How do I love thee… let me count the ways

How do I love thee…. let me count the ways

We love others but do we genuinely love ourselves? We are taught to Love our parents and loved ones and we are taught to be loved but do we really love ourselves?
We spend many hours, weeks, days, months, and years taking care of others, taking care of our job, taking care of our bank account, taking care of our house and many more things are on this list; but we spend so little time loving ourselves. You can’t really love another human being the way they need to be loved if you’re not loving yourself first.
There are so many ways to love yourself.
You can look at your beauty rather than your flaws and focus on that and not be so hard on yourself , you can feed yourself good nutrition, you can sleep well, you can exercise… there are so many things that you can do to take care of your physical body so that you are healthy and around for those people that you love and who love you.
You can love yourself by allowing yourself to make mistakes and learn and grow by those mistakes.
You can love yourself by paying attention to your spiritual health, being Mindful and present in each moment
You can love yourself by eliminating the toxicity from your life, from your mind. And that includes people in your social circle who you know are not good for you.
You can love yourself by setting boundaries and not allowing people to treat you badly or take advantage of you.
You can love yourself by being passionate about the things that you love and embracing those things.
You can love yourself by creating balance in your life and not giving so much of yourself to one thing or one person that it leaves little of yourself left.
On this Valentine’s Day love yourself first. Don’t be sucked in by the commercialism of this day and creating unrealistic expectations. If you have a husband / wife, boyfriend / girlfriend, partner let them see your true value, let them see how you love yourself and they will in turn love you as well.
Keeping things simple can sometimes be the best way of showing love. How stressful is it when you have to worry so much about what is going to happen on Valentine’s Day, standing in a line at a restaurant, spending extraordinary money on flowers etc. Or expecting someone to do that for you.
Wouldn’t it be better to have a simple day with the person you love, maybe having a nice quiet dinner together, watching a movie, going for a walk; or maybe this is not at all what you want; maybe you do want extravagance and you deserve extravagance! These are all individual choices so what I’m trying to say is don’t complicate things and put more stress on yourself. Enjoy the day and every day and most of all love yourself.
I spent today loving myself. Getting a massage nourishing my body with good nutrition, going to the gym and will spend the evening with my daughter who I love very much having a nice dinner, playing games and watching a movie.
Happy Valentines Day everyone!