This week has been very productive. Yay me! One of the things I did was participate in my first video chat/interview discussing self-love. If you missed it, here’s a link where you can catch it. Yet it almost didn’t happen because of a health problem that I have and had stopped paying attention to until I needed some interventions. It made me realize what a big part taking control of your health has on being able to love yourself. Embracing self-love leads you to accomplish your goals and makes your dreams come true.
As I work diligently on getting my health back on track, a lesson I taught my students on idioms reminded me of what I had been doing. The tool I was using showed a picture of a literal phrase to help students understand a corresponding figurative meaning. One of the pictures was of a man with his head in the sand, and although I was teaching, I had to take an inner pause and have my ah ha moment. By ignoring my symptoms and not responding to what my body was telling me, I was behaving just like the literal picture. It served as a reminder of how loving myself means taking control over my health. Whether you have a medical condition or not, you can’t afford to put your head in the sand until it’s too late. Love yourself to know your health is a huge priority. Pretending it’s not will only set you up for disaster.
Some of the things you can do to start showing your body the love it deserves is knowing your families’ medical history. Often we are all guilty of knowing somebody died of something on our mother’s side of the family, but we don’t get all the details and share it with our doctors. Or we have pains in our bodies, but tell the doctor everything is fine. My favorite is when we have a diagnosis and know what we should and shouldn’t be doing or should and shouldn’t be eating, yet we don’t listen. That’s not loving yourself. That’s waiting until the water is to your chin before deciding to get out because you can’t swim. Stop allowing yourself to get into dire situations that are preventable and then expecting everyone to rally for you to overcome an issue that practicing self love could have avoided. Yes, it sounds harsh, but we have to stop lying to ourselves.
An inspiring and awe worthy example of truly loving yourself is by taking control of your health measures. One of the bravest preventive procedures some women are choosing for their lives are mastectomies before a negative diagnosis. By going through the process and making the decision to love themselves enough to undergo such an event is courageous, smart, and loving. These women take control over their health, their bodies, their lives and I commend them for it. Meanwhile some of us won’t even stop eating dairy because it’s an “inconvenience” and will continue to allow it to reek havoc on our systems. Or we refuse to exercise in a defiant manner like we are invincible as we complain because we huff and puff on a flight of stairs.
Your whole self, including your mind, body, and soul deserve to be loved and cared for. And the best person for the job looks at you everyday in the mirror. I challenge you to love yourself enough to make the sacrifices. The human body can be very forgiving; it will adapt to the changes you make and reward you with more energy, focus, less pain, and a multitude of positive attributes all leading to a more fulfilling life. So if you’ve been putting off that doctors appointment, haven’t been taking your prescriptions, been forgetting to follow a new eating plan, or you’ve neglecting to work your body in some form or another, take your head out of the sand and love on yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet. The only person that should beat you at loving you is you. You deserve to experience being your best self. The best part is you can start today to change your tomorrow. Get to it!
Please share the ways you will love your whole self in the comments below and share this post if you enjoyed it. See you next time!
Ifetayo nellons 