Self Love — Exercise It

Hey everyone,
On Friday I posted a blog titled Your Relationship — With Yourself and I realized how much of an advocate I am for self love. Also the response I got from the article was pretty stellar so I got to thinking, maybe I should do a series of blogs on self love. This would entail diving deeper into the topic of self love as well as present different ways to encourage awareness of it in your life!

As I’ve stated before, I believe building a strong relationship with yourself should be of the utmost importance to a person. But in todays society importance on building a relationship with a partner is ranked higher. You see this in cases where someone will stay with a partner who is abusive physically and/or mentally, or a bad/negative influence, etc. It is because a lot of people don’t want to be alone, or don’t want to be seen as someone who can’t make a relationship work. It is because love is highly romanticized. And with good reason because once you find the good stuff, its game over, you’re mine, I’m yours, this feels like flying! But unfortunately it can make people fight for a love that isn’t the best, a love that actually does more harm then good.

The reason I’m mentioning this stuff is because I think its important to imagine a person that loves themselves, someone that exercises self love, their ability to get themselves out of a dysfunctional relationship is probably greater. In fact they might not even get themselves into one in the first place, because they know they deserve better. Often people are searching for their happiness in someone else and this is where things can start to become a little more harmful for a person. They’ll overlook things that make them upset because they’re with someone that can make them smile and feel special from time to time. But what if they didn’t need that other person. What if they already had themselves to make them smile everyday and make themselves feel special every day?

Come on, this stuff is gold! Imagine finding in yourself something that you thought you could only find in someone else. As I mentioned before, someone you love should be an extension of the already happy you! Imagine how much better your relationship with your partner could be if you already loved the hell out of yourself. There would be less insecurities, less issues of jealousy, less issues with communication, etc. To build a successful relationship with a partner you have to first build a successful relationship with yourself.

So where do you start? Well I’ve got two exercises for you, do them both or pick the one you feel suits you the most.

The first one is – Mirror Image

Find a mirror in a quiet place, i.e your bathroom and make sure you wont be interrupted. Stand in front of the mirror and look at yourself. This may feel silly, so have fun with it! Make some faces at yourself, smile, or wink. Whatever! But once you’ve moved past that, really look at yourself. Now think of it this way, the person looking back at you, that is your life partner. Through thick and thin, you’ve made bad choices together and you’ve made good choices together. You will always have that person looking back at you, when all else fails, when you feel alone, you aren’t. You’ve got your life partner, YOU!

Now bare with me, I want you to introduce yourself to you. Say hi. Have an awkward first date with yourself. Discuss your interests, your passions, how you spend your time. This is meant to make you aware of you. Because there is who you are and who you think you are. Dig deeper to find you and invest in those interests and passions. You know when you like someone and all you want to do is impress them and make them feel special? Start impressing yourself. Start making yourself feel special. Go out of your way for you. And don’t worry, I’ve done this exercise so there is at least one other person who has looked as silly as you, if not sillier. And anyway why do you care so much? Life is short, be silly! It’s allowed, I promise.

 

The second one is – Nature Nurture

Find a secluded green space, i.e a nature trail and take a walk. But walk slow! Because this is suppose to be a time to make you aware of yourself, when its quiet and you let your thoughts really catch your attention. We have so many fleeting thoughts throughout the day and we barely have time to sincerely hear what they’re saying to us. What thoughts come to mind the most? Are you stressed about something? Or happy about something? Your thoughts make you into who you are, so its time to start paying attention to them! They can be the difference between you and a better mood or how you see yourself. For me catching my negative thoughts and turning them into a positive thoughts is a great way to exercise self love. During my morning walk is when I set my day up for positivity over negativity.

Feel free the comment below with your experiences during these exercises! Or just your opinions in general.

Happy Walking,
Tori J Wilcox