What is Self Love?
Self love is completely accepting, respecting and loving yourself while treating yourself with kindness, grace and prioritizing your mental, emotional and spiritual health on a daily basis. Not only just through your actions, but also through the thoughts and feelings you feel about yourself and being intentional about maintaining a positive view of who you are.
Being intentional and practicing self love doesn’t mean we will not have challenging days where we are upset, ashamed, frustrated and just want to give up. It means that even during those times, we are giving ourselves grace and love. Self love being the center of our core allows us to not punish ourselves when something goes wrong or we make a mistake. It allows us to take a breather and get up and try again. Building our self love muscle {in Lisa Nichols voice} allows us to set the baseline for how we require treatment from others, what we allow and don’t allow, how we manage our mental health, and how we set boundaries.
Self love is keeping the promises and commitments you make with yourself. Not allowing circumstances to cause you to create excuses as to why you can not do what you said. When we make a plan to workout 3x a week, are we keeping that commitment? when we create a health plan and intentions about what we will eat or not, are we keeping it? If we can not keep the commitment and promise we make to ourselves, then how can we require that from others.
As Black women we feel we have to be so strong and care for everyone else, But this is our time. But before we continue on reading I also have a visual of what self love looks like for me. In this video, the setup is more like a POD/Vlog set up where I take you on my mindset and what is helping me get back to Jasmine. What is helping me with self love and truly loving who I am and who I am evolving into. Connecting back to you
How does practicing Self Love show up?
What is that saying?! ” You feel good, you look good” or is it ” You look good, you feel good, and you attract good” whatever it is, how ever you want to switch it around, both goes hand and hand. With Self love, Are we setting time aside to work on our mental, emotional and spiritual health through therapy, being honest about where we are in life and where we desire to be, praying to God to give us clarity, meditation to be still and gain perespective
Are we setting aside time, being intentional and committed to a health plan to improve our physical health through making sure we are eating what gives our bodies life, drinking our juices, drinking our smoothies, drinking our water, taking our supplements, etc. What about the workout/moving our body plan? are we being intentional about how much we workout out.
How do we know when our self love muscle is getting stronger? When we set boundaries that speaks to the life and person we desire, when we prioritize our mental health over just having someone near us who doesn’t deserve access, when we no longer feel guilty for saying no to things we do not want to do, and when we become intentional and committed to our own healing whether its through prayer, therapy, stillness, meditation, journaling, or whatever else that gives you that alone time to practice self love.
Where to Even start with Self Love
The easiest beginning point for me every time I have fallen off of my self love lifestyle, and yes I have fallen off and it is ok. As long as we get back up and try again until it becomes like breathing, and if we miss a step it literally feels like we can’t function because it is like we can not breath. So back to where to even start, I say the easiest beginning point is Physical health, what should I consume? what workouts interest me?
Self love in Mental health. Does therapy interest me? buying a journal to just write down your thoughts, Reading to broaden your mind and help you with action steps, going for walks just to clear and free your mind to allow in clarity, creating a vision board to allow your dream life to always stare you in the face, surrounding yourself with people who pour into you, who speaks life into you, and who is on the same journey as you or came through already.
Self love in Emotional and spiritual health. How are we healing overall? using prayer for healing, asking God to take the wheel, order our steps and guide us through healing the traumas of life, heal us through the parts of us that seek people who is not sent by Him, Give us the clarity on what is his calling on our life, For God to be the center of our life and we surrender all of our worries and concerns.
Setting boundaries is self love and connects to our Mental, Emotional and spiritual health. Boundaries teaches people how to treat us but after we set boundaries with ourselves. Boundaries allows us to gage who deserves access to us and who does not. Girl! it is time for us to heal
So, what are some things we can do
Taking care of what I consume on a daily basis with my food and what I drink, commitment and boundaries is apart of my self love. Juicing is something that I came across about 4/5 years ago and I have fallen off so many times, but I always remember how good it makes me feel. So now I am very intentional about juicing if not everyday, AT LEAST 5 days out of the week, and I can say I only skipped 1 day during the week with juicing, since I started a two months ago.
I bulk juice for 3 days, to save time during the week. Juicing has numerous benefits like possibly helping with inflammation, blood pressure, cholesterol, hydration and detoxing. And my favorite juice to make as pictured below is celery, cucumber, green apple and ginger juice. And according to google, which I follow is that you should consume the juice on an empty stomach to allow all of the nutrients and benefits to actually do its job.
After I juice and drink that, I then go to the gym. Well, I make it to the gym when I can being a mommy who baby stays home with her. But on a perfect day, I will juice and then go to the gym to burn calories, building muscle while staying soft, and freeing my mind through pushing my body. The gym can be intimidating, especially if its your first time or first time in a while, but listen! everyone has had a first time before. I like to go through IG and look at other women who has workout routines and take from here and take from there.
One of the women I love to pull from is Joie Chavis and whomever else I come across. I like to create a workout list broken down by, warm up, and any particular sets I would like to hit. As seen below, I gave an example of what one of my notes in my phone looks like. So that way I go into the gym with a plan, because momma does not have time to waste, thinking about things to do
I then make sure I drink my smoothie that I bulk make for 3 days. My smoothie contains, spinach, frozen fruit, sometimes green apple, avocado, peanut butter, banana and water. Then the day I am working out I add my protein powder, but if I do not go to the gym I have my smoothie minus the protein powder but still after my juice. We are about healing from the inside out!
I then once a month go to a infrared sauna. I first was introduced to infrared sauna from my roommate from college. She owns her own business surrounding healing and creating peace and stillness through sound bowl therapy, and reiki, along with other services of crystals bracelets and necklaces called universoulcrystal. Infrared sauna is a sauna that also uses different light options that benefits skin detox, mood improvement, can improve blood flow, can improve inflammation, helps with muscle soreness after workout and other amazing benefits.
When I say I Love doing the sauna, I can honestly say after I get out, it makes me feel re-energized, my skin feels smooth and clean, and my mood is just lifted. And I always do the sauna after I work out and I NEVER feel soreness the next day. There are two options, either 30 mins or an hour, which girl I can not do an hour. And you are able to do it by yourself, which I do or with someone.
I like to bring a journal and a book to read, but honestly I may get through about 6/7 pages because its so hot and I also just want to free my mind and just pray and talk to God or just Be. In the room as seen in the picture, you get a rob, extra towels, slippers and a blue tooth to play what you like.
I like to bring body wash, wash cloth and my own slippers so I can take a shower before I leave, because they also provide a shower! yes girl, trust me just go. To see a live view of the sauna if you may want to visit, I have a YouTube video and IG Reel.
To wrap up our intentional practice of Self Love
we spoke about eating what will make us feel good and give us the nutrition we need. Creating a workout plan, sticking to it and doing at least one activity a month that gives you time to yourself. We have to give ourselves love before we can require from anyone else, so pick yourself up and let’s get to it! Now I am not saying these steps are the end all be all to conquering our mental health, because it is complex, but it is a start.
I didn’t speak about the books I read, the women I listen to that speaks to the journey I am on, the meditation podcast I listen to, the part of the Bible I am in, but that break down will be in my next post. I want to make sure I have all of my notes, so I do not miss anything.
Black woman I Love you, I love us. We are DOPE and we deserve all of what the world, universe and GOD has to offer
Love, Jasmine
