Self love.
For many years of my life, I associated self love with being selfish. Loving your self is actually one of the most selfless things you can do, or least selfish depending on how you look at it!
Taking time for you and investing in yourself and your hopes, dreams and goals not only improves and builds upon your self worth that this tired negative world is constantly trying to "steal" from, but it improves your relationships with others around you. Yes...taking care of you can help you be a better parent, friend, partner, sibling, co-worker, etc.
Raise your hand if you like hanging out with a chronic complainer? A miserable stressed out impatient, negative person? I still don't see your hand. Wanna know why? Because it isn't fun filling someone else's cup ALL THE TIME when you have to keep some "life water" in your own cups. The successful give and take in all things in life requires balance.
My biggest hurdle was (and is) guilt. Feeling guilty about taking alone time to catch up on a favorite show, letting the laundry build up and the dishes go undone, leaving the phone behind, sometimes just doing nothing, and the biggest "guilt strike" is me saying no.
"No, I can't" is hard for an overachiever like myself to say (aren't we all trying to over achieve on something?). I have this fear of missing out on things, fear of not belonging and the ultimate fear of letting people down.
"Get over it, Tiffany" I finally said to myself in the mirror. "Stop trying to save the world, and attempting to be the saver to others and start saving yourself."
These are some steps that I am taking (and continually taking) as I am a beautiful work in progress:
1. Make a list of what you want your life to look like. If that is too overwhelming, then ask yourself what you want your year, month, week or even day, to look like.
2. Look around - what can you purge? How can you simplify? Having too much stuff can actually contribute to our anxieties and distract us from what is truly important.
3. Go off the grid once in a while. Sure, it can be fun to post about where you are, what you're eating, who you are with but sometimes it's pretty cool just to chill with yourself or friends/family without going all social media crazy.
4. We all got crap. All of us. Don't judge other people's crap and don't allow someone else's judgement of your crap get to you. Love you and all your flaws.
5. Create a playlist of songs that lift you up, that get you in a successful growth mindset. Play it when things are quiet and your mind tends to travel to places it shouldn't go. (I call those places doubtville, self-sabotageville, regretville or one of my personal favorites, toomuchdramaville.)
6. Don't wrestle with your past. One can compare it to wrestling with a ghost...you can swipe at it but it isn't going to make one bit of difference. Learn from mistakes, take the good and move forward. Sounds super cliche but it's not an easy task.
7. And lastly, retrain your brain. Look at yourself in the mirror and pick out 5, 10, 15 things you love about you, your mind and your body. Build on that list often and take note. Create a self-love gratitude journal, maybe?
That's all for now.
As I write while looking out the passenger window at the cars going by, traveling from one place to another, I am pensive...thinking about what lies ahead, trying my best to enjoy the ride and admire the reflection staring back at me in the side view mirror.
