self-love: ON VALENTINES DAY & everyday

As most people know February 14 is Valentine's day. 

When most people think of Valentines day they automatically associate it with romantic relationships, flowers, chocolates, fancy dinners etc. This can be great (but doesn’t need to happen only on February 14). This tradition can cause those of us who are not in significant romantic relationships to feel upset, disappointed, insecure etc. It can also result in people feeling left out.  But it doesn’t have to be that way. 

I personally associate Valentines day with LOVE. I would like you to take a minute to reflect upon 5 things you love. Please write down your top 5.    
 
Once you have created your list, break it down into themes. Are these material possessions? Hobbies? Memories? People/relationships?

What about yourself?      Did you include yourself on that list?
 
When I do this exercise with my clients, very few of them include themselves in their list-even when I ask them to expand it to 10 or 20 things they love!

Does that mean that they don’t love themselves? Not necessarily. It may just mean that they think about it in a different context.  
 
Let me explain. Many of us are taught about the importance of maintaining positive relationships with our friends and family members, but we are not taught about the importance of the relationship that we have with ourselves. The relationship we have with ourselves truly is the most important and stable relationships that we will ever have!

Here is why it is so important and priceless! Regardless of where we are in life, who we are with, what we are doing...we always have ourselves and always will. But many people don’t realize it.  

This is where SELF-LOVE comes in!

Self-love essentially means loving yourself! This involves treating yourself with kindness and compassion; appreciating everything that you do; forgiving yourself; honoring yourself!
 
How can we improve our self-love?

We can start by increasing our awareness to our current relationship with ourselves, and following these steps:

1. Engage in Positive Self-Talk
   How do you treat yourself? How do you talk to yourself? Chances are that you talk to yourself differently than you would your best friend, colleague or partner. Chances are that you are more critical and judgmental of yourself than others. Changes are that you might not even be aware of this. Many of us are very compassionate to our friends, family members and even strangers. However, when it comes to ourselves we aren’t so nice. Once we recognize and acknowledge this, we can begin to replace some of the negative self-talk (I am so stupid, I made such a bad mistake) with positive self-talk (I can do this, I tried my best). As a result, our mood, energy and behaviours will improve!
   
   
2. Focus on your Strengths and Accomplishments
   We know that our brains have a negative attribution bias. This means that if I were to tell anyone 9 positive comments and 1 negative comment (regardless of the order), they are most likely to remember the 1 negative comment. Similarly, it is probably easier to remember the 3 mistakes you made yesterday, as opposed to the 3 things you did well. But we are going to change this! Yes, we want to acknowledge our mistakes and learn from them, but it is also importance that we recognize our strengths and accomplishments.  You can do this by keeping a record of your daily/weekly/monthly strengths and accomplishments. Writing it down is very useful because you can refer to them if you experience self-doubts in the future!
   
   
3. Compliment Yourself & Say “Thank You” When you Receive a Compliment
   This step can be particularly challenging for many people. It is easy for us to be very highly critical of ourselves and put ourselves down. It can be hard to give ourselves a compliment. But just like anything else in life, it gets easier once we start doing it, it gets easier and we are creating a new habit! When we receive a compliment from others, our automatic reaction can be  “BUT” and we try to argue; sometimes even convince the other people that they’re wrong (BUT today I dressed up; or BUT you’re just saying that)…instead stop, take a breath, smile and say “thank you”.
   
   
4. Reward/Treat Yourself  
   Do something you enjoy! Reward yourself with something that makes you happy and something that you enjoy. You can treat yourself with your favourite food, a massage, a bubble bath, your favourite movie, a night out, some quiet time   etc
   

Valentine's day is the perfect day to remind yourself of all the people, places and things that you love. It's also a great reminder to continue (or start) focusing and honouring yourself. Start practicing the steps listed above, to help increase your SELF-LOVE. Continue practicing this everyday!