Self Love in Difficult Times

…and no, this is not Gabriel Garcia Marquez latest novel! 😝

I’m happy this topic was requested, because frankly I needed a reminder of it myself – bubble baths and face masks simply aren’t cutting it as sufficient self love anymore. Nor is making healthy food, moving my body and daily meditation and yoga (although those are GREAT, too!).

At this point of time, we need to go deeper into self love, so that we can re-join the world outside as our very best selves. But how on EARTH do we do that?

Well, here are some pointers:

🌟 You. Are. Enough.
Whether you’ve spent time reinventing yourself, or had a 7 week long Netflix marathon, you are enough. You’ve done enough, you’ve achieved enough. Your feelings are enough, and they are all OK to feel. Be honest about how you’re feeling, and do, for the love of all things holy, turn off the news blasts and take breaks from social media! Let go of perfectionism. 💖 Check in on your self talk. 💐 Don’t shut down in this crisis. 💪

🌟 Positivity is a choice
Your outlook on life is a mindset matter. Shift it and shift your view of your life and our world.

🌟 Get creative
Take time away from your screen and do something creative, challenge your mind to switch off and go with it. Whatever you want to do, you can. And should.

🌟 What can you learn from this?
Think about it. Every hardship has something to teach you. Exercise that growth mindset!

🌟 Make gratitude your attitude
Notice what’s good in your life and be thankful for it/them/that being there.

🌟 What CAN you control?
You’re not just stuck in some uncontrollable, parallel universe. You can still control your reaction, taking care of yourself and nourishing your body, for example.

🌟 How far have you come?
Imagine yourself two months ago – where are you now? What has changed? Make a list!

🌟 Reach out to your community for support.

🌟 Be kind to yourself. You are a priority.

🌟 Forgive yourself. And others. 🙏

Which one of these is your favourite way to show yourself some love? 💓

This graphic puts it all together for you nicely. Share it with someone you think needs to hear this message today:

Transcription

If you prefer to read the information in the video posted above about self love, here is a full text version:

Today, we will be talking about something as elusive actually as self love in a difficult time, like we are in now. And this is not a new novel by Gabriel Garcia MArquez, it’s not like “Love in the Time of Cholera” although sounds like it.

If you’re anything like me, you have grown a little bit tired of self love in the form of bubble baths and face masks right now. It’s not really cutting it in a self love-way anymore. And things like nourishing your body, moving your body… All of that stuff is great. It’s great to have there, but it’s not maybe all that we need? We might need to start digging a little bit deeper when it comes to self love right now. After all, we’ve been at this game for quite a while and none of us really knows how to keep going. So let’s dig a little deeper when it comes to self love!

This was a great reminder, I’m so happy that you guys voted for this topic because I really needed a reminder of this right no. I’ve been slipping on my own self love routine, so the research for this week’s episode was great for me to kick start some thought processes so that I can maybe get back on track. How do we sink a little bit deeper into self love? Well, it is actually a lot of it is a mindset shift. And if you know me, and if you followed me for a while, you know that I have a whole presentation on mindset shift, but this is specific to self love, which is not so much talked about in that presentation. So let’s go!

You. Are. Enough.

Point number one is really: You. Are. Enough. Let that sink in; You are enough. Whether you’ve been reinventing yourself in these past couple of weeks during lock downs and isolations or you’ve had a seven, eight week long Netflix marathon, it doesn’t matter, you’re still enough.

It doesn’t matter how you feel all feelings are okay, you’re still enough. And it is completely okay to feel whatever it is that you are feeling. We have to get to a point where we can see the world out of enoughness (I love that word, enoughness) That also means things like limiting your media consumption, for example, all these news flashes everywhere about spreading and this and that and politics and law and economics, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff! Turn that shit off! Check it maybe once a day if you’re really interested, but don’t have it flashing in your face the whole time. The same with social media, make sure that you take social media breaks, because otherwise you may go a little bit loopier than you have to during this time.

At the same time, be honest with how you are feeling, don’t sweep anything under the rug. It takes courage to face your own feelings, absolutely. But that is a part of self love, facing what you’re actually feeling. It also gives you a chance to show that authenticity that so many of us are willing to show. I think it’s probably very good for us to come a little bit more down to earth, a little more home to us, both in terms of self love, but also in terms of authenticity. So I really encourage you to feel what you’re feeling. If you want to talk about this with anyone, reach out to someone that you trust, that you love, that will hold your space for you. If you don’t really have anyone like that in your life, seek professional help because that is also very beneficial.

Let go of perfectionism

And other point is definitely let go of that darn perfectionism! Perfectionism is nothing apart from “what will people think?” Nothing has to be perfect. You show up as you (Hello! 👋) You show up authentically, courageously talk about your feelings, talk about what’s happening in your life right now. Perfectionism is just a fake shield against some kind of perceived criticism. It’s not worth your time or your effort to try to be perfect. Just be you. You are enough. Remember, you are enough!

Check in on your self talk. Are you talking to yourself like you’re an idiot? Or are you talking to yourself, like you’re talking to someone you love? That is where we have to get to. It is the ultimate ultimate showing of self love is to be able to talk to yourself in a positive and kind way. And I’m telling you, yes, it’s not some kind of easy fix. It’s not easy to do this. This is a daily routine that you have to get going with (or you don’t have to, but I invite you), to be kinder to yourself. It’s also important, I think, not to shut down in a crisis like this. Dare to feel these feelings, don’t bottle them up like I said before. If you’re anything like me, you know, they’re gonna explode somewhere else!

Positivity is a choice

Remember that positivity is a choice. Try to stay positive throughout this. Not just in terms of this, to sound like a cliche, not at all, but this is your entire outlook on life. And this is really a mindset shift from sort of, “oh, blah, blah, blah, why me I can’t do anything” to, you know, seeing the positive sides of life. This is called a growth mindset. Positivity is a choice, and it is also the greatest lesson you can learn for life. Try to see things a little bit more positively. If you can’t see the whole situation positively, try to see bits of it a little bit more positively.

Get creative, whether that’s painting, whether that’s journaling, whether that’s doodling, recording yourself singing (or actually just singing and then recording yourself singing), whether that’s making funny videos online. Or whether that is dancing to your favourite song – get creative. Get out of that, you know, very intentional, very thoughtful mindset. Let let go a little bit and I will promise you that you will feel better about yourself very soon.

You can also ask yourself what can I learn from this? Every crisis comes with a little bit of a lesson or learning or something that we can improve and I think there’s a whole lot of things we can improve in life right now, if we want to, or that life will improve for us a little bit later. This is also part of the growth mindset! This is where your mindset can grow so that you can interpret things in a different way. This, in turn, can lead you to create a purpose for yourself, if you haven’t find found your why yet. Your progress is still progress, even if it’s very, very slow. You can slow down as slow as you want, or you can speed up as fast as you want. It’s only your own race, you’re not competing against anyone. Don’t compare with anyone, just what can you learn from this crisis.

Gratitude is Self Love

I think something that it’s very important to acknowledge in these times is gratitude. And that goes together with the point of staying positive. as well as being enough. There are always, always, always things to be grateful for and to show gratitude for. That’s why I find it very, very important to, for example, meditate regularly. You can do that with apps, you can do that on YouTube, you can do that just in silence or with some soundscape. Meditation can really help you organise your gratitude a bit better.

Then another question to ask yourself is what can you control in the situation? It doesn’t matter if you can’t control the whole situation (because no one can no one knows what we’re handling, no one knows how this is gonna play out, and no one knows what’s happening next.) But what can you control in the situation? Perhaps it is your reactions? Perhaps it is to nourish your body properly? Perhaps it is to hydrate your body properly? Start from small things like that. They all add up so that you feel more in control of yourself and your own situation. How about today, you think about all the things you are, instead of what you are not. Think of all the beautiful, wonderful things that you are, stay positive, you are enough and what can you control and look after it.

Then, look how far you’ve come. Look at the person that got into this, well not chosen, but this forced mess about two months ago. Who was that person? Worried, perhaps stressed out, running between meetings, crazily stressing around everywhere? And now we’ve had the time to breathe and relax, and perhaps even make a few plans for the future? It depends. But ask yourself how far have you come just through these past few weeks?

Make sure that you build up your community, or a community at least, join a community. If you have the right people around you and surround yourself with the right people, you can also get the right support for you. That’s really important, I find, because we’re not alone in this. We’re all in the same boat, so to speak, and we can really help each other. So find a community that supports you.

And then almost the most important one, after you’re enough is; be kind to yourself. Make sure that you know that you are a priority. This connects connects the mind and the body to engage in something else instead of news flashes everywhere. And especially if you haven’t turned them off yet (which you really should)!

Make sure that you celebrate the smallest of things. And it’s not easy to find them sometimes, but if you really look, as I said, there’s always something to be thankful for. So celebrate the smallest of successes.

And then another super, super, super duper important one is forgiveness. Forgive both yourself for whatever perceived shit that you think you’ve caused, whether it is in this crisis, or in the past, or currently or whatever, forgive yourself and others. We’re all going through a really difficult time. This was the thing that made me realise that I needed to revisit self love on a deeper level. I realised that I have a lot of my past self to give a little bit more credit for than I have so far. So this is my version of self love right now; I give myself credit for past achievements and things that I’ve done before. I also found this quote that was fantastic:

“You got to learn to love yourself. It’s the realest love you can get.”

And how true is that? No one can love you as fiercely and as fantastically as you can, yourself. And if you keep on dwelling on and badgering yourself for past mistakes, it won’t help you grow at all it. It will diminish you and your personality. So make sure that you are able to give yourself some well deserved credit for stuff that you’ve achieved in the past!

If you want to get deeper into this, I have three books and one documentary and that I suggest that you check out. The first one is a book called “The Art of Extreme Self Care” by Cheryl Richardson, it’s fantastic. You can learn a little bit more about different ways of showing yourself self love, and setting boundaries and all these things that are so important for us.

The second one, and I really love this book. It is my favourite fictional book, it’s “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho. It is a fantastic little look into what magic is out there and it switches your brain off from “fact fact fact fact fact” to something else.

My third recommendation is actually a book by Marie Forleo, “Everything is Figureoutable” , because, well, it is. So also during difficult times, and self love during difficult times is also figureoutable. It’s not hopeless. I promise. You can definitely definitely do it.

And if you anyways are surfing Netflix these days, how about you check out “The Call to Courage” with Brené Brown. It’s fantastic and also goes along with these sort of notes that I’ve been giving you today.

What is your favourite tip of going a little bit deeper in terms of self love? Share with me below and I’ll be happy to chat with you there!

Disclaimer

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