Hello Babes,
Valentine’s Day has just passed and love is in the air, right!?
Hopefully you saved some love for yourself. Valentine’s Day is more than just celebrating relationships with boys (or girls), it’s about celebrating friendships and the relationship with yourself. Why not use this hallmark holiday as an excuse to spread even more love and positivity!?
In light of the day, I wanted to share why I think it is important to make room for self-love in your own life.
When you look up the word self-love, words like selfish and narcissism come up as related words. However, this is so far from the truth. Self-love can become a conceited thing if done incorrectly, but in modern day, I see self-love as a method of self-care. There is so much perfection and unrealistic expectations around us, self-care is needed to survive. When you neglect your own well-being, you can become very negative and even feel sick at times.
People have asked me how I am so confident or how I feel so comfortable in my own skin, and to be honest, it’s not something that just happened one day. It took a very long time for me to build up my own self-esteem. As I mentioned, it’s not easy in our current digital world. On top of that factor, I was also dealing with the norms of the cheer world…aka tiny humans. It was definitely a struggle to get to where I am today, and even now, I am not always just super confident in myself.
My point is that self-love and confidence has to come from within. No one around you can fix that for you, they can help and be supportive but they will never change your perspective. That being said, self-love starts with your perspective. You can have the hottest body and all the assets you dream of, but if you still look at yourself in a negative way, you won’t actually ever feel confident. Some of the most confident people aren’t models or movie stars, they’re just average ol’ people. Actually, all these famous people you may be looking up to are some of the most insecure people.
How to make room for self-love?
So, if you want to be more confident and feel more comfortable in your own skin, you need to make room for self-love in your life. It’s great to be selfless from time to time, and help out all your friends, but don’t forget to look after yourself too.
In order to make room for this self-love, you have to start by changing your current perspective. You have to speak kindly to yourself. You have to want to change and make time for yourself. I have so many people text me and ask for advice about this stuff, then I share all my tips and quotes but a few weeks later they still feel down about the same things. If you’re not ready to change for yourself, you won’t change at all.
Once again, it has to come from within. Nobody can make you more confident in yourself but you.
You must realize that you have to care less about being perfect, and more about being happy and healthy. You also have to stop trying to conform your personality to please others, just shamelessly be yourself. By doing this, you actually will begin to attract people who are more like you. Just be confident in all that you’re doing, and you will begin to see a change in your mood and a change in the people around you. Being confident and loving yourself goes beyond body image.
Lastly, to make time for self-love, you must literally find time to do things for yourself. Whether that be going to a weekly yoga class, reading for one hour a day or taking a nap; making time for yourself is important to your mental health. Taking this time can actually help you confidence as well.
When you’re 20-something, you shouldn’t be trying to conform your personality or spending time hating yourself. I mean you should never do that, but this decade of your life is about growth and discovery. You need to allow yourself to fully blossom and fully live your life in order to learn your direction and learn “who you are.” If you live your life for others, you may never be happy.
I don’t want you guys to think I am this selfish person because I always share this stuff. My family, friends and boyfriend are very important to me. However, I understand that if I do not love myself or I do not make time for myself, they will suffer. If I cannot love myself or If I do not know my own worth, how can I ask someone else to love me. If I do not take care of myself, my anxiety and stress is way worse and my overthinking is killer. And I’ll say it, that just makes me no fun and overly complicated. Ain’t nobody got time for that!
I plan to create a whole post on the topic of being in a relationship and keeping self-love on your priority list. Stay tuned for that!
Thank you for reading PYM today! If you ever have specific questions about me or my posts, please feel free to comment or email me. I’d love to meet and chat!
xo, Lyss
