How do you Define LOVE?

Self-love is defined as regard for one’s own well-being and happiness. But what do you define love to yourself? What does love look for others?

I had finally finished Bridgerton ( I know I am so late on this show), but it had me muster up quite a few feelings when it came to loving myself as well as loving others. If you haven’t seen Bridgerton on Netflix yet, then let me warn you there are some spoilers in this post.

Well, if you have seen the show on Netflix, you will know about Simon, the Duke of Hastings. If you haven’t, you most likely have seen the memes or photos of him everywhere, with women swooning over him. I have to admit he is handsome (not as handsome as my hubby), but one thing I did notice about the character was how his sense of pride came from the childhood trauma he experienced. His whole childhood was focused on impressing his father and wanting to be loved by him. So when he didn’t receive love, he started to eliminate any forms of love in his life including promising he would never marry nor have heirs.

Not only was he way too prideful, but he also learned that he didn’t deserve to be loved since his own father could not love him. So when he finally started to understand that he was actually in love with Daphne, he felt unworthy of her love and thought it would be best that not marry.

Part of Simon’s story really made me feel emotional. It reminded me of a time, not too long ago when my trauma affected the way I loved myself in all different situations of life. I remember when I didn’t love myself at all, to where I was self-sabotaging everything having to do with relationships. I had to learn how to love myself first. In order to do that and continue to do so, I keep the following tips in mind.

1. Turning negative internal speak into positive – this probably took me the longest, but it is something you have to practice every day. I am not an expert at it, by no means, but when you start to think of something negative about yourself turn it into a positive sentence. For example, “I am so bad at running” to “I am so glad I got out for a run today”.
2. Keeping a track of what makes you happy – keeping a journal or just a list on your phone of what makes you happy can start to help you develop a self-care routine.
3. Learn your communication and love language – understanding how you communicate, how you like to be communicated to, and understanding your love language help out in the long run, especially in friendships and relationships. I learned how I communicated while I am happy and in disagreement and learned how to rearrange that (especially in disagreement) to not only get my point across but not to be an emotional trigger for whoever I am speaking with.

I hope these tips combined with last year’s tips help you out in the long run. Comment below to let me know what tips you have also learned.