The art of Self-Love!

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."— Oscar Wilde

The definition of self-love is different to different people. To some, it is just a word. To some, it is being self-absorbed, but to me it is everything. If it wasn't for self-love I wouldn't be writing this blog and you guys wouldn't be reading it now. People often ask me why I love myself so much. I just smile whenever I hear that question. Some think it is weird. Some think it is not necessary. But I always believe that self-love is what keeps me going no matter what comes my way. Every time I thought of giving up on my life, It was self-love that brought me back. It is what gave me hope to live and it continues to give me hope. Now when I say self-love you might ask me what is self love? 

Self-love is that abode where you feel safe,  where you can meet the real you,  where you can be yourself and hold yourself tight and never let go of your hand in every situation. We humans go through lots of ups and downs in life. Sometimes we win,  sometimes we lose. Sometimes we feel happy,  sometimes we feel sad. Sometimes we feel over the top while sometimes we feel low and depressed. It happens to everyone at every stage of life. 

Sometimes you get into situations where you don't know what to do or how to react. Sometimes you may like the things that happen in your life and sometimes your life can be out of your control. That moment when your life is out of your control you don't know how to process it. At first, you will be in denial. Then you will think why it happened to you. Because you might have dreamt of something, you imagined your future with someone, you wanted your future to be exactly the way you planned it. But something happened out of nowhere and you now might feel that the whole world is against you. It's the pain that often changes you as a person when you hit rock bottom and makes you go through sleepless and lonely nights. All you have to do is accept the situation and move forward from it. 

Pain can be self-destructive at times. The silence that follows pain,  the loneliness that follows it can kill a person from inside. Nobody wants to go through the pain, but it's the only way to process the loss. It's the only way to process the grief.  Without pain, one never knows the beauty of life.  Without losing something one doesn't know the value of having something. But one has to know how to navigate through the pain and loss. Now you can think that there are therapists,  friends and family that can help you and bring you out of the darkness. Yes, people help you. But you should be ready to take that help. They can help you only when you want to be healed. That feeling should always come from inside of you. Some people often reject help because they have been living in pain for years and they don't want that feeling to leave them. Sometimes they get so hurt that they start fearing what might happen when they start their life afresh all over again,  what if they lose it all again? And some accept their fate and think that their life is not gonna change ever again. This is the stage where self-love helps. 

If you have self-love inside you, it will never let you give up. It never allows you to accept defeat. It never allows you to stop at a point in life where there is no comeback. I always believe that falling in love is okay,  losing that love is okay, and going through the pain is okay. But what is not okay is living in darkness where there is no room for light,  embracing the pain where there is no space for happiness. Some even get scared of happiness. They think what if they lose all this happiness when they lose the person they love or when they lose their money or job? They are scared because they see their happiness in someone else. They see their happiness in materialistic things. But they don't see that happiness inside them. We usually do that. As humans we fall in love with someone,  we get married,  we get promoted on the job, and we want to earn more money and everyone has their plans and commitments. But in the process of achieving all that we are forgetting to take care of ourselves. And when you forget yourself and start seeing your worth through the things you have or you hold, that's when your soul starts to become unhappy and unsettled. 

It doesn't matter what you do, where you come from or how much money you make. When you don't love yourself. When you don't keep yourself happy then you are nothing.  Your money,  your job, and your relationships are just a part of your life. Not the entire you. Everything has its own space in your life, so as your dreams, desires, needs and emotions. When you don't keep them separate,  when you keep everything in one place in your heart, that's when everything falls apart. I call it a domino effect. Our mundane life is designed in a way that everything is interconnected. Our job affects our personal life and professional lives. Our personal lives affect our professional lives and social lives. Our financial life affects our personal, professional and social lives. It's unavoidable. But amid all this chaos you can find peace when you keep your mind and heart healthy and happy. 

Now if you ask me why mental health is important. Then I would say it is very important. If your mind is not healthy if you are in pain or trauma. It affects your body. And when you don't acknowledge that pain and trauma that will turn into a depression. And when you don't treat that depression for a longer time it will turn into insomnia and eating disorders. The lack of sleeplessness and eating disorders will cause overweight and underweight problems, slowly that pain will spread into your muscles, and you can feel tired, and disinterested in everything you do which will affect your work life. And when your work life is disturbed that affects everything that is connected to you. You might push away people because you are so overburdened and that can affect your personal life. Trying to drink away your problems, shopping away the pain and overspending the money can affect your financial life too. This is why it is crucial to keep your mind happy. 

You have to nurture your mind every day with positive thoughts. When you water a seed it grows into a beautiful plant. In the same way, when you water your mind every day with positive thoughts, you will see positivity in everything around you. If you are positive that you are capable enough to build your life anywhere in the world you will not be unhappy if you fail in any exams or interviews. If you are positive enough to know that you can love a person and take care of them just like how you take care of yourself,  and never let go of them no matter what happens,  then you won't have feelings of being unloved when someone rejects you. And if you are positive enough to know that after every night, there is a new dawn,  after every sadness there will be happiness and after every loss there will be gain,  then you will never lose the hope of falling in love again after you lose someone. We are humans, bad things happen to us and it is not in our control. But how we navigate through them is in our hands. 

Let me give you an example. Imagine you woke up in the morning and you didn't like your coffee or there was more salt in breakfast. Now you will yell at your partner or your mother for making that coffee and breakfast in a bad way. And you will carry that feeling with you while closing the door behind you. Then your neighbour greets you,  but you don't greet them, now he feels bad and is not gonna greet you again. Then a beggar comes to you at a signal and asks you for money, you will not give him money and make him feel awkward with your cold stares. Then your office security greets you,  you will not greet him back. That makes him feel low about himself. And then when you reach your desk and if some application doesn't run properly, it pisses you off. Then some colleague of yours will come to you to help you or your boss will give you a deadline. Then you become more stressed and yell at your friends who ask you what happened, and of course, you lose friends when you yell at them. Then someone hits your car from behind and you will go and fight with them on the road. So the problem here is not your mother,  not your partner,  not your breakfast,  not your neighbour, not the beggar,  not the security guy,  not your system,  not your friends,  not the stranger on the road. It was you all along. Just because you started your day in a bad mood,  just because you didn't like something in the way you expected and wanted you ruined the day of many other people and they went and ruined the day of some other people. It's a chain reaction. When someone yells at us we go and yell at someone else. Remember the domino effect. But if you had a peaceful mind and if you had started your day with a smile. Then the story would be different. That is the power of positivity. And a positive approach comes from self-love. It is a reflection of what you think what you do and how you treat yourself. You become more empathetic when you love yourself. You can't love anyone when you don't love yourself. You will treat others with more compassion and kindness. Always look for how to solve a crisis,  not to think why or how it happened. 

If you wake up the same morning with positive thinking and if you spend time for self-care like going for a walk and soaking under the sun walking through serene gardens and meditating under the trees. You will feel rejuvenated and feel alive. Your heart will fill with gratitude and happiness. And so your day goes in a happy mode. If I were in your shoes I would take time for self-care,  I would go for a walk,  I would try to cook my breakfast if I didn't like what was prepared,  Or I would grab something on the way. I would greet everyone with a smile that comes my way. And I would try to finish my work on time and have a good time with my friends or I would make reels. Then I would forgive the guy who hit my car and would go home happily to my partner. That's life. That is how it should be. One has to enjoy every second of their life. 

Always know that the world never remembers the question,  it will always remember your answer. Let me make it simple for you. You are going through a tough phase in your life,  imagine that life throws a problem as a question at you. You are in distress because of it and instead of trying to accept it and move away from it,  you get stalled by the pain and want to give up everything in life,  imagine that as your answer. So do you want the world to remember you as someone who gives up easily? Never give up on anything easily. Even if you fail 99 times, still go and try for the 100th time. Because, all that matters is the effort you're putting into something,  not the result. So you will never give up when you know what you are capable of doing. That confidence comes to you when you love yourself and know your worth. 

Every one of you must be busy running the day-to-day errands,  but you can make time for yourself from your busy schedule to pamper yourself with good food, by getting dressed up in your favourite dress, and doing workouts to keep your body fit and healthy. You can read books to keep your mind calm and imagine the story in your mind palace. You can help someone who's in need and make them happy. You can watch a sitcom and laugh your heart out. You can go out on weekends,  do the things you love and long forgotten ones. These are the little efforts everyone should make to keep their soul healthy. Remember a healthy soul is a healthy mind,  a healthy mind is a healthy body. A healthy body is a healthy lifestyle. I'm not asking you to go out and do a herculean task. I'm just asking you to love yourself. That's the least you can do for yourself. When you love yourself no matter who loves you, or who leaves you. You will always stand strong even when you are in a crowd and when you are alone. You will always come back stronger no matter how many times you fall. Just like how the Phoenix bird rises out of its ashes every time it burns. So be a phoenix. And it happens only and only through self-love. 

Love and light, 

©Author Queeny Yalangi.