During February we will celebrate many different facets of love. The love of good food (Melita’s favorite!), showing love for our planet, love of community and one we often overlook, self-love.
It is easy to get distracted by the voices in our head and the pressures of society. Often, our core confidence suffers from internal negativity. If we actually think about the things we say to ourselves, it can be pretty terrible. We would never hang around another person who said those things to us. You are enough, just the way you are right now. This blog is not about how to change anything monumental in your day-to-day, it is a love note to you…a reminder that you are worthy, wherever you are on your journey.
Acceptance
Ponder the idea of taking a moment in the day to accept you, just as you are right now. Find something that you appreciate about yourself. Sitting in traffic? Give yourself a compliment. Waiting in line at the store? Pat yourself on the back for something you did that day. What’s missing from these two scenarios? Your PHONE! Leave the scrolling of other people’s lives behind for a few minutes a day and focus on what is positive in YOUR life and what is good about YOU. You’ll be amazed at what 30 seconds of inner reflection can do for your mind.
As much as it helps to focus on the positive, I’ve been working to learn acceptance of things that I am not wild about. Even if you don’t have the job that you want or the numbers on the scale aren’t what you wish, that’s okay for today. You can accept the way you are today, but still be on a journey to something different. I’ve started to learn that being negative about myself does not help me get to my goal or next destination any faster. Try a mantra like, “Today, I am enough.”
Gratitude
For myself, I sometimes have to take a deep breath and consciously be thankful for right now. Whatever the current situation may be, I can almost always find something to be thankful for. I am working on being present and not dwelling on things that I wished I’d done or didn’t do. A formal practice of gratitude has really helped me in that pursuit. A fun exercise is to write one thing down per day that you are thankful for, be it small or big, and throw the note in a jar. At the end of the month or week, go back and read those notes you wrote. You will be amazed at how small reminders of goodness can elevate your mood.
Small changes can start you on a journey to larger changes. But don’t feel like you have to jump in the deep at the beginning. No one runs a marathon without training. Consider acceptance and gratitude as pre-training for the big event of more self-love in the future.
Wishing you a LOVE filled February,
