5 Ways to Practice Self-Love

It’s the month of love and while some cater to their loved ones, we should always be catering to ourselves as well. Self-love and self-care are very important to living a happy life. Here are a few things I find important for self-love and self-care.

Stop the comparison game.

Forget what Keisha, Samantha, Melissa, and Khadijah doing on Facebook and Instagram and how their lives seems so perfect. Social media shows you the highlights and never the low moments and failures. You don’t know how their lives are going behind these pictures and videos. One of my favorite quotes is, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” These people that you’re comparing yourself to could be suffering from childhood trauma while vacationing on the isle of Capri like their living their best life, but she could be silently breaking down cause she hasn’t dealt with that trauma.

Activity: Do some self-reflecting. Write down things that you love about yourself, things that make you smile, things that bring you peace, things that make you happy. If you aren’t sure, take a moment and think about it and come back to it. While you are reflecting on the positive, also reflect on things that trigger you; rectify your trauma. Do an honest reflection to get a honest clear picture of you. You cannot heal from any place that is not true and honest.

Find your happy.

One thing I learned from listening to people talk is that a lot of people don’t truly know what makes them happy. Some people see other people do shit online and think if it makes them happy then it has to work for me, too. Nah sis, it don’t work like that. I scroll through social media thinking to myself that these people in the club every night can’t be this happy to be there. That wouldn’t make me happy, I’d rather sit on a bench in the park or sit at the lake and just enjoy nature. That’s my happy. My peace. You just have to find your happy and figure out what works best for you. Finding what makes you happy may take some trial and error, but it’s worth the journey. You’re worth working hard to please.

Activity: Try something you’ve always wanted to try. Whether that’s a yoga class, performing at a open mic night, shoot it could be taking a pole dance class. Try something new and see how it makes you feel.

Eliminate self-doubt.

Instead of saying you can’t, tell yourself you can. If you can’t right now, work towards it. Everything is a journey and nothing happens instantaneously. Stop selling yourself short, you’re amazing.

Activity: Write down your strengths and weaknesses. Reflect on your strengths and work with your weaknesses and figure out how and where you can make changes to be better in those areas. For instance, a weakness of mine is procrastination and time management. In order to work at it, I set timers and reminders in my phone. I have a planner and I plan my week out on my self-care Sunday’s, so that I am prepared to take on my tasks without stressing myself out trying to do things in a rush.

Practice the law of attraction.

Law of attraction is the ability to attract into our lives whatever we are focusing on. You are what you think about. Thoughts and words will manifest. If you are thinking negative, you will attract negativity. You will attract whatever you focus on.

Activity: To practice the law of attraction, start with some positive affirmations. Write some positive affirmations or copy some you find on google that is applicable to your life and practice them. Stand in the mirror and smile at yourself. Take a couple deep breaths and say your positive affirmations a few times.  Believe your affirmations. Believe in yourself. Sometimes, I practice my positive affirmations first thing in the morning while taking care of my hygiene. I make it apart of my daily routine. Sometimes I do it at night before going to bed. It all depends on how I feel that day.

Protect your peace.

This will always be a favorite point of mine when it comes to self-love and self-care. You have to find peace within yourself and protect it. We live in a crazy world that’s filled with so much hatred, anger, envy, and just miserable people. If you let everything happening in the world and on social media get to you all the time, you will never be happy with your life or yourself. So find your peace and happiness and protect it at all costs.

Activity: Practice meditation. If you aren’t into that type of thing just put your phone on do not disturb for a couple hours and leave it in your room. Do something that doesn’t involve your phone. Practice telling people no and do things you want to do. Stop sacrificing your happiness to make other people happy. People will wear you thin if you give in to every little thing they want you to do.

I hope these self-love tips help. What do you do to love yourself? If you have any other routines that you practice, please share so we can all help each other love ourselves more.