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How your love language helps in having a better self love routine
My Struggle to Self Love
I remember starring at my coach and asking
“But how do I practice loving myself more?” and she responded “Do the things you love.”
Do the things I love? This was a difficult one for me because as far as I can remember I have loved doing things for others and with others so how do I do the things I love on my own? What do I love to do? This was the next question I asked myself. I got home from the session and went straight on
to the web to find self love routines and boy were the results vague and presumptuous. That set me on a quest to really find out how and what to do when I had my self love days. I started making lists of the things I loved to do for and with others and believe me I developed a system for finding our what I personally love to do and could do for me that had nothing to do with shopping sprees or spa dates.
This was half way through my discovery of what self love meant to me, yes it is a personal thing for each and everyone of us and that is where knowing your love language comes in. The five love languages according to Dr Gary Chapman are Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Physical Touch, Gifts and Acts of Service. We normally would consider these more in romantic relationships in order to understand our partners, however I discovered that we tend to shower others with our love language. Yes, have you ever wondered why you feel drained when in a crowd of good friends doing too many things at once even tough you like to spend time with them but very happy when you are sharing quality time with just one of them? Or why you feel dissatisfied when you love keeping your surroundings tidy and would love to have your partner do it once without you asking?
Why Understanding Your Love Language Helps You build a Better Self Love Routine.
Your love language might be quality time or acts of service and knowing this helps a lot as well when practicing self love. You can take the test on Dr Chapman’s website for what your predominant love language(s) is and you can have two that rank very high and close that’s ok.
The point here is understanding what your love language is will help you figure out what you love to do and plan this into you self love routine without feeling that you are not doing it right.
I personally have two dominant love languages but I enjoy a bit of the others as well. Below I will give an example of how I incorporate each of these into my self love routine on my “Me-days” with the love language in mind on a low budget.
Words of Affirmation
Words of Affirmation: I start my day with devotion, meditation and journaling and in my meditation I focus on self love meditation or loving kindness meditations and then journaling about things I am grateful for abut myself. I will pick a mantra to focus on during the day and affirm this to myself all day through.
Your self love routine and journey is a personal thing and so you define what the elements are and should be.
Acts of Service
Acts of Service – On my “Me-day” I’d tidy up my living space bedroom, change the sheets of the bed, cook something lovely and nutritious and bake a dessert to go with it. Then I will set a table for myself and create a date night atmosphere for me to enjoy my evening.
Quality Time
Quality time – before my dinner, I will either go out for a long quiet walk, sometimes I take my journal so I can sit and journal or draw myself a bath if I haven’t gone for a walk, once again create an atmosphere of love with lit candles, soft music or whatever puts you in the mod of love and snack up for a good 20-30 minutes. Or it doesn’t need to be any of the above just as long as you spend some time with yourself and enjoying it.
Gifts
Gifts: I love flowers so I make sure to buy whatever is in season when I go grocery shopping or I can also decide to get myself something new at the supermarket that I want to try, it can be a new chocolate bar, drink, wine whatever that you can buy for yourself that isn’t a necessity.
Physical Touch
Physical Touch: Either right after my soak or before retiring to bed I will give my face a massage or any part of my body – that I can reach – that feels tight a massage, a stretch and sometimes the a self hug.
What if I don’t enjoy all this girly stuff ?
You might enjoy some of these more than others or none actually and these examples might not be for everyone but it’s just to show how knowing your love language can help you have a more enriching self love routine.
Your self love routine and journey is a personal thing and so you define what the elements are and should be.
Knowing and understanding what lights your heart even when you experience it alone is vital in nurturing yourself.
If you’re interested in knowing how to determine what you truly love to do according to my system do get in touch.
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