Today I’m not writing to you as an expert. I don’t have tips up my sleeve or an abundance of pretty quotes to share. I’m writing to you as a traveling companion. I’m writing to you as someone who’s walking side-by-side with you on the journey as we learn to more lovingly care for ourselves, our communities, and our interconnected planet.
I don’t know the ultimate truth about self-love.
What I do know is that self-love is no less complicated and messy than any other love relationship you might have in this lifetime.
Love is more than a feeling. It’s more than the rush of infatuation or attraction, more than the closeness of intimacy, more than the pain that can come from losing someone we’re close to.
Love is a path that we choose to walk each day—regardless of the emotions that come up or the external challenges we face. Love is a practice that we return to again and again. It is never finished, and, perhaps, never perfect.
Self-love doesn’t always look like massaging coconut oil into your skin while reciting mantras about how lovely & deserving you are. It doesn’t always look like smiling at yourself in the mirror because you like what you see. It might not look like green juice & green veggies, or a daily yoga practice, or falling asleep at night with the deep sense that everything’s ok.
The real practice of self-love is the commitment not to abandon yourself—even when things get hard. Especially then.
Sometimes, self love is asking for help. Sometimes self-love is admitting that you’re in over your head, or that you don’t feel good. Sometimes the self-loving thing to do is to eat a cookie or question your impulse to go on that “new year’s cleanse.”
At the heart, a practice of self-love means showing up for yourself and getting your needs met. It also means being willing to recognize when you can’t do that on your own and doing what it takes to get the support you need.
I don’t have a magic formula for self-love, but I do know that it’s not dependent on your feelings or your self-opinion. You can practice self-love no matter how you feel, just like you can practice love for a friend even when they’re getting on your nerves.
No matter how you feel, you can practice self-love by offering yourself good food, regular sleep, and movement that feels good to your body. No matter how you feel, you can ask for help.
No matter how you feel, you deserve the faithful, loving friendship of the one person who will be with you all your life—-you.
