Day 2 - self love

Well after a very thought provoking day 1- so much so I jumped a little ahead in to day 2! (which I only realised when I read on today! )

"Why is it so difficult to say I love you to yourself?" - well I feel I covered that in some detail yesterday, but for a bit of a spin - and to give myself something to write about today let's take it in depth.

It can seem not saying "I love you" to ourselves and making ourselves "small" can be a way of fitting in - belonging with a group. People feel comfortable with those when they know where they stand and how they fit in to a group and revelling in self love can be enough to upset this apple cart of friendship for good - best stick to the status quo! We might have been told as children it is not nice to "boast" and more polite to be humble - this I think is possibly more of a British thing - there is something wonderful about a very confident American "this is who I am" presence that is very self loving and exciting!!

Though I know sometimes we can be astounded and a little un-nerved by a very confident person celebrating themselves in self love. Being something I have struggled with in the past, and am working on I have found myself in these situations asking internally "how can they master this love when I find it so difficult?" In the past it has made me feel less confident and even substandard in comparison. It seems therefore comparison is a killer of self love, why we find it so hard to say "I love you" to ourselves. Not only comparison to others, what they can do, what they have, how they appear on social media - because of course that shows the whole picture right?! No filtering or cropping there. But also to the person we deem we could/should be. We compare to perfection, to what we should be and what others are and expect of us and when our standards are so high we can feel we fall short - and how is easy is it to love ourselves through this failure? Failure - the connotations of it -the shame it can induce, which lets face it, shame is an emotion most of us would wish to hide from. This self loving thing can be hard. I prefer to think of each less successful attempt as a trial- a way of learning, each day as another day just to express the true us. I have found losing the attachment to this desired outcome of perfection can help us allow this self love, for us to simply accept ourselves in our state of being. While attachment to what we strive for/expect/compare ourselves to can only push us further from the loving relationship with ourselves that we are seeking.

Consider how you would feel if you had won a competition and the prize was £100 and you told a friend - you might be excited, proud, happy, already planning how you would spend your winnings and ready to celebrate with a bottle of bubbly!! But then imagine you then find out this friend had won a different competition and their prize was £10000, how would your prize then feel? Comparison can allow the first offering to seem measley. It can also encourage such questions "Why didn't I deserve more?"

Our brains being the very clever things they are - will find the answers to whatever questions you ask of them. If we are phrasing the question thus we will see all the reasons we are undeserving. However if we with raised awareness instead ask "in what ways am I as deserving?" or "how can I achieve this myself?" we will be able to see some possibilities so we can grow and also just accept and enjoy what we have in our own situation.

Ok so a little off point - but hopefully you get where I am going with this in a moment.

So I'm going to turn todays question a little on its head instead of "Why is it so difficult to say I love you to yourself?" which we are now a little more aware of - "Why/How can we say I love you to ourselves?" because that is what we want right? To be able to be self loving?

It might jar, feel uncomfortable, even trickier to answer than the "do you love yourself?" from yesterday, but take a moment, muse on it and start to mentally write a list of how you can and why it is beyond ok to say "I love you" to yourself and accept the person you see in the mirror every day.

Well for day 2 it seems this self love challenge is definitely challenging, thought provoking and maybe working the old grey matter over, but is also hopefully allowing a few more self-loving neural pathways to be created.

Quick tips to be self loving:

1) Prioritise yourself - looking after yourself first, is not selfish - it actually allows you to be the best version of yourself and show up as such for others.

2) Be a friend to yourself, if you treated your friends the way you neglect yourself sometimes would you have as good a relationship? - if you wouldn't treat someone else like it it isn't the kindest way to behave towards yourself, be aware of self chatter too - if its unkind and unhelpful don't say it to yourself.

3) Look after yourself. You get out what you put in, having enough sleep to be energised, eating well and keeping fit to maintain strength and stamina are all self loving things to do.

4) Celebrate yourself - note down all the wonderful things you love about yourself and if this is hard, start with those others have mentioned about you.

5) Accept yourself as you are - worts and all - this can be the hardest and require a bit of practice but if you know who you are and are happy to admit to it thats half the battle for self love!

6) Do things you love doing and that make you feel most you! Being in tune with ourselves helps us love life and if we allow ourselves to take this time for ourselves it is very self loving!

7) Live in the moment - not thinking of the mistakes or learning from yesterday or in fear of tomorrow - the gift of today is the only day we can focus on when we are truly present!