Self Love

 When my alarm went off at 5 am, I wanted to ignore it and get another hour of sleep. I came up with wonderful reasons why I deserved/needed/ had to have another hour of sleep. I caught myself when I equated an extra hour of sleep as an expression of self love.

Getting up at 5am to write, meditate and then exercise is an expressions of self love. Committing to my morning routine, especially on the days I don't want to, expands my self love.


The media is infiltrated with mantras and how to posts on achieving self love.

Buy yourself flowers.
Take long bubble baths.
Say loving things to yourself.
Don't judge yourself.
Forgive yourself when you mess up.

 We have heard them all and they are all worthy endeavors.

However I believe, real self love happens when we do the hard thing, the thing we really don't want to do or the thing we don't believe we can do.

Self love is putting on your sneakers and getting outside for a run when all you want to do is stay in bed.
Self love is putting down the darn phone and having a real live conversation with the person in front of you. Self love is sometimes skipping the ice cream and sometimes having the ice cream.
Self love is only having one serving of the chips instead of the whole bag.
Self love is signing up for the class, the race, making the appointment or going on the date.

Showing ourselves what we are capable of  makes us grow and that is what self love is built upon.