What are your thoughts on slowing down and taking time for yourself?

@emotionalpal710 I still struggle with self love, I think most people do🙁 so making time for things that make us smile is a must in my opinion, just watching the sunrise or expressing yourself through art. It's the little things that matter after all ❤ also showing gratitude in any way, is a great step towards self acceptance ❤

@emotionalpal710 I really like using an app called Routinery. It helps me remember all my self care steps I should be doing every day, and it times out how long everything takes. Even just a shower, brushing my teeth, skincare and lotion does wonders for making me feel better. 

Sorry about my English skills.

I always had a bad opinion about myself( when I was 45 kg I said I'm to skinny and flat and then I got sick and had to get 2 surgeries that left me weak for months so I got up to 80 kg and I now I am thinking I'm to fat and bulky). I always listened to much to other people's opinions about me and thought they know better then me, but in reality nobody knew my struggle and how hard it was for me to even walk or stand more then 2 hours in that year. And now I realised that nobody was there to take care of me either way so why should i care about them anyways.

The moment I realised that what I did was to survive and not give up on myself made me see how strong I am (keeping in mind i had struggled with depression and life ending thoughts for 2 years before that happened). I feel proud of myself that I didn't listened to my depression and I continued to fight the best I could. I realised that I am the only one who will always be there for myself. Nobody will come and save me, only I will save myself.

So I started to be grateful to myself. Yes I don't like the way I look, yes my body is weak right now, yes I have depression and anxiety, yes I did forget the feeling of happiness and peace, but in the end, I know I'm able to change all of that by taking better care of myself and treating myself with kindness and patience. You don't have to love yourself just be kind! You have to thank yourself and be grateful for you. The power you get when you realise all you need is to know that you don't need anyone and that you are enough is amazing.

Hope it helped! 😊

@emotionalpal710

Self care is really important. It results in us feeling happy and joyful. Some ways I take care of myself are:

Crocheting/ practicing a hobby

Journaling my thoughts- gaining awareness of my thoughts and being in the present moment.

Physical activity

Listen to your own self talk. When it turns negative turn it around. The one that sneaks in on me the most is “well stupid why did you do that”. Now when I start to hear those words coming I rephrase to “well love that was not what we wanted, let’s try again”. This takes practice but has helped me change how I see myself and has helped me delve more into the causes of my emotions.

When you look in the mirror in the morning look yourself in the eyes and say “I love you”. We easily say these words to others but rarely do we say them to ourselves. It will feel silly at first but keep saying it with as much feeling as you can. This made a big difference to me in learning how to accept myself as I am perfectly imperfect.

My last suggestion is to look into I am affirmations. I am are two very powerful words perhaps start with “I am beautiful” “I am resilient and determined”. I have several sticky notes with similar affirmations on them all over my bedroom and bathroom. This helps me with reprogramming my mind away from negative thoughts.

This is how I started my journey and I gently remind you healing is a journey not an event. Sometimes the journey will be easy and sometimes it will be difficult. Be kind and patient with yourself, you deserve it.

Hey friend, My biggest struggle in life has been with self love and self acceptance. When we are young, we are usually carefree and accept ourselves easily. But, as we grow up, we slowly hear, see and learn from family, friends, media about what is considered as acceptable, respected and praiseworthy (appearance wise, financially, personality etc.) and what is not and then we start feeling inferior, ashamed, critical of ourselves. My journey has been the same. But, now I am slowly unlearning all these unhelpful stuff and learning to love and accept myself knowing I cannot be perfect. Perfection doesnt exist. I talk to my inner child and keep reassuring her and applaud her for trying to be a better person everyday, working and taking care of herself and others. I am also reducing people pleasing and taking time out for relaxing and self care. Self acceptance is truly liberating.

@emotionalpal710

What do you guys think about self-care? 

It’s very important. We must have self love for ourselves despite living in a society that unfortunately promotes violence, hate and everything else that’s opposite of self love. We need to overcome and rise above all that and stop it permanently. Everyone self loving themselves along with loving everyone else will end all the evil things that’s been going on for far too long. 

Do you have any tips or strategies you have used personally to help with self-love? 

I’ve always talked to myself and/or journaled and/or wrote poems, rhymes, songs, etc about self loving myself and all the reasons why and it’s always helped me to keep self loving myself. 

Do you have any other tips to help other people to learn how to self-love themselves and their faults more?

Regarding faults, remember that no one’s perfect or born with perfection so everyone has their own faults whatever they are. And these faults are just an authentic part of you and who you are. Accept all of this and you’ll start to self love yourself or will self love yourself even more and your faults won’t bother you anymore if they ever did. 

To answer your first question that comprises the title of this thread, yes we all should/need to slow down and take as much time for ourselves as we need to. It’s important to do that. It’s healthy for us and it is only to our own benefit that we do this, especially if we do it consistently and not just here and there randomly. 

@emotionalpal710

I need to stop taking too many things at once. I need to set aside some time for myself and relax. Which I have a hard time doing. I feel that if I do, I will procrastinate and won't want to finish what I am doing. So I am going to try to have Sunday all to myself, like no homework, no housework, and no 7 cups. I am going to try and see if I can stick to it. Because I will get overwhelmed and want to quit. 

@emotionalpal710 I think it is very important to unwind when there is a need to wind back up again. I have noticed that either can be too much at times. The challenge is to keep up with both as and when needed.