With Valentine’s day coming up, there is plenty of focus around love, particularly romantic love. While it’s certainly an extremely special time of the year, I think that more attention needs to be given to the most important kind of love: Self-love. To me, the term ‘self-love’ means accepting and appreciating every part of you, including both your assets & flaws. While we all have goals to grow and develop, self-love also means being content with where you are currently are at.
Especially as we live in a generation that thrives on giving people reasons to feel like they are not ‘thin enough’, ‘rich enough’ or ‘good enough’, being able to truly love yourself at every step along the journey is now more important than ever. Self-love forms the foundation of your single, most important relationship – that with yourself. The strength of all your other relationships is exactly equal to the strength of that foundation. Whether it’s with your boss, partner, friend, colleague, the way you feel about yourself sets the tone of the treatment and energy that you receive from others.
While the idea of loving yourself might seem selfish and narcissistic on face value, the truth is far from. If anything, fostering a solid sense of self-love is the first step to wellness and more importantly, the first step towards being able to love and take care of others. If you’ve travelled and stayed awake for the first 20 minutes of the flight, chances are you’ve seen the health & safety demonstration. In case of emergency, we’re advised to put on our own oxygen masks first, before helping a child do the same. This is primarily because if you’ve passed out due to lack of oxygen, you’re of absolutely no help to anyone else. The same applies to daily life. If you don’t regularly focus on becoming the best version of yourself, it’s almost impossible to show up in a way for others that can positively serve them. As the cliché goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup.
In the past year, I’ve really focused on self-love and doing things that help it grow. While that doesn’t mean that I’m now immune to bad days, my bounce back rate is far quicker. In the process, I can truly say that I’m happier, more energized, my mind is clearer and I am at my healthiest. Most importantly, that desire to be there for those around me is stronger than ever before. As I experience these benefits, I want other females to realize how powerful self-love is and how it truly transcends into every area of our life. If you are in Mumbai this weekend, I would love for you to attend the Fill Your Cup workshop that I’m hosting along with my friend and owner of The Yoga House Lamya Arsiwala.
It’s a 2-hour workshop whereby Lamya will be teaching a one-hour heart-opening yoga sequence and then I’ll be giving an interactive talk on how to strengthen that feeling of self-love every single day. Details are above, but feel free to comment or email me (click the mail icon at the top left) any queries. And of course, please share this with anyone who you think would be interested.
I’d love to hear your thoughts/experiences with self-love.
i love your analogy on safety demo on plane…soo freaking true. we really take self-care for granted but its been my area of focus since last year and i feel like im a better person.
Love this! That workshop sounds like such an amazing event!
I agree that self-love is so important and its something I really need to work on since I bring myself down a lot. The workshop sounds lovely. Wish it was closer home.