Filing Your Cup with SELF-LOVE
When I set out to start this new blog series, it was not my intention to make February's edition to be centered around love. I guess it was in the divine plan and it worked out that way. Since there are so many of us (Yes Hunny, me too) in a season of singleness, why not take the time to talk about how we can put self on a pedestal and show others without a doubt how to love us. So with that being said, let's fill our cups with self-love.
- NaKeisha J. Dawkins
"How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you"
-Rupi Kaur
Self-love, is a term that is usually paired with self-care but what exactly is self-love? How do we ensure we are actively filling our cups with self-love? How does regularly implementing self-love into your life impact your mental health? Let's dive in!
What is Self-Love?
Our trusted dictionary Merriam-Webster defines self-love as (a). An appreciation of one's own worth and virtue. (b) Proper regard for and attention to one's own happiness or well-being (c). Inflated love or pride in oneself. No matter which definition you choose to go with there are some key takeaways or words that stand out.
Appreciation: being grateful, identifying and enjoying the good qualities of someone or something
Worth: the level that someone or something deserves to be valued or rated
Happiness/well-being: being comfortable, happy, healthy
Love: intense feeling of affection
Self-love is essentially taking ownership of actions and tasks that support growth in the physical, psychological, spiritual, and professional areas of your life.
I would encourage you to check to see if you have an opportunity to up your self-love a notch by using the four key takeaways as a baseline to ask yourself questions.
Are you seeing your cup half full vs half empty?
Are you valuing yourself the way you should?
Is your comfort a priority or others?
Are you people pleasing?
Are you constantly contributing to your happiness or emotionally drained?
When you look in the mirror do you give yourself butterflies (Whew, now that just got me and I wrote it. Baby, give yourself butterflies)?
Let's jump into how we can start making some changes to show ourselves a little bit more love. In the words of the late great Luther Vandross, there is never too much!
Filling Your Cup with Self-love
"It's not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and make your happiness a priority. It's necessary."
- Mandy Hale
The way individuals fill their cup varies from person to person. For each person those tasks may look totally different. The key is to do what makes you feel AUH-MAZING. I have done a little bit of digging to see what some recommendations are to implementing self-love just to give you a few ideas. I would definitely lean on if it feels good to you and it genuinely makes you happy then that's an act of self-love. Here are some practical examples on how you can start filling your cup with self-love.
Start you day with positive message to yourself
Eat healthy meals
Take your medication
Schedule time to work on your hobby
Relax
Stretch /workout/ walk
Pray
implement some healthy boundaries
Stay on top of your doctor appointments & mental health checks
Take yourself on a date
Whatever action you decided to implement filling your cup, I can't stress how YOU feeling good is ultimately the goal.
The Mental Health Impact
I wouldn't be me if I didn't mention how implementing self-love can impact your mental health. What we are learning is, when you feed your body and mind with positivity and happiness you mind is free of heavy burdens. This does not mean that when you have hard times there won't possibly be a temporary change in your mental health, but you overall mental health will be more stable. The goal is to surround yourself with the right thoughts and plans to handle bumps in the road so that when the road takes a right turn you'll be able to handle it in such a way that you take the lesson, the detour, the season in stride and remain resilient .
As always if you cup is not running over in self-love, just remember it's only half full and not half empty.
Join me next month we will be filling out cups with BOUNDARIES