Every Sunday we talk about self-love, what it is, and the ways we can practice it. A few weeks ago we talked about physical self-love and today we’re going to talk about psychological self-love. Which is about loving what’s going on inside of you.
We all need something different.
But one thing that I am convinced that we all need is time with ourselves. It’s muchos importante to get to know ourselves and get to know what makes us happy.
Five years ago after my first and last relationship, I had absolutely no idea what I really liked or what I wanted. I knew that I spent a lot of time depressed, what sad music I liked, and that World of Warcraft filled up the in-between time.
I had put so much of myself into a relationship that when I got out of it I realized that I had completely and utterly lost my sense of self. A lot of relationships are like that, at least my first few were.
You need to take time to spend time with yourself, for yourself. Check in with what you are thinking and feeling. There are plenty of ways to do this and a lot of them are not going to take very long, it’s worth it to make the time anyway.
If you have a very busy day try waking up twenty or thirty minutes earlier than you have to just to fit in some “you” time.
Do something that you want to do, that makes you feel happy and joyful.
Take an extra long bath, or sit outside and watch the sun rise.
Lay in bed and have sweet, sweet, daydreams.
You can also write in your journal, read something silly, make time for self-reflection.
Notice where your journey is taking you.
Say “no” to demands on your time that drain you.
Treat yourself right, end the self-hate and the criticism.
This is something I'm working on. As you said, it's hard in a relationship…and mamahood knocked me on my butt even more when it came to spending time with myself and doing things just for me. I have to be really strategic about getting me-time (so strategic, that it's often "easier" to not do it…which never ends well, as you can imagine).
But setting that aside, when I DO spend time on my own, I love to dance, to go for walks, to sit and drink tea, or to write (I can technically do these things not-alone, but it's not nearly as satisfying), and I love happy-fluffy movies.
So often, I use alone time for "business" stuff, and I think that's kind of a trap. It *is* nourishing to work on my own things…but if I don't take time to just BE, I burn out. That's what happened when I got sick at the end of April. It had been weeks since I'd taken care of my inside.
Thanks for the reminder <3