How do you love yourself? By Taylor Baez, MA
This Valentine’s Day season, how much energy did you spend on thinking about how to show your love to someone? How many times did you Google ideas for a pandemic-safe shared experience? How much time did you spend thinking about how your special someone receives love, what they find enjoyable, and what your favorite memories or traditions have been together? Now, regardless of whether you celebrated this year Valentine’s Day or Galentine’s Day or Singles Awareness Day – have you ever spent this same time and energy on showing yourself love too? If your reaction to this question was confusion, shock, a long pause or drawing a blank, you’re not alone. Self-love is not readily taught or modeled for us.
If you are still drawing a blank on what your self-love language is, a good place to start is with your love language of how you receive love from others, whether it be romantic or platonic relationships. You can take the official love language quiz to start. You may have one really strong result or a couple that are tied for the strongest.
Taking this quiz is a great opportunity for couples, friends, or families to learn about each other and make small changes to how they show their love to each other. How radical would it be to do this for yourself? To learn how to make small changes to your self-care, your self-talk, and to your self-love? I encourage you to start doing one thing every day purely for your own needs. Here’s some starting ideas for you to build one, starting with a Valentine’s gift for yourself!
Physical Touch: be in tune with your body
Find a youtube yoga video that feels great for your body
Buy bedding or clothes that are comfortable for your skin
Words of Affirmation: speak lovingly to yourself
Name one thing you are proud of yourself for
Keep a gratitude journal or jar
Acts of Service: show kindness to yourself
Schedule that appointment you’ve been putting off
Meal prep your breakfast the night before
Receiving Gifts: treat yo’ self
Buy that thing that you want but don’t need
Create your own music playlists
Quality Time: avoid distractions and be present in the moment
Schedule alone time or hobby time
Play your favorite music album and only listen to it’s words, rhythm, and the emotions it stirs up
If you’re curious and wanting to explore yourself more, Taylor is available for traditional therapy, brief therapy, and Prepare & Enrich premarital counseling. She also recently wrote this cool piece about mental health and Hamilton.