Recently, I found myself in a funk that made me question my abilities, my desires, and my future. I was feeling a bit defeated and like God wasn’t hearing my prayers, even though I was being as clear as day about what I wanted and what I believed I “deserved”. With Valentines day right around the corner, I always get in a very reflective mood, and quickly go over how I’m feeling about my self love and the current state, of my love life. It allows me to reevaluate the things I know my heart yearns for, and the ways i’d love to evolve as an individual and eventually with a partner.
Whether you are boo’d up, or single, Valentines Day usually brings out the best or bitter in people. I can I admit that regardless of how positive I believe myself to be, when Valentines Day rolls around, there’s a pang of sadness and pessimism in my spirit as I watch couples, doing cute activities, and posting the gifts they’ve received from bae flood my timelines.
After receiving a beautiful assortment of flowers from someone I love today, it really brightened my day after a trying weekend. The flowers complemented my room and added more beauty to my living space. I felt so much joy and it was an instant mood booster. It got me to thinking about how I should do things like buy flowers, for myself. I don’t need to wait for others to put a smile on my face when I can do that for me first. Often I think we get caught up in the mainstream idea of what self care, and self love looks like (doing face-masks, taking bubble baths, listening to music) but I think the act of loving yourself can look like anything you want it to.
Self-care and self love are for you to define. For some that may mean creating beautiful art, buying yourself a piece of cake, doing your make up, exercising, reading, making yourself a cup of tea. It varies, and that’s what makes the act so special and rewarding for each individual. And what’s even more special is that it doesn’t have to involve anyone else. So moving forward, my new mantra will be “Buy yourself flowers” which translates to “treat yourself”. I used to believe that treating myself was selfish, not in the budget, or that I don't deserve to treat myself because I could’ve worked harder at something, but now treating myself feels like I’m saying “I love you” to me. Treating myself for me means cooking a meal that allows for creativity, taking pictures of things that are beautiful, buying books, and treating myself to a deep condition under a heating cap.
I read recently that indulging and doing something nice for yourself, is an act of grounding. Grounding in spirituality means being aware of your physical body and presence on earth. Below you will find a few ways in which being grounded can make such a difference to our everyday life: (via Mojan)
• Brings life in to matter and to be able to bring our healing abilities into the physical.
• Increases balance and stability in our physical and our emotional state.
• Helps bring acceptance that we are here to fulfil a purpose.
• Brings strength.
• Helps in creating a bridge between Spirit and matter.
• Provides an outlet making the release (of energy) easier.
• Allows the attainment of higher Spiritual levels.
It’s the little things we do, daily, weekly, monthly to show ourselves that we care about ourselves, and we all deserve only the best, most delicious things life has to offer us.
JAHMILA SMITH
Contributing Writer & PrettiPassionate Member