Showing Yourself Love

This February I want to take a few moments to talk about self-love for black women. Black women are often described as “strong” which in turn has many of us overextending ourselves, believing we have to do it all, and not being realistic with ourselves or others about our limitations.

When self love comes up there may be some confusion about what it means. Self love is an authentic and honest appreciation of self growing from actions which support our physical, psychological and spiritual growth. It means having a high regard for your well being and happiness; not sacrificing your well-being for others. Self-love is not settling for less than you deserve.

Finding ways to express your self-love may be challenging because of negative thoughts that may come up or fear of being seen as selfish or narcissistic. There is a big difference between selfishness and self care. Here is a quick way to check in to see if you are being selfish: Selfishness is putting your wants above others needs. While self care is putting your needs above others' wants. Self love is a form of self care. Never be afraid to take care of yourself.

Some general rules of them when it comes to the difference between narcissism is different from self love in that it focuses on the external validation of self rather than the internal validation that is experienced with self love. People with narcissistic tendencies are more concerned with how others perceive what is being done than on how it makes them feel. They also are in competition with others and need to be the best.

Now that we are clear on what self-love means, what does that actually look like? For each of us it will look different. This is not the time to get in our head and hold ourselves to someone else's standard. You know what is needed to support yourself physically, mentally, and spiritually. Here are some suggestions on ways to show yourself love:

• Take a break from self judgment: Being critical and judgmental towards yourself never gets you where you want to be. Instead be compassionate towards yourself when you make a mistake or when things don’t go as planned.

  
  

• Prioritize yourself: put the things you need to do for yourself (self care, current obligations, and appointments) on your schedule first then see what time you have left and if you want to give that time to others.

  
  

• Talk to yourself with love: Your words will become your actions. So speak what you want in your life. If you don’t love yourself then how can you expect others to do it?

  
  

• Trust yourself: You know what you like and don’t like. It isn’t necessary to defend yourself. Give yourself permission to be true to yourself.

  
  

• Set healthy boundaries: Boundaries are used to keep things we like and love safe. If you put the boundary in place you have to respect it just as much as you want others to respect it.

  
  

• Embrace and accept your weirdness: All of us have something we do that others will find weird. There are also others that are the same kind of weird. Be true to yourself and the ways you may be weird.

  
  

• Take action based on needs instead of wants: This allows you to break old patterns that were set because your behaviors were automatic responses.

  
  

Showing self love is something each of us can do. Now is the time to break the patterns and create the life we truly do want. The first step in that is to love ourselves unapologetically. Find a small action step you can take today and do it.