the one that matters the most.

Of course it’s perfectly human to have been feeling stressed, hurt and disappointed because of those external factors, but what I’m saying is that, I let myself delve on those negative feelings for far longer than I should have and I didn’t act sooner on doing something to feel better because I wasn’t truly, madly in love with myself. When you love yourself deeply: you don’t let yourself feel hurt too much for an extended period of time, especially when you didn’t lose something big or a loved one; you don’t permit others to steal your joy when they rain hard on your parade because you know that your happiness is more important than their opinion and their raindrops don’t get to ruin anything, it may cloud things for a bit and that’s ok, but then you let your rainbow shine faster and stronger; you rise up higher and on your own because you can do that when you understand that loving yourself to the core is far more important than being loved by another person.

I’m all about feel your feelings, stay with your emotions for some time and not act like an ostrich when those unpleasant ones appear because it’s not healthy to deny how you’re feeling, it’s not good for your emotional health to bottle up painful emotions inside and hide them away instead of let them be for a while. The point is, you have to let yourself feel whatever arise, you have to accept that you’re not okay at that moment and that’s fine and completely normal, but also, you have to be aware of the link between thoughts and emotions because most of the time we prolong a bad mood by ruminating about what happened, replaying a past negative conversation, imagining a catastrophic future outcome over and over again.

So, here is where true self-love comes in play: if you’ve been hurt/disappointed/stressed/frustrated/sad/etc recently and you’re still focusing on the events that led to those emotions even if it’s been a while now, telling yourself that is time to get out of that misery and change your thoughts since they are prolonging the hurtful feelings for far longer than you would like, it is a sign that you do love yourself enough to move on. And how can you do that? How do you begin the process of letting go and push forward? It starts with the most important question, one that I’ve learned from Kamal Ravikant (in his book “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It”, which I totally recommend to use as a guide in your self-love journey): “If I love myself truly and deeply what would I do?” And then continue asking yourself some follow-up questions like: “If I truly and deeply love myself, why am I letting that situation make me feel worse than it should? Why am I still in that bad state instead of doing something to change it? How can I remove myself from that negative thinking cycle?” And so on, until you get your answers and then you begin to take action so you can start the healing/moving on process by: focusing on the good things in your life; replacing the thoughts that keep you down with better ones; putting yourself first and taking care of your needs/wants; incorporating some self-care habits/routines into your life; giving yourself the love you deserve.

The conclusion is, I’ve realized recently that I have some work to do on my self-love journey because I’m not where I thought I was and because I need to change something in my life and only when I love myself deeply I can do that since, not settling on less than I want and believing I can and deserve to live the life I’m dreaming about requires to be in love with myself. And why’s that? It’s because when you don’t love yourself enough you accept less than you deserve, you don’t take the big leaps since you don’t really think it is possible for you to change things so much and you’re fine with whatever, you don’t pursue your dreams since you are okay only with bread crumbs. And no, I do not want to settle and just accept the minimum, I refuse to be fine with the leftovers. So, I’ve started a list for my self-love month, with small actions to take on some days, with routines to implement for a longer period of time, with a few things to do on a daily basis for a lifetime. It’s a pretty exhaustive list so I can focus on loving myself as a whole, encompassing tasks and habits for all 3 dimensions: physical, emotional and mental. Please feel free to get inspired from it, after all, that’s why I wrote this article and I am posting on Instagram every day about how I love myself for my self-love month, but also, ask yourself what self-love means to you and in what ways can you give it to yourself. ❤️

Something to think about:

- Do you truly and deeply love yourself?

- If the answer is YES, do the daily actions and your life in general, reflect that?

- If the answer is NO, keep asking yourself what it takes to start the self-love journey.

Whatever your answer, treat yourself with kindness and believe that, you do deserve to be loved, especially by yourself.

A few resources to help you on your way to falling in love with yourself:

Books (many thanks to the authors, they have all my gratitude 🙏):

Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It- Kamal Ravikant
Recipes for Self-Love: How to Feel Good in a Patriarchal World- Alison Rachel
The Self-Love Workbook: A Life-Changing Guide to Boost Self-Esteem, Recognize Your Worth and Find Genuine Happiness- Shainna Ali