MY FRIENDS POST SOMETHING THEY ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT, EPISODE 1: SELF-LOVE
Being in love with yourself seems so riddled with vanity and narcissism that it takes away from its value. Truthfully, falling in love with your self is one of the greatest acts of service that everyone is entitled to. It’s not about being conceited or fulfilling your ego, instead it is about centring your wellbeing and treating it as the core of who you are and what you do. I mean we wouldn’t expect a house to function as a home, a place of safety and comfort, if it weren’t fully intact. If the doors didn’t lock properly, the electricity was out and the windows were broken, it wouldn’t feel much like a home at all. In the same way, we mustn’t expect our mind, body, and spirit to function as a source of wellness and capability if we don’t show love to the elements of our existence.
If your bank account is as dry as mine, fear not, as self-love is not as material as people make it seem. Self-love is often marketed as going to a spa, retail therapy and investing in facemasks that don’t work. Whilst treating yourself and showing love to your exterior is supposed to be a beautiful thing (trust me I’m happiest when my cart is full) it’s important to pay attention to our interior. This often goes unnoticed and in the worst case, neglected. We cannot see our thoughts and mindset. However, we CAN see the outcome of them. It’s both fascinating and scary that the way we think and view the world around us can shape our reality. I once read that “life is not happening to you, it is responding to you”. The fascinating part is that you’re more in control than you may believe. On the contrary, the scary thing is that if you’re not in control, then something else is… Be it the influence of your peers, social media and the state of the world we live in, owning your thoughts and mental state is the purest form of self-love in my opinion.
This could look like G checking yourself in moments of downfall, such as negative and deprecating thoughts. It may look like educating yourself, reading up on the things that interest you and widening your mental scope. But most importantly, it may look like getting to know yourself. This may seem odd, since nobody knows you like you know you, right? WRONG. Some define who they are as the way they think they act, or the three traits listed in their horoscope. But it is rooted in things much deeper than that. We are constructed by many things. Our culture, family, location, faith, education, the list continues. Getting to know yourself is about deconstructing those elements and finding meaning within them. You may find that what you thought you knew about yourself is simply adhering to all you’ve ever known. Do you know how beautiful it is to know yourself? Your worth, your strength, your weakness and everything in between. Falling in love with those elements is simply to treat them with care and consideration. It’s simply applying them to your day to day actions. Now achieving this may look different to each person. It could be through meditation, prayer, questioning yourself or having deep conversations with your people. Which ever way you prefer, I would definitely recommend it.
This is what falling in love with yourself looks like to me. Its being at peace with yourself. Its understanding your needs. It’s centring your wellbeing in your daily actions. Some of us have grown up learning that this is selfishness and that selfishness is bad. There are many negative associations with the word, such as greed and egotism. It irks me that society treats serving ourselves in this way. Especially since, serving others is best done when you can serve yourself. It’s the same thing with love and relationships. We love best when we know how to love ourselves, but that’s for another conversation. So, I urge people reading this to practice self-love, most importantly loving themselves internally. After all, in being good to ourselves, we can be good to one another.
By Tanazia Gabriel-Fleary
If your bank account is as dry as mine, fear not, as self-love is not as material as people make it seem. Self-love is often marketed as going to a spa, retail therapy and investing in facemasks that don’t work. Whilst treating yourself and showing love to your exterior is supposed to be a beautiful thing (trust me I’m happiest when my cart is full) it’s important to pay attention to our interior. This often goes unnoticed and in the worst case, neglected. We cannot see our thoughts and mindset. However, we CAN see the outcome of them. It’s both fascinating and scary that the way we think and view the world around us can shape our reality. I once read that “life is not happening to you, it is responding to you”. The fascinating part is that you’re more in control than you may believe. On the contrary, the scary thing is that if you’re not in control, then something else is… Be it the influence of your peers, social media and the state of the world we live in, owning your thoughts and mental state is the purest form of self-love in my opinion.
This could look like G checking yourself in moments of downfall, such as negative and deprecating thoughts. It may look like educating yourself, reading up on the things that interest you and widening your mental scope. But most importantly, it may look like getting to know yourself. This may seem odd, since nobody knows you like you know you, right? WRONG. Some define who they are as the way they think they act, or the three traits listed in their horoscope. But it is rooted in things much deeper than that. We are constructed by many things. Our culture, family, location, faith, education, the list continues. Getting to know yourself is about deconstructing those elements and finding meaning within them. You may find that what you thought you knew about yourself is simply adhering to all you’ve ever known. Do you know how beautiful it is to know yourself? Your worth, your strength, your weakness and everything in between. Falling in love with those elements is simply to treat them with care and consideration. It’s simply applying them to your day to day actions. Now achieving this may look different to each person. It could be through meditation, prayer, questioning yourself or having deep conversations with your people. Which ever way you prefer, I would definitely recommend it.
This is what falling in love with yourself looks like to me. Its being at peace with yourself. Its understanding your needs. It’s centring your wellbeing in your daily actions. Some of us have grown up learning that this is selfishness and that selfishness is bad. There are many negative associations with the word, such as greed and egotism. It irks me that society treats serving ourselves in this way. Especially since, serving others is best done when you can serve yourself. It’s the same thing with love and relationships. We love best when we know how to love ourselves, but that’s for another conversation. So, I urge people reading this to practice self-love, most importantly loving themselves internally. After all, in being good to ourselves, we can be good to one another.
By Tanazia Gabriel-Fleary
Comments
Post a Comment