Self-love is intentionally taking care of your spiritual, emotional and physical needs when they come up and not waiting for an emergency to pay attention to yourself. It is treating yourself with compassion, and giving yourself permission to relieve any emotional or physical pain that’s preventing you from enjoying your life.
Here are a few tips self-care that will get you started:
1. Evaluate your current level of self-care by looking at how often you drink water, eat healthy foods, and move your body. Don’t forget about your emotional and mental health either. Ask yourself how you handle stress. Do you “press your way through” when you know you need to take a break? Do you freely express all of your feelings or do you suppress them? Do you turn to unhealthy coping strategies or do you have a plan in place to reach out for help when you need it? And have you clearly identified the people in your life who make your problems worse versus the people who listen to you without judgement?
2. Dedicate one day out of the week as “self-care day.” Saturdays and Sundays work great for this.You may need to baby-step your way to dedicating an entire day to yourself if you’re used to saying “yes” to other people and packing your calendar with things you feel obligated to do.
3. Make a list of all of the things that feed your spirit and make an appointment in your calendar to do them at least once per month.
4. Schedule joy breaks throughout your day. You may practice deep breathing for 2 minutes, listen to a guided meditation for 5 minutes, color in an adult coloring book for 15 minutes, or dance to your favorite iTunes playlist for 30 minutes.
5. Learn to say No. In fact, make it a priority to say “no” to requests to your time, energy and resources twice as much as you say yes!
BMWK
