Embracing Self Love
Content Courtesy of the Forever Young Podcast with Christiana Egi and Cherrie-Marie Chiu.
Self love is the root in which we care for our mental, emotional and physical health. Self love means loving all aspects of yourself, including your flaws, weaknesses and all the other small things you may not accept or like about yourself. For many people, self care and self love are often at the bottom of their priority list. We have been taught that caring for ourselves and prioritising your own needs is selfish, and that instead we should be prioritising the needs of others. But in reality, practising self love doesn’t make you selfish or narcissistic, in fact it makes you caring and compassionate, as it means you understand your worth, and won’t settle for less than you deserve. Embracing self love often just means projecting the same amount of care and love towards yourself as you do towards others. We have been told from a young age to be empathetic, to treat others how you want to be treated. Self care is a practice that can lead you to even more self love over a period of time. Self love will not happen overnight, and is something that you definitely have to slowly work on. Today we will be discussing some ways that we can embrace self.
Listening to our bodies & our minds
Christiana and Cherrie emphasises the importance of starting your day right. A daily routine and schedule is a great way to practice self love. Make sure to fit in daily exercise. Drinking water and staying hydrated is a prime way to keep your body happy and healthy. We often get swept up in work and school, and forget to take some time for ourselves. Taking daily me time is crucial to self love as “me time”, is time where you prioritise yourself. Christiana explains that me time before bed is a great way to calm your mind and body, and help you relax and rejuvenate after a long day. Some examples of me time can include reading, meditating, journaling, and yoga.
Embracing self love when you’re a perfectionists
Self love is most important for busy, hard working individuals as they tend to be their own biggest critic. Hard workers have high expectations of themselves because they are constantly striving for perfection, which can often result in emotional turmoil and lots of stress. Christiana explains that although she constantly strives for perfection, she allows herself to make mistakes because she is always able to learn from them.
She emphasises that staying calm in stressful situations and overall just going with the flow is the easiest way to practice self love. Don’t react too quickly in stressful situations. Instead we should give ourselves time to calm down. We should be able to understand that sometimes things just don’t go as planned and it is important to not take things out on yourself. Overall we should let go of perfectionism and take things in stride. At the end of the day, nothing is more important than your own wellbeing. Make sure to make time to relax with the people you love. As Chrisitana says, laughter is the best medicine! Christiana suggests that laughing when you are stressed out can instantly improve your mood.
Self Improvement
So what can we take away from all of this? Treating others with kindness and compassion is key to self love. Treating yourself with kindness is crucial to loving yourself and others.
When you are a giver it is often hard to focus on giving to yourself, so it is crucial that we learn to set limits and boundaries. We need to listen to ourselves. It is crucial that we listen to our emotions and bodies in order to be the healthiest versions of ourselves. We should show the same amount of love and compassion towards ourselves as we do others. Just like any relationship, practising self love takes time, patience and commitment, but it is definitely something we need to prioritise.
*The Forever Young podcast is created and produced by Christiana and Cherrie Marie Chiu. Produced and engineered by Elisse Hill. The podcast represents our opinions and those of our guests. The content should not be taken as medical advice. It is for informational purposes only. Please consult your health care professional for any medical questions. If you like our show, please tell your friends and leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. New episodes are available every other Wednesday. Have questions? Email us at ourforeveryoungpodcast@gmail.com
