Tag: #self-love

Be kinder to the person in the mirror

Image by Peter H from Pixabay

Our social media lives are, to some extent, dictated by likes.  How many likes we give and how many we receive.  I’m not a massive fan of either. I will only like what I really do resonate with, and that includes on family and friends’ social media accounts. If they just posted a picture of something cute, I’m not going to press the like button unless there’s something meaningful behind it.  I don’t engage just because I feel I should because if I don’t I’ll hurt their feelings.  The same goes the other way.  I have no idea how many, or who likes anything I post.  And I don’t care.  That’s not why I posted something.

But how much easier is it to like and accept others, including strangers on the internet, yet when we look in the mirror, we find it hard to like to person we see?

Fearne Cotton has written several books I have enjoyed about finding yourself and being more compassionate towards yourself.  Having gone through periods of depression, Fearne speaks from a place of personal experience and growth, not as someone who read a few articles about it.

She suggests in an article in Grazia magazine that self-compassion is more than just feeling ok about the bits of ourselves we believe are good, but about cultivating compassion for the whole package.  It becomes an ephemeral notation if self-love is only about celebrating ourselves in moments of success which can be gone in a flash, leaving us depleted.

Cotton says that liking yourself is the most natural thing you can do, but this is likely to come as a surprise to a lot of people. We are offered tips on how to like ourselves more and build self-compassion, but its been there all along, we just haven’t learned how to tap into it. Its something we are born with and as small babies and children we thrive on moving from one thing we love to the next, experiencing fun and joy and love.  Its only as we grow up we pick up societal cues and social conditioning, that erodes our sense of self-love. Whether its being told to be quiet, get in line, or work harder.

Cotton poses that we need to learn to undo all that social conditioning to reveal our natural and already thriving self-love. We spend so much time trying to eat better, sleep better, exercise better, be a better friend/partner/parent, but without self-love it’s pointless.  How can we give full, unfettered love to others when we can’t even give it to ourselves?

When you love yourself, all those things fall in to place, you’ll eat better, sleep when you’re tired, be with people who bring you joy and do more of what you love with the people you love, because deep down, you know you deserve it.

Love yourself and everything else will sort itself out.  Try it.

6 Ways to reconnecting with your self

Any person who is in touch with their sensuality is empowered.  Many women, in particular, feel that this is a part of their lives that is missing. Those who work in traditionally male environments often don’t feel connected to that feminine part of themselves.  Podcast fave Tonya Leigh suggested that part of us living our best life would be getting back in touch with that side of ourselves.  She offers some tips to consider getting back in touch with your feminine side:

  1. Learn to manage your mind – the three dominant emotions that keeps us from that feminine part of ourselves are guilt, shame and overwhelm.  When our own thoughts create negative feelings, we often deny ourselves those things that will make us better wives, mothers, daughters, community members and businesswomen, those things that will heal us. These are feelings that we can control.
  2. Manage your schedule – everything we put on our schedule is our choice.  We need to put ourselves on our schedule.  That may mean turning things down, saying no to people, give up obligations, others may be disappointed.  But when we learn to manage our minds, we can deal with all that drama. If we are not on our own schedule how do we expect to create time for pleasures, time alone, creating fun, try new things, being playful and creating space for connection with ourselves and those we love. Make connecting a priority.
  3. Practice where to connect with your body – through dance, yoga, walking, whatever.  When we’re disconnected from our bodies, we can’t tell how we feel, when we’re full, what sensations we’re experiencing.  Learn to be kind to our bodies, practice reconnecting with our bodies and play around with what those practices could be.
  4. Create sensual style – do your clothes and accessories spark that feminine side of you? Get properly fitted underwear.  Find a perfume, or lipstick, or have beautiful loungewear.  What matters is how we feel in it.  Are we being intentional with our style?  It helps us create emotion.  Look at what we’re wearing and how can we spice it up a bit to help us spark that femininity again.
  5. Create a sensual environment – have fresh flowers around the home, music playing in the background, candles, scents.  It’s these little details that we use and create that remind us how important they are and what they say about us. 
  6. Experience life through our senses – we often fail to smell the delicious aromas, or hear the wind, or notice what is going on through our senses.  Take time to taste food (it can help you lose weight too).  Look around and notice what we hear, smell, feel, taste. 

I am getting better at controlling my mind around negative thoughts.  Whilst I’m more careful about what I say and do around others, I understand that I am not responsible for their responses.  I will do my best not to upset people, and its certainly not something I do deliberately, but how they respond to it is their business.

Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed with the number of things I have on my to do list.  A lot of what C and I do revolves around #bellringing but that’s not spending quality time together.  We have a number of vouchers for experience days that we often struggle to get organised enough to book.  Obviously during the last couple of years booking things has been difficult anyway.  This year we celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary and promised ourselves that we’d go away for a couple of weeks.  When we first started talking about it we were looking to go abroad but have down played that now to staying in the UK.  We’re just really bad at planning “down time” together.

I know I have to make myself move more.  I can be sat at my desk all day and if I’m not careful, find that I have hardly moved at all.  My working days are nine and a half hours long, so to be sat in an office chair that long does nothing for my posture or making me feel any better.  Whenever I can I almost schedule time to go for a walk at lunchtime. I’ll look at the meetings I have and see the best time I can slot it in.

I am working on my style.  I used to live in #bellringing polo shirts and jumpers all the time.  I’ve ditched most of them and only bring them out for #bellringing events.  I’ve gathered more colour and moving away from monochrome all the time.  I’m trying different fabrics, styles and combinations.

I buy fresh flowers every couple of weeks from the market stall in the high street.  They usually last that long.  It has added an element of calm and relaxation to the room.  I only have them in the lounge, we don’t have either the space anywhere else, or the inclination to spend that amount of money on them.  I do enjoy watching the buds open up and show the full beauty of the petals though. I’ve hand candles for years.  I have two particular sorts that I use regularly, but people often gift them to me.  Then of course the other major scent in our house is of baking, whether its cake or bread.

I am a bit of a fast eater and often have to remind myself to slow down and taste what I’m eating.  But I am better at looking around and noticing things when we’re out on a walk.  C often looks at the floor or only straight ahead whereas I’ll look around and up, close up and far away. 

So, I’m getting there I think.  How about you?