Woman with her hands over her heart — Making time for what lights you up.

It’s February which has me thinking about love. Yes, the commercial Valentine’s Day kind of love stuff but also all the other kinds of love.

As a therapist, I actually think about love a lot. I hold space for people to talk about their relationships, their partners, their dating lives, how they want to be loved and how they can get the love that they want. Some people talk about their parents who didn’t quite know how to make them feel loved growing up, probably because their parents didn’t know how either.

I listen as people talk about how to love their kids and to make sure their kids know they love them. And how to love their brother from a distance because he can’t stay sober. Or about how much grief they feel because they lost someone that they love.

I work a lot with clients to help them love themselves too. This is a big one and it’s important. Maybe the most important. To quote Rupaul, “if you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love anybody else?”

Can I get an amen?!

Self-love is about valuing and appreciating yourself, and treating yourself with kindness. It’s about accepting your flaws and knowing your worth and what you bring to the table, not for what you do but for who you are.

Bell Hooks, in her book All About Love: New Visions says this:

“One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others. There was a time when I felt lousy about my over-forty body, saw myself as too fat, too this, or too that. Yet I fantasized about finding a lover who would give me the gift of being loved as I am. It is silly, isn't it, that I would dream of someone else offering to me the acceptance and affirmation I was withholding from myself. This was a moment when the maxim "You can never love anybody if you are unable to love yourself" made clear sense. And I add, "Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself.”

Loving yourself is a journey. Sometimes a rough and rocky one, but a worthwhile one for sure. It takes a little work and effort but a good place to start is by incorporating a healthy dose of self-compassion. Shush the inner critic and talk to yourself like you would talk to someone that you love. Quit beating yourself up and make room for your humanity.

Something I do as an act of self-love is I make room in my schedule (daily if possible) to do something that I want to do and that feels good to do (versus an obligation that I have to do). I check in with myself and think about what I could do that would feel loving or nurturing or fun.

It doesn’t have to be grand or take a lot of time. It might be sitting in my car in the driveway, listening to music, before I walk into the house. It might be finding something to watch or listen to, or texting with my funny friend because I love to laugh. If I have more time I will do something creative and make art or paint. Sometimes if I’m low on energy and time I’ll get on Pinterest and save pictures of things that I think are beautiful or pretty. Anything to get my creative juices flowing.

The point is that I intentionally make room for things that are meaningful to me, that align with my values and that fill me up on the inside. Beauty, art, music, laughter, learning, and connecting with people that I love - these give me life.

So I make time in my life for these.

Make it a daily (ish) practice for yourself. I promise it is worth the effort!