Today, I am ready to get personal and to share my story about why I chose self love and how I achieved it. I totally and 110% believe the saying “you cannot love someone else until you love yourself”. I’ve loved my boyfriend Brandon since age 16 but it wasn’t until college when our love actually began to mean something, and by that I just mean that I wasn’t insecure, fishing for compliments and could actually put down all of my walls and love him inside and out. I believe that the reason our relationship truly flourished in college was because that was when I discovered how to love myself. I couldn’t love him inside and out until I learned to do that for myself. Once I achieved self love my entire life changed. Not only in my relationships but also in my entire outlook on life.
The journey to self love is not an easy one. It is something that you will have to work at to achieve. You will have to make this a priority and you will have to work at it every single day. You might have days where you slip but once you commit to this journey you will notice a shift in your mood, thoughts and relationships. It will be worth it, I promise. There are many things that you need to do to achieve self love so here are five important steps to start immediately:
- Forgive yourself: Stop saying sorry for absolutely everything. I used to say sorry for saying sorry until I realized that I needed to forgive myself for everything and stop apologizing to other people. We all make mistakes and that’s okay. If you are feeling down on your body one day remember that is normal and forgive yourself. You are beautifully imperfect and that is absolutely wonderful.
- Commit to Self Love: You cannot achieve self-love unless you do everything in your power to achieve it. You must learn to re-train your brain to start having positive thoughts after every negative one. Start a gratitude list of all the things you love about yourself and study it every single day. (The same way you used to study in college which means staying up without sleep until you get it done).
- Surround yourself with positivity: They say that you are the combination of the five people you hang out with most so utilize the people around you and make sure you are associating yourself with positive people. In addition to surrounding yourself with positive people you also much surround yourself with positive events and things. Unfollow those negative people on Instagram and start following inspirational accounts. Read inspirational books and do everything in your power to bring positivity into every aspect of your life.
- Take care of yourself: This is so important. At the end of the day you only have yourself so remember to take care yourself mentally and physically. Find your passion and pursue it wholeheartedly. See your physician every year and stay up to date on your immunizations. You cannot live life to the fullest if you are stuck in bed with a cold or being a debbie downer.
- Live Intentionally: This was the single best piece of advice I’ve been given, honestly. Living intentionally involves streamlining your time and prioritizing what is important to you. Don’t ever do anything unless your entire heart is in on it.
When you commit to self love and start surrounding yourself with positivity you will notice a huge shift in your mood, energy and outlook. As you begin to notice this shift start forgiving yourself and re-training your negative thoughts into positive ones as you simultaneously take care of your physical and mental health. Soon you will be living intentionally and loving yourself inside and out.
Note: This isn’t a perfect equation and you will experience ups and downs throughout this entire process so remember that one step forward is a step in the right direction.
Some self love must have items to help you treat yourself in the best way possible:
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