During Valentine’s season, a lot of us are thinking about our love relationships, and how to properly celebrate them. However, we can so often forget that love starts from within ourselves. Our true nature is love and light. There is the boundless love of the Universe living within our own hearts, and tapping into that ensures that we always live in the flow of love.
This morning, I read some beautiful pieces about self love. First, I read a lovely piece by
Kimberly J Fitzgerald , talking about a self love challenge that she participated in proposed by another Medium writer, Emy Knazovic.
After reading the pieces about self love from these two ladies, I decided to participate in the self love challenge of writing down 100 things that I love about myself. Emy advised that for some of us this may be difficult, or may take more than one sitting to achieve.
Self love is something I have been focusing on with my life coach recently, and so I decided this is a positive challenge for me.
Self love with depression
As someone who chronically has suffered with depression for over 20 years, I often have a tendency to let negative thinking take hold of my life. This last year has been a difficult one for me, and it has made me doubt my self efficacy in ways that I never thought possible.
Living overseas in Germany, I felt like a kid again, having to depend on my boyfriend even for the simplest tasks. Since I don’t speak German well, I had trouble reading or making phone calls. I couldn’t get a job, and had to rely on him financially as well. I hate to admit, I didn’t do any of these things gracefully.
When you have learned to be overly self reliant and not to trust others, having your life completely in someone else’s hands is difficult. Since I couldn’t meet my own needs or care for myself, I felt like a failure and a burden. At times, I felt like I didn’t deserve to live.
So, a celebration of self love is just what the doctor ordered. Literally, in this case!
Being able to love yourself when you have depression is hard. It means, breaking lifetime patterns of self blame and self depreciation. It means, breaking through self harming habits, and learning healthy coping skills in their place. It means learning how to be kind and gentle with yourself.
Depression can lead you into a dark hole of contemplating suicide. Things that happen in your life can lead you to feel hopeless, worthless, ashamed and like you are a burden to the people in your life. Finding your way out of the darkness isn’t something you can do alone most of the time. Asking for help is hard, but it is worth it for many of us who feel this way.
Very often, the feelings we have with depression stem from a deep self hatred. This makes learning self love very difficult indeed.
No matter how dark things are, though, there is always something to love about yourself. There is always a reason to go on. It is a matter of changing your thinking to find a little bit of good in every day, no matter how bad things seem.
The good can start with little things:
- A warm cup of coffee
- Sitting in the sunshine
- Saying affirmations
- Calling a friend
- Practicing yoga or meditation
- Reading a good book
- Watching a funny TV show
Once you find something small in your life that is good, take time to appreciate and celebrate it. Remember that there is always a window of hope.
If you are depressed and thinking about suicide yourself, you can reach out to a local crisis center (like I did), go to the ER, or,
You can reach the National Suicide Hotline 24/7 by dialing 988.
Talking to a professional counselor can be incredibly healing for those of us with depression. A professional can help you see the good in your life, find a reason to keep going, make a safety plan, and provide referrals for ongoing care.
Self love list
Making the self love list was really helpful for me this morning, especially since I had been a bit down about spending Valentines day alone. You can always buy yourself flowers, like Miley Cyrus. Love yourself, and you will feel better about life and your place in the world.
This morning, when I made the self love list, I didn’t over analyze what I was writing down. I didn’t worry if what I wrote might be silly or duplicative. I just let the writing flow. Writing itself can be incredibly healing, as many of us on this platform are aware.
I did make it to 100 things, too. More easily than I thought I would. Even if you can’t think of 100 things, write down one or two. Then repeat those to yourself throughout the day. Then tomorrow you can write down one or two more. Even if it takes you a month or two to get to 100 good things about yourself, that’s ok!
When my therapist first told me to practice self care, I honestly thought it was stupid, because it was just adding something more to my already packed to-do list. But loving yourself isn’t just something you check off a list, and neither is self care.
Self love and self care are about building a strong foundation for your life. There is only one person you spend 100% of your life with: Yourself.
This means, making yourself a priority isn’t selfish, it is a must. No one else knows or understands you the way you know yourself. And no one is in your head the same way either.
Look inside your own heart to find love. Look at the goodness of yourself to build the foundation of your life. Find things that work for YOU to make YOU happy. You deserve happiness and love just as much as anyone else. So, when you learn to love yourself and make yourself happy, you are learning to meet one of your own most basic needs for survival.
Even if you are depressed, recovering from trauma, lonely, going through a break up or a job loss, you are still worthy of love. Nothing can take away your inherent worth. You are a beautiful child of the divine, and you are on this Earth for a reason. You have a bright, shining purpose that no one else can fulfill. You are special. You deserve love. Always.
I hope you take a minute today to write down something good for yourself, or just smile at yourself in the mirror when you are brushing your teeth. When you begin to love yourself, it can lead to a beautiful, lasting change in your life.
Again, thank you to Kimberly and Emy for the beautiful motivation you gave me today. I hope that it can help to inspire others as well!
If you are experiencing mental health issues yourself, finding a good therapist or coach can be so helpful.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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