Another Like Me: Path to Self Love (2021)

Happy New Year to all our readers! I pray you have a prosperous year and may you be kind and patient with yourself on your journey. Speaking of kindness, what have you done lately for your emotional, physical, and spiritual health? This is the time of year where we dare to venture intonew projects and personal goals, whether it’s launching a new business, weightloss, reducing emotionally unhealthy or toxic people and situations, or even opening your heart to receiving new love. The new year usually has a way to breathe new life and hope into many of our lives, but this year 2021 is going to be different. I still believe where there is hope, faith, and work you can achieve the goals you set for yourself.he point of it all is to try. So, I believe the first step in having a positive outlook is to detox your mind or what I like to call "getting your mental house in order". So I wanted to emphasize on self-love and touch on how self-care plays into growing a more positive relationship with yourself.

• #SelfLove: Give the same affection and effort you give to others to yourself. Date yourself! Go on adventures that you always wanted to go on. There's science to an “Eat, Love, Pray” journey. Don’t wait for others to go to your favorite restaurant, museum, or trip; always travel with caution when traveling by yourself. I say take a staycation to test the waters, maybe an hour or two away can make a world of a difference. Also, for this upcoming Valentine's day get yourself some flowers and takeout or cooking an exquisite meal for one! You're all the party you need and I recommend pairing it with a comedy or your favorite show.

• #SelfLove: Identify what characteristics you like about yourself, then improve on others. Be attracted, inspired, aspire to being optimistic. People often tend to focus on what they don’t want, pet peeves, and deal breakers. But when will you be able to see what you do want if you're busy with the negatives. I’m not saying throw caution to the wind but a good way to attract healthy individuals is to open your eyes more to spot the great attributes rather than process of elimination -- bond on what you like in common and not the differences.

• #SelfCare: Forgive, and start the healing process to stop perpetuating childhood/adult traumas in your relationships. PTSD is real, get therapy. I didn’t realize I had serious abandonment issues until I literally had a mini-breakdown 3 years ago. But I wish I didn’t wait till the fumes and the engine light was on. I was being kind to myself or selecting the appropriate relationships because I didn’t take time to reassure myself of my worth to properly communicate and set boundaries in relationships. When you don’t establish a mental foundation of not relying on others to bring you joy, you may fall into situations that quickly burn you out and leave you empty. Fill yourself up with love, before freely giving it to others to protect your peace. Time will reveal if they themselves healed from their traumas, so be mentally aware and communicate or even exit if necessary when you see a red flag. This goes for friendships and romantic relationships.

• #SelfCare: Create a daily Health or Beauty regime. Something that I started to do this year is to incorporate flexibility exercises and meditation. It's a goal of mine to be flexible enough to do a split, still ain’t there yet. But I look forward to the little time I take out to stretch for 15 minutes and the other to sit in light meditation. It's a peaceful offering you provide yourself by being still and present in a moment. Turning off your mind intrinsically helps bring you closer to clarity. For beauty, I love a good manicure and pedicure plus eyebrows. There’s nothing like being pampered but you can also do this at home by taking care of your skin. If you have serious skin issues it is best to start off with a reputable esthetician to give you guidance on how you can naturally glow up.

Finally, when you love and care for yourself it shows and others will follow suit. You have to dress and “be” the person you want to be addressed as. I add the “be'' part because loving yourself is not a costume/clothing or a linear journey it's an everyday effort. Dressing the part definitely helps but you can still be broken inside if you don’t know how you’d like to be treated or you treat yourself negatively. You create the blueprint on how you want to be treated. If you like quality time, then spend time doing activities that challenge you or make you learn something new about yourself. Like I learned I love badminton but I suck at kayaking and will never do it again. Or when I learned to stop buying trends and crafting a signature wardrobe that was more classic feminine and I worked on being minimalist my closet needs to be decluttered.

Take the time to make space for the glow up and the new love you’ll be receiving because you’ll be giving that tender, loving, and care all 365 this year. Comment down below on activities you like to do to treat yourself.