Falling in love with myself again

Growing up I must have been taught intentionally or indirectly how to self-love. I had a healthy appetite for knowledge and a keen idea of who I was, coupled with self-confidence. Though I have always been soft-spoken, I have always felt self-love.

As I became older and my circle of people grew larger I realised it was easy to be confident as a big fish in a small pond, it\’s harder to feel as confident as an average sized fish in a sea of beautiful fish of different shapes and sizes. You see my idea of self love had come from my perception of myself in comparison to others. On my perception of book smarts in comparison to the rest.  And that, I came to  realise, needed to change. Our journey into self development and self care must come with the breakdown of conditional love for ourselves. I was intentional and progressive in my journey to falling in love with myself again.

The following are the steps I took to falling in love with myself again. I do hope they can be tips to falling in love with yourself again. The final one is a doozey

1. Seeking my self love from God.
I am a born again Christian first and foremost, so my journey to self love and self development started from a commitment to making my self care associated with my knowledge of my creator. The good book has so many affirming words to remind me of who I am in God. So I stopped seeking approval from anyone else but Him. He is unconditional, unchanging, all knowing and all loving. Meaning that God knows me in and out, filth and all and He still loves me, forgives me and blesses me. Then He is my source of self love.

2. Psychology.
Psychology has been a great source of information into who I am. Knowing how I work and why I am wired the way I am allows me to love myself in the present. Such that I can make progress while still enjoying the place I am in the journey. I can self talk with ample information, knowing what I am capable of and what doesn\’t work for me and being content in that.

Not trying to change innate things about me for the sake of others. Psychology also made me understand my mental disease and learn how to look after myself in the best way possible. Embracing my anxiety and learning what to do to counter it or prevent it.

3.Exercise and movement.
I know exercise does leave a bad taste in some people, but wait. Self development and mental fitness can\’t come without some love for our bodies. I don\’t move intentionally for the sole purpose of an aesthetic body. I am not saying that that would hurt but I move to be one with my body. To get the rush of endorphins. The daily dose of dopamine and seratonin. They push away my anxiety and depression.

Sometimes we aren\’t anxious sometimes it\’s just a chemical deficiency and we can trigger production with movement.. Be it yoga, a work out, a run or just some old school dancing. Get that body moving. This has really helped me to feel one with my body and rediscover self love on my level, enjoying what my body can do and what new limits I can reach.

4. Self-forgiveness and people forgiveness. Forgiving others hasn\’t been so hard for me. I was blessed at letting go of people\’s misgivings … But self-forgiveness was a task. Forgiving myself for my past wrongdoing to myself and others was a challenge.  Guilt is a deterrent to self-care and self-love. Guilt and resentment and unnecessary punishments to ourselves over things we cannot change. Letting go is a very freeing activity. It is a very important step into my journey to self-development.

5. Intentionality.
From my tagline it\’s clear to anyone that purposefulness is very important to me. I have learnt that to love myself means I have to feed myself with the right message and self talk. So I tell my body , my mind and my soul what to feel, what to do irrespective of whether it is what I feel like.  So intentionality has helped me loads.

6. Social Media Regulation.
Social media use has to be proper and regulated. To be honest I had to take a complete social media detox. If you have followed different statistics and studies, you will realise the detriment of social media on our mental health today. And it creates an unhelathy view of ourselves with comparison and unreasonable competition. After the detox, I made a conscious choice to follow empowering pages that were worth following and creating a page that was also #worthfollowing.

I did have to unfollow and mute some pages I considered energy vortex and followed people I considered inspiring and motivating. This is a personal preference thing. Some people already have established social media presence and a long sabbatical may be detrimental. But in the journey of self care, regulation is important. I have learnt to absorb as much love and light in the world so I give off powerful and influential energy back.

7.Laughing at myself and Dancing nude in front of a mirror.
I learnt to laugh at myself and dancing in front of the mirror in the nude. I am a quirky individual so judgement unwithsatnding. I do dance nude in front of the mirror. I learnt this from my six year old and once I tried it, it became intoxicating. I had stopped loving the body that housed my soul.

Quickly peeking a look and criticising what I thought was wrong with it. But why was it wrong? Was it because I had compared it to what it was before or what new standard had been set? I chose to love it. The curves, the oddities and the unique because I had a job to look after it and it was going to be a hard task to look after it if I couldn\’t even look at it.  Self care also got me to laughing at myself and with myself. To enjoy my own company and my thoughts. I mean if I can\’t even stand myself how can I go out and expect others to love what I dont love.

The journey has been progressive but also gradual. Each day I learn something new about me that allows me to fall in love with myself some more. It isn\’t an exact science. You cannot beat yourself up every time you don\’t perform to your standard of self-love. Be kind to yourself. Enjoy your present even as you work to self-development. Enjoy every day purposefully.

Love and light to you and your beautiful soul.

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