Love On Yourself First
It had to only be the 1st of January and the local department stores were already promoting Valentine’s Day.
I thought to myself “Wow, is it almost that time already?” The shelves had the usual things: the classic candy hearts that said “be mine”and the oversized and fluffy plush soft toys. I seen a plush toy shaped in what was supposed to be an olive that had dreamy eyes holding a heart that said “olive you”. I couldn’t decide if it was cute or corny (lol)!
After I got past all of the cliche’ shenanigans surrounding the next seasonal celebration, I did a little reflection.
What about the people who don’t have significant others? What about the people that really yearn for love, but for some reason never seem to get the chance. What do they do while people around them are receiving these huge bouquets of flowers, plush toys, and going out on romantic dates?
I’ll tell you what I did for a long long time before I started prioritizing myself. My high school did a fundraiser around Valentine’s Day where students could deliver carnations to other students during a certain class period. When delivery day came, I usually didn’t get any carnations. I felt sorry for myself. I measured my attractiveness and self worth to the amount of carnations I got from the people who I thought loved and cared about me in high school. Some of my friends would be walking around with 4 and 5 carnations from different people, or so I thought.
It got to the point where I got “smart” and started to send myself flowers. Heck, nobody had to know that I sent them to myself. All people saw was that I had a dozen carnations that I was trying to keep healthy throughout the rest of the school day. I carried them proudly and at the end of the day I was pretty happy that I sent those flowers to myself.
A Fresh Perspective
Now 15 years later, I’m asking myself, “Really, Jazmine?! You measured your self worth of some $1 carnations?! There is no material thing on this earth that will equate to our self-worth. It took me all through high school and most of my adult life to this point to learn that. My belief that a few cheap carnations from someone would help me measure my worth, clearly communicates that I had it all wrong. But on the flipside, buying myself those carnations was really where the important part came. I have to love on myself before I even begin caring about someone else loving on me.
Action Plan
First things first is that you need to work to stop relying on other people to make you feel worth it, special, and valuable. You are in charge of making yourself feel those things. Nope, it is not going to happen overnight. It actually may take the rest of the year or years. But the important part is that you acknowledge that you rely on people for this feeling and work to decrease that reliance. We have all sorts of reasons why we do this. The first reason is likely because we are humans, and we are not meant to be alone and we are not meant to be by ourselves for extended amounts of time (trust me, I enjoy my alone time).
While your doing that…
Love on yourself. What is it that you like to do? What do you like to feel? You have to recognize the answers to the previous questions because you have to be able to recognize when you’re feeling depleted, and go back to doing those things and/or feeling those emotions. Don’t make it complicated, because it’s not.
Here’s an example:
I like to feel fresh. It may be because I went through a phase in my postpartum journey where I didn’t shower for 2-3 days; just didn’t have the energy. So, in order to feel that fresh feeling I run a warm bath with eucalyptus bubble bath and listen to smooth jazz. It’s inexpensive and the best part is that I don’t have to leave my house. Like I said, simple and fulfilling. For some reason feeling fresh in this season of my life elevates my confidence.
It’s not anyone else’s responsibility to show you your worth. Quite honestly, they never can. There’s nothing they can show you and/or give to you that will ever measure up to your value. The minute you realize that, you truly begin the journey in understanding what you will accept in a relationship with someone, platonic or intimate it makes no difference.