“Loving Me is the Right Thing To Do”

(No, you pervert!)

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. Did you get to love yourself and your neighbour? Or did you bitch and moan about the price of a long-stemmed rose and some shitty chocolates?

In my newsletter at the beginning of this month, I set the following challenge:

From tomorrow morning onward, get out of bed with the intention of finding Love for, or in something for that day. Open your eyes to the possibility of finding the Love in a situation, a person or a thing. Just one thing per day. Then make a note of it in your diary, your journal or a piece of paper and reflect on it for a few moments.

How is it going with that? Nobody has given me any uphill or shit about the challenge, so I am assuming you are all airy-fairy happy and content?

For those of you who have accepted the challenge, I think it is okay to say that enough time has now passed. Time to move on to something deeper; something closer to home: Where are we on this self-love thing? How much thought have you given it, if at all? In all honesty, you are supposed to be practicing it, not just thinking about it.

What is Self-Love?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Self-love, defined as “love of self” or “regard for one’s own happiness or advantage”, has been conceptualized both as a basic human necessity and as a moral flaw, akin to vanity and selfishness, synonymous with amour propre, conceitedness, egotism, narcissism, et al. However, throughout the centuries self-love has adopted a more positive connotation through pride parades, Self Respect Movement, self-love protests, the hippie era, the New Age feminist movement as well as the increase in mental health awareness that promotes self-love as intrinsic to self-help and support groups working to prevent substance abuse and suicide.

In January’s blog article (LINK) I wrote about zoning out – something you can do whenever you need to rearrange the braincells in your head. I consider this an important activity and sits right up there on the list of self-love activities. Hell, as I’m writing this I have to admit that I have not allowed myself time to zone out for around three or four weeks now. And I can feel it! Just this morning I thought to myself I really, really must make time for a time-out for myself.

I still have not scheduled it!

Give me two seconds, I’ll be right back…

Okay, that was easy: turns out I have two days off in a row next week, so I grabbed a pen and I put that fucker down in writing! When I get a chance to take one whole day to myself, I refer to it as my “Mental Health Day”. The company that Elford works for gives their employees a day or two per month that they can take off from work when they are feeling stressed. And they actually refer to it as a “Mental Health Day”, so I adopted it for myself.

These “Mental Health Days” are important, people! You could be saving someone else’s life by having one every week. Think about it: if I did not take a MHD to zone out and chillax my balls, I’d most likely be taking it out on someone who (probably) deserves it. But years ago I started taking a dislike in the idea of me being a bitch, because a bitch is just a mean and bitter person who brags about it.

I know what you are going to say: sometimes you need to be the villain, and I totally agree. I just do not think it is necessary to TRY and be the villain; just let it happen naturally in the right place and the right time.

Now that we understand the concept, I think it is now time to work it!

Go sit in front of your calendar and look at the rest of your week ahead. If you have a full-time job, work around it or find a way to move things around if you can. What is YOUR mental health worth to YOU? Fuck your boss and your colleagues, you need this!

Somewhere in the back I hear someone whimper that nobody else will do the work; that if they are not there, nothing gets done or it all goes to pot the minute they turn their backs. Well, Dahlin’! Maybe it is time to ask yourself who are you doing it for: for yourself, or for your reputation? Because I guarantee you if you knew how you are depriving another of an experience by doing their job and your job and the other person’s job, you would stop it immediately.

The rest of this month is Valentine’s Day for yourself. Love it, love you, love the world.