Love Yourself This Valentine's Day (And How To Practice Better Self-Love)

As the middle of February rolls around, it becomes that Hallmark moment each year where we take a stand and celebrate the love that's in the air. We are either celebrating our self-love or showing our affection to someone else but it turns out that the self-love really needs to be at the centre of it all.

After the year of isolation and, in many cases, loneliness that we've gone through, let's talk about practicing self-love and learning to love yourself like your life depends on it. Because just like the oxygen mask analogy on the airplane, taking the time to show care and consideration for yourself will rise the tide on all of your relationships and the people that you surround yourself with.

What Is Self Love?

While self-love is about care and doing the things that you know support your well-being, it's also just as much about coming to terms with who you are and Braving the Wilderness as Brene Brown refers to it.

When you start to accept all your perfect imperfections, it becomes that much easier to focus on loving and supporting those around you because you recognize your own needs as well.

When we accept instead of dwell on who we are under the surface, we can start to notice more of the beauty in our lives and in our connections with others instead of getting caught up in our mistakes or sense of inadequacies.

Where To Draw Your Focus

We all know that too much focus on our own faults and flaws can spiral out of control and leads nowhere positive, even if it's often easier said than done to avoid. Dwelling on the negativity is not how we break free from that vicious cycle though. Guilt doesn't inspire change. It creates an emotional sinkhole that our mindset fixates on. Furthermore, our brains are drawn towards negative information as it alerts us to perceived threats, and so what we want to do is lean into the positivity whenever possible and with the right strategies.

First, we want to recognize this negativity bias and know that it's a perfectly natural response in all people, although as Jonathan Haidt suggests in the Happiness Hypothesis, some of us have won more of the cortical lottery in being wired for more optimism. We often blame ourselves or get caught up on things that are outside of our control and when we do this, it can be easy to feel like we've failed at something. This fixed mindset thinking though can be course corrected though by using prompts to remind ourselves to think of what's in our control or practicing gratitude to seek out more positivity in our day-to-day lives.

Mindfulness and Self-Love

Taking our focus and self-love a step further, mindfulness is one way in which we can train our brains to counter the ruminating thoughts when done correctly.

Part of the reason that mindfulness originated as a religious practice was as a way to develop the self in a way that could help to have a positive impact on the greater community. We can use Metta or loving-kindness meditation to radiate compassion to those closest to us and the wider community and single-point focus meditation can help you to become more present and train your brain to counteract that fixation on ruminating thoughts.

Connecting Deeply With Your Self

Floating makes for a great self-love date as it is a powerful way to practice mindfulness and being fully embodied in the present moment. With such a reduction in external stimulation because of the unique environment of the float tank, your sense of self dissolves into the water you are floating in and the air around you.

So whether you treat yourself to a float this Valentine's Day or bring along a loved one for the experience as well, know that you are connecting deeply with yourself and doing what's best for you to support the loved ones around you.