“To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.”
– Oscar Wilde
Some of the most powerful human experiences are to love and to feel loved. Typically we think of ‘love’ in the context of our relationships with others. Nurturing these relationships is certainly life-altering and life-enriching.
This post focuses on a different kind of love. The love that affects a life-long relationship. The love that comes from within. This post is focused self-love. The love that impacts the most important relationship we ever have.
We can choose to celebrate this relationship.
As we are in the midst of February, the month that compels us to celebrate love, I’m suggesting that we make a deliberate effort to honor self-love.
To help you do this, I’ve provided some ideas to help you nurture self-love. The prompts below redirect your attention to this highly important relationship. You can open up your journal to a blank page and write any or all of these prompts at the top of the pages. Alternately, you can take a few moments to reflect on them now. Regardless of what you do, take some time to love yourself. Here are some questions to guide you:
Three of my favorite qualities about myself are __________.
I am post proud of myself for working toward or accomplishing ___________.
Kind words that someone else has said to or about me include ________. This made me feel _________.
Kind words that I have said to or about someone else include _________. This made that person feel ___________.
I consider myself very knowledgable about or skilled in ________.
One action I have taken recently to honor myself is ________ and it made me feel _______ to do this.
One way that I can continue to show myself love is ___________.
Regardless of how you focus on all of the lovely things you can think about yourself or say to yourself or recall about yourself or feel about yourself, know that they all affect your relationship with yourself. And the tone for all of your relationships is set with your own relationship with yourself. As Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has said, “Find the love you seek, by first finding the love within yourself. Learn to rest in that place within you that is your true home.”
If you would like to continue to explore your relationship with yourself, the moment will be very soon that the first journal in the Reflections Journal Series will be available for sale! The journal, Self-reflections: A Journal for Exploration and Growth is coming in March, 2020! Please stay tuned for more details. Meanwhile if you would like to preorder a copy, please email writereflectgrow@gmail.com and indicate “preorder journal” in the subject heading.
Written with love for the power of self-love,
Marni Amsellem, Ph.D.
Founder, Write. Reflect. Grow.