We’ve come to the end of February, a month commonly associated with love. I’ve been working through Fearne Cotton’s Happy Journal which took love as its focus for the month and has encouraged me to reflect on love in all sorts of different ways. I also completed a challenge for Mind (the mental health charity) during February and my challenge involved going for walks with family and friends as a form of exercise, to explore more of the country, and to connect with loved ones. Doing this in February resulted in some interesting challenges with the weather, and as it was a shorter month it was definitely more of a challenge to fit five walks in to my calendar, but it was something I really enjoyed particularly as I got to spend time with people I love.
It’s fantastic to have people in your life to love, and for them to love you. Today I want to encourage you to think about the love you give to yourself.
A question sometimes used in coaching that’s often incredibly powerful in helping people identify potential next steps is:
If it was your friend in this situation, what advice would you offer?
I’ve experienced the power of this question when I’ve received coaching and when I’m coaching others. Often thinking about things in this way enables us to have a clearer view of things.
This has been intriguing me; if we can do this for our friends, could we do it for ourselves?
What would it be like if we treated ourselves in a similar way to how we treat our close friends?
If I’m honest, at the moment I don’t think I can say that I truly love myself wholeheartedly and unconditionally. I have a lot of this type of love for the people in my life though, and my love continues to grow as I strengthen connections and build new ones.
Recently I’ve been starting to give myself some of that love, and it feels fantastic. I tend to appreciate love through quality time and words of affirmation; these are my two highest preferences when I’ve completed the 5 languages of love quiz – you can take it for yourself at: http://www.5lovelanguages.com.
To show myself some love therefore I’ve been setting aside time and space to do the things I enjoy (with no other distractions), and I’ve been giving myself compliments, both in my self-talk and recording them in my monthly ‘feel good’ list in my bullet journal. Slowly but surely, I’m starting to learn to love myself in a more similar way to how I love my family and friends. It’s definitely having a positive impact both on myself and those around me.
What can *you* do in the next week to show yourself some love? ❤
This is taken from my February newsletter – if you’d like to subscribe to receive monthly newsletters with articles, self-discovery, and links to my latest blog posts you can subscribe here.
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