Hello Dearest REM community,
It’s February! The season for love and we’re sure that you are going to do your very best to share your love with those you care about this Valentine’s day. We want to share the love with you this Valentine’s day as well. So, here’s something that we would love for you to consider; How are you treating you these days?
Did you know that there is a direct relationship between your sense of happiness and wellbeing and the way that you treat yourself? There was once a time when I thought that self love meant buying a good conditioner or springing for a good restaurant every now and then. All the while, being unkind to myself when I made a mistake or bullying myself into doing things that I didn’t really want to do. Then I discovered self care and self love are not the same. As it turned out, I was pretty unhappy. (Go figure!)
You see, your nervous system can respond to your own criticism and disparaging self-talk, just like another person might. As if you had someone else following you around saying mean things to you all of the time, your body doesn’t know the difference. Going on this way often increases things like anxiety and depression. Can you remember the way your body felt the last time someone was nasty to you? Can you compare that to the way your body feels when you are not nice to you?
Okay, so maybe you could be a little nicer to yourself. How might you start? Think for a moment on who is the person (or animal) that you love the most in this world? How do you treat them? How do you talk to them, especially when they’re having a hard time? Now, reflect for a moment on the difference between how you talk to them and how you talk to yourself? If it’s not the same Start here :)
When it was pointed out to me that I had some room to grow in the self love area, I have to admit that I was skeptical. I thought that self love was the same as self centered. Turns out there’s a pretty big difference. Then I started to pay more attention and there really was a pretty big difference between the way I treated the people that I loved and the way that I treated myself. So I decided I should try it out. I did, and as I practiced (it felt weird at first) I noticed that I did become calmer and more self assured. I began to sleep better and was able to accomplish things that I never thought possible.
The point is, self love comes with some wonderful things, all of which we want for you. If you read this and feel that you’ve already got a pretty good handle on self love, keep it up! If you read this and felt a pang, or started to feel stressed, or even started to gripe at yourself, there’s a pretty good chance that you might really benefit from some self love. Why not start today? It all begins with paying attention to the way you treat you and making sure there’s more love in there.
