As we all know, Valentine’s Day is typically known for being a celebration of love. However, in the Greek culture, there are eight different kinds of love; philia (friendship), eros (passionate), pragma (mature), ludus (child-like), agape (universal), storge (familial), mania (addictive), and philautia (self-love). Every type of love is important, relevant, and needed to live a happy life. Most of them come with no effort and, oftentimes, we develop certain kinds of love without even intending to. Philautia, self-love, however, is a little bit different. Self-love does not have to be a complicated and complex process that includes an insane amount of effort. Rather, practicing self-love can be very simple. Self-love is all about being patient with yourself, giving yourself room to make mistakes, and loving your faults. As Valentine’s Day approaches, it is important to show ourselves some extra love.
- Take yourself on a date
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This does not have to be a fancy, expensive date. It can be as simple as making yourself a sandwich and salad, buying a bouquet of flowers, and taking yourself on a picnic. Play some relaxing music and enjoy the moment.
- Be patient with yourself
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Some people set a word of the year to focus and work on throughout every year. This year mine was patience. Having patience for myself has done wonders for my self-love and value. Whenever I make a mistake, I simply take a deep breath and allow myself to be patient. The same rule goes for when something inconvenient happens in my life. I allow myself to be patient and understand that life will work out one way or another. Patience has brought me such peace and balance in my life.
- Give yourself room to grow
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Every year, even every day, we grow, develop, and mature. Sometimes this growth is easy. But most times, this growth is a painful, difficult, and almost annoying process to go through. Most of our growth is from making mistakes and finding our way through difficult times in our lives. The fastest way to grow is to not get irritated with ourselves but learn from our mistakes and pain.
- Allow yourself to feel pain
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In the past, I have always tried to push down the sadness and anger that I would feel when going through a difficult time. Rather than this making the pain going away, this made the pain silently grow and fester. All the emotion would show up later and I would end up in an even worse place. The solution? Feeling the pain and emotion the first time around. Regardless of how hard this may be, you end up getting over the pain and being able to move on much sooner.
- Give yourself time to relax
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Working hard is always an important quality. However, you can’t work hard if you are overworked. You can’t forget to give yourself time to relax and reset so your body and mind do not get overwhelmed. This way you can start the week with a peaceful and rested headspace.
- Practice affirmations
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Practicing affirmations is a small act that offers great results. Affirmations can grow your confidence and self-worth. This can be as simple as writing down what you deserve and what you are worth in a notebook once a week.
- Learn to love your insecurities
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Every single person has insecurities. No matter how confident someone may seem to be, everyone is insecure about one thing or another. Insecurities are human nature and nothing to be embarrassed about. Your insecurities are also nothing that should be hidden. Often, you are the only person that notices your insecurities is you. Learning to love your insecurities because they are part of what makes you who you are is a critical step. It takes effort, practice, and requires a lot of patience to sustain. Without healthy self-love, no other love can reach its full potential and be as deep as it can be.
Self-love is often looked over and forgotten about. We get so caught up in trying to love other people that we forget to love ourselves.
- Try to find inner peace
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I never truly understood the importance of inner peace until I genuinely made an effort to find my own inner peace. I’ve noticed that having inner peace helps me reduce my overall anxiety, increase my general enjoyment of life, and I can think more thoroughly and logically about tough decisions with the absence of anxiety.
- Surround yourself with people who make you happy
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This is by far the most important part of taking care of yourself. Surrounding yourself with people who make you happy will, of course, lead to a happier life, better mental health, and improved self-care.
- Treat yourself every once in a while
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It’s true that money can’t buy happiness. But buying yourself a little something now and then sure as hell won’t make you sad. Don’t go too crazy and buy something that will hurt you financially, but something small that will make you happy every once and a while is needed sometimes.
- Try to have a positive outlook
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Our elementary school teachers may have sounded cheesy when they told us to always have a growth mindset, but they were right. It makes a difference to focus on the good things instead of the bad when it comes to tough situations.
- Understand that success does not come without failure
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We have all seen the overnight-successes that happen every blue moon, but these overnight-successes are not overnight at all. All success comes with hard work, tenacity, and yes, failure too. The only difference between successful people and people who have failed is that the successful people chose to get up after falling while the others simply stayed down. So rather than expecting to have an easy-breezy success story, expect to fail now and then, just never forget to get back up.
- Always find ways to learn from your mistakes
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It is so easy to get bummed out about your mistakes and let them keep you down. But a better way to go about addressing hard times is to ask yourself what you can learn from them. Not only does this helps you find something positive to be grateful for, but it also helps you get out of the rut that mistakes cause sooner.
- Know your worth and don’t settle for less than you deserve
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THIS. This is the most important thing that you can do for yourself. When you do not know your self-worth, you settle for people who treat you like dirt and you feel that there is nothing you can do about it. But you deserve more than that. It is so critical to not just know your self-worth, but you must also never settle for less. These two things will help you walk out of toxic situations and really receive the good treatment that you deserve.