Learning to Love Yourself

Self-care is a phrase that seems to pop up in lots of places these days. But far from just being a trend, we believe self-care is important.

As Psychology Today state in this article:

Self-care is a holistic process that we all need in order to foster presence, engagement, wellness, and self-love.

Which is why we have chosen today, Valentine’s Day, to talk about looking after yourself. Choosing to love yourself. Because to love those around you well, you need to learn to love yourself well.

Learning how to look after ourselves doesn’t necessarily come naturally. It takes an understanding of what gives us life, what we enjoy and what we have time and capacity to do or not do. It can be hard to remember or make the choice to look after ourselves, particularly when we spend a lot of time looking our loved ones or those around us. It can quickly become low down on our priority list.

As the famous saying goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup. Self-care is something we all need.

So how do you fill up your cup?

We suggest starting with your values. Those values that we talked about back in January.

Self-care to one person might look like starting yoga. But if yoga is far from what you enjoy, then don’t do that just because that is the trend. Find what you love and what gives you life. Being in nature, writing three things you’re thankful for each day, spending some time in silence, going for drinks with friends, saying ‘no’ more often, prioritising you. Self-care looks different for everyone and it needs to work for you.

It can involve doing something that doesn’t feel easy. I know my easy choice would be to sit and eat a bar of chocolate when I’m feeling down but I actually feel a whole lot better if I go for a run. It’s a tough choice for me to make in the moment but down the line my body and mind thank me for it. There are other times sitting and enjoy my favourite cake and tea with a pal is just the kind of self-care I need. And there are times I need to ask for help; it’s vulnerable and hard but to be my best I can’t battle through the tough moments alone.

On a day when we celebrate love, perhaps feel a bit low because we don’t have someone to celebrate love with, or a day that even the most loved up of us avoid because of commercialism, let’s make some time to think about how we can love ourselves well.