My best friend Doey (pictured, tidepooling with me at Steer Your Ship,) popped this off via text one morning and I thought it was too genius not to share. She’d seen one too many of those ‘apply lipstick and get a new journal’ posts about self-love and self-care. She wrote this in response.
How to ACTUALLY Freaking Love Yourself
1. Accept that genuine compliment. Actually let it land on your heart say, “thank you” without any further explanation of why you don’t actually deserve credit.
2. List ten things you’re fucking amazing at. You can clean a toilet like a ninja because you even get under the rim? Honey, that’s magic. Take pride in that shit, no matter how simple it might seem.
3. List five unimportant things you’re not good at. You can’t make a perfect batch of brownies from scratch? Me neither. Who fucking cares? Laugh at your imperfections and move on.
4. Read. Graphic novels, smutty romance, that cookbook with the beautiful pictures, your kid’s books, deep spiritual growth shit, Harry Potter, it doesn’t matter. Read whatever you enjoy, but don’t stop.
5. Make art. Adult coloring books, sketching, watercolor, knitting, cooking, quilting, writing, a Pom Pom garland, etc. Use your hands and your creativity to make something new. You don’t even have to show anyone else.
6. Invent a reason to wear that fantastic thing in your closet waiting for “the right occasion.” Or just get rid of it. Clear your storage space of things you don’t love and/or use.
7. Be gentle with yourself. About your hair, your thighs, your belly, your skin, your paycheck, your number of friends you’ll actually answer the phone for at 3:00am, your relationship status, your weakness for chocolate, your lack of interest in yoga, your gluten consumption, your not-magazine-ready home, your imperfect self. Criticizing yourself doesn’t help. Own your flaws, and then just fucking work on them if they matter. (But there’s a good chance they don’t actually matter all that much.)
8. Get enough sleep, decent nutrition on a somewhat regular schedule, and hydrate. If you find yourself acting irrational or very irritable, you probably need one of these three things.
9. Try new things. A new clothing style, a new hair color, a new food, a new route to work, a new song, a new knitting technique, a new nail polish color, a new meditation technique. New stuff keeps your brain from getting bored and feeling stagnant.
10. Be honest about what you want and don’t want. First be honest with yourself. Start small and work up to the bigger stuff. Say “no” and “yes” only when you really mean it, not when you feel pressure to react a certain way or it logically makes sense even though every fiber of your being is resisting it. Your first inclination is probably the right one.
We’re all just making it up. Absolutely no one has it all figured out (and the more perfect their Instagram looks, the more mess they’re hiding.)
…DO YOU SEE WHY I LOVE HER?
P.S. This is an episode of That’s What She Said. Binge-listen to the whole kit and caboodle right here.
