Self-Care = Self-Love

Background Photo by Bart LaRue on Unsplash

Hello my loyal readers! I hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day weekend. Can you believe we are more than halfway through this month already?

If you have been following me on the Instagram page, then you know every monday this month I have been sharing a self-love quote.

To me Self-Care and Self-Love go hand and hand.

Over the past few years it has been something I have grown passionate about, especially as I continue to find ways to better love and take care of myself on a daily basis.

Since my blog began I have always had the mission of helping others take better care of themselves, so they really can be the best version they can be.

In this post I really wanted to share some of my overall thoughts of self-care, and thoughts I have been meditating on a lot lately in regards to it.

Self-Care is for Everyone

For years we have been hearing about the importance of Self-Care. We have heard about the necessity of it for our health, the many ways you can practice it, and why we should do it.

Lately though I feel like I have been seeing more people saying “self-care is important if you are a _______.”

wife

husband

partner

parent

supervisor

sibling

daugher

son

public service worker

and it goes on.

Its as if we do not feel important or of value until we have a “role” seen as important. Like we do not need to invest time in ourselves until we are in a role that demands us to do so, or we hit a breaking point in life where we have to put ourselves first.

“Whatever happened to feeling important because you are human. To feeling valued by not only society standards but our own.”

You do not need special permission, circumstance, or a “role” to play to be of value, because being a human is value enough.

It all comes back to Self-Love

Self-Care and choosing to practice it is a choice to love yourself over others.

This concept is HARD.

We feel selfish for choosing ourselves over our loved ones. We feel guilty and bad for putting our needs before others.

It is important though that we value ourselves just as much as we value the ones we love.

Imagine your loved one getting into a vehicle with all kinds of things wrong with it. There are doors missing, low and bald tires, cracked windshield, check engine light on, etc.

You would feel bad for not maintaining that vehicle for them right?

Now, think of yourself as the vehicle in this example. This is the version of you when you are not maintaining and taking care of yourself. You can not provide a safe and reliable space to help your loved one get to where they need to go.

“By putting energy, time, love, and care into ourselves, we are better able to have that love flow to the ones we love.”

This was a concept I did not really learn until I hit my own rock bottom after graduate school that I talked about in The Journey Home Series.

Realizing you are of value and equally as important as those you care about helps you be your best self for them.

Let your role for others motivate you, but let your own self-love keep you going

I think and believe that having “roles” by society and personal standards can be a great motivator when it comes to self-care.

When I decided to tend to my mental and emotional health by going to counseling, because I was having a hard time in my role as a girlfriend, my now fiancé is who motivated and inspired me to get the help I needed.

Wanting to better myself in my relationship got me into the door when it came to seeking out a mental health counselor. However, wanting to become my best self, and to love myself more, is what has kept me going to sessions for almost two years.

“There is nothing wrong with the “role” you play in life motivating you to take care of yourself. To keep yourself going though you have to learn to love and care for yourself first.”

I hope this post inspired you to see the importance of taking care of yourself, and that it motivated you to start your own journey towards self-care and self-love.

I am looking forward to diving more into this topic and discussing it more in the future, and helping all of you obtain it in your daily life.

Until next time,