Be Your Own Valentine

Whether you’re in a relationship or not, this applies to you. My former life coach and now friend once posed the question .. how do you like to show love towards yourself?

We’ve all heard of love languages and this concept has now become a part of our relationship dialect. What’s interesting is how we often focus on how we like to be loved by others or how we like to show love to others, but rarely how we like to be loved by ourselves. Hear me out, when was the last time you thought about this?

What are the Love Languages?

1. Physical touch 
2. Quality Time 
3. Acts of service 
4. Words of affirmation 
5. Gifts

Considering the consumerist market realised there’s money to be made in self development, the term ‘self-care’ has blown up recently. I understand for a lot of people the term is now an annoyance and feels like a gimmick but I will always stand by the notion that taking care of yourself is one piece of the puzzle that is living well. The thing is we start to assume that self care means bubble baths and face masks yet that will not apply to everyone. 

So think about it, what do you need from yourself to feel loved? Is it alone time doing your thing, motivational words that fill you with hope, showing up for yourself, rewarding yourself? etc.. Here’s some ideas of how your could speak these love languages to yourself. 

Physical touch 

• Massage 
• Moisturise your full body 
• Hug yourself (feels weird and awkward at first but just close your eyes relax and let go of the weirdness, trust me) 
• Self love if you know what I mean ;) 

Quality Time 

• Solo date
• Cook yourself a nice meal 
• Having regular time to spend alone (not including on the toilet) even if just for 10 mins for a walk or meditation for example
• Read a book/magazine/ newspaper/ whatevs

Acts of service 

• Write 3 none negotiable tasks for a set time and complete them.
• Set boundaries in your life with anything causing a decline in your wellbeing

Words of affirmation 

• Speaking affirmations to yourself (mirror is optional) 
• Write a list of your strengths/ things you like about yourself 
• Putting inspirational words on post it notes around your space

Gifts

• Buy yourself a gift, doesn’t have to be material could be a gym membership, trip to the sauna or whatever it is you like

Self love will not cure mental illness or trauma or fix the world, but I can tell you from experience it makes it a lot easier to show up every day as your best self and is one step towards healing the negative relationship that so many of us have/had. It is so easy to get caught up in the chaos of life and sometimes rely on others to meet those needs we're often not even conscious of. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with meeting those needs individually. 

Your self is the one thing in this world you're guaranteed to have forever. Take care of it.