What do we mean when we talk about self-love? Of course, the definition will vary from one person to another and shift through seasons of life. I’m on the journey of learning how to love myself well and have learnt quite a lot.
1. Passion - eager & willing to know and understand you
Let us all agree that to know how to love you well, you have to know what and who you are trying to love in the first place. We get to know ourselves by spending time with ourselves. We understand ourselves by paying attention to our responses and reactions.
Most times, we don’t know ourselves, so we work off the blueprints of how others have loved us, how they treat us, or how we see others loving themselves.
Life in itself is evolutionary, so we are ever-adapting to one change or another. In the adaptation, our willingness to know and understand ourselves is genuinely tested to see if when seasons change, you will remain enthusiastic about how you are changing too.
Sometimes, there is too much to keep up with, and I want to lie on the floor and let the day go by. You too? I totally understand. *High-five!
I used to set up my day to end with some me-time, but I only got fatigue and cravings for cookies at the end of the day. I decided to switch things up and start my day with me-time. In that way, I am excited to do the things I enjoy – like writing this blog post at 5 am—uninterrupted, tranquil me-time.
I was inconsistent initially because, after all, it’s just me: I’m always with myself doing ME. During one of my morning devotions and meditations, I realised that I wasn’t willing to commit to getting to know and understand myself because I did not think I mattered. So I started to change this narrative from within, understanding how I came about the notion that I don’t matter and why I matter based on whom God says I am.
So if you’re jogging by my house at 4am and hear someone yelling: I AM WORTHY I AM CHOSEN…Calm down. It’s not Tej (Ethiopian wine). It’s just Pursue-Whitney o’clock.
2. Pursuit - consistently seeking to find & keep you in good & bad times
Pursuit is more about going deeper, to educate yourself about why you respond and react as you do. It is about acknowledging the good and the sketchy of you. The more willing you are to pursue yourself, the more passion you gain to know, understand and embrace who you are.
The major battle of pursuit is standing tall during bad days when people’s judgements, opinions and careless actions trample all over our confidence. It is even harder when you’re on the receiving end of hurt and disappointment because of a mistake you made or a door you opened.
This one time, I was committed to keeping my peace in the presence of an annoying individual at work. The moment I got to work, they were the first person I saw, and the first words that came out of their mouth immediately ruined my mood. It was something about the email they sent me the previous night at 10 pm. I was sharp and quick with my sarcastic response. When I thought about it later, I wanted to pack myself in a carton and mail a one-way shipment to Afghanistan because I had stooped to their level of pettiness and gone against my commitment.
I assure you that the moment you find yourself, your knowledge will be tested ALL THE DAMN TIME. Therefore, it is a crucial part of self-love not just to understand who you are and who you are not but to STAND FIRM. For example, after my little altercation with my colleague (yes, the annoying one), I realised that self-judgment and trying to ship myself to Afghanistan was only keeping me from seeing what the situation was communicating about what peace is to me, what it isn’t and why it is essential to have it. It also extended an example for me to see how triggers emanate and how I can navigate better through response and boundaries, not reaction aaand…attempted murder. Hahaha okay. It wasn’t that bad.
I am happy to inform you that the former colleague is alive and neither on the HR’s watchlist nor in jail.
3. Commitment - Dedication to remain your priority even in the face of competing priorities
Here you are, looking all kinds of happy, healthy and whole. You are self-aware and pursuing yourself with passion. Good job, mate! *claps
Then here comes your boyfriend Tod, who wants 10 kids but no marriage. Your boss, John, is a night owl with an affinity for late-night emails, and you’re a morning person who loves a good night’s rest. Your pastor, dripping with anointed oil, Bishop Godwill, needs you to join the choir and lead the youth ministry. Don’t forget that the government needs you to file taxes and renew your insurance. Your plate is overflowing! My friend, your commitment to me-time is in danger.
What I have found helpful is the funnelling of priorities beginning with the most critical asks and responsibilities. I take it a step further and schedule them on my phone. This has been especially useful for keeping tabs on recurring self-love activities such as meditation, body therapy. I add the details such as location, phone numbers. Are we going with a charcoal mask this time or a clay mask? Etc. I don’t need to keep thinking about what I need to be doing. My mentor, Dr. Dharius Daniel, says: Use your brain for creativity and not information storage.
Planning has allowed me to be intentional about rest and who/what I am giving energy/time to. I previously wrote about how scarcity mindset tendencies make me stubborn when transitioning from work to play. Don’t worry if you missed the great read: I got you>> Out Here Waiting for Thieves to Come. I learnt about the Pomodoro technique called which breaks your time into chunks of work and rest time. I got the app ASAP, which has been super-efficient as an aid to recondition what was familiar to me (Work! Work! Work!). Let me add that it yells: “Fantastic job! You have completed your concentration session. Take a break!”
Commitment is all about discipline, strategy and intentionality. It will not come by chance!
4. Pleasure - Simply happy with the kind of person that you are & enjoy your own company
Pleasure is a by-product of a commitment to pursue yourself with passion and consistency. In my context, I realised that I had rejected myself in so many ways because I had accepted societal constructs of introverts to be weird, strange, people who hate others and more.
The journey to knowing and loving myself has taught me how I am purposefully and perfectly different. It made me see why everyone has their unique role in life, which are all important. The issue is that many people push the narrative that who they are is the beginning and the end of being. We are either alike or we cannot be in line. This is only creating copy-pasted versions of people. I had to break out of this!
I took time out to read about introverts which led me to embrace how introversion comes with a strong intuitive nature and creativity and what amazing things I can do with that. It also made me appreciate how other types of personalities bring uniqueness into my space. My personal favourite is Psch2Go. They provide understandable and straightforward psychology-based explainers on day-day matters.
The more you take pleasure in who you are, the less you loathe your flaws, scars and mistakes. The less you care about people’s opinions over you too.
5. Sacrifice – Accepting what’s best for you and what isn’t and embracing/letting go accordingly even if it hurts
Situations come up needing us to shift gears which means sacrificing our plans to attend to the situation. Sacrifice takes place throughout the process of self-love, mainly due to pruning or re-shuffling of priorities. Pruning is all about planting and uprooting. Let’s think of our lives as gardens that need weeding so that we have healthy produce and grounds for future planting. All weeds have to go. I have found that the more pruning, the faster the growth process.
2020 was a pruning and healing year for me. I learnt the hard way that I was right where my decisions and relationships had qualified me to be. I always considered myself quick to change things around me. In 2020, I realised that I was in a cycle of eliminating and accommodating the same patterns because the problem was within me. I was the farmer who knew all the suitable pesticides for different weeds but did not take care of their soil. I did a lot of soul-searching, self-reflection and self-cleansing. Soon enough, the patterns changed.
During the change and growth process, I would still try to force former situations into the person I was becoming. A good example is when God instructed me to go on secular music fast for 21 days. The beginning was soothing to the soul as my heart grew fonder of worship music. Right about day 10, I missed my Friday night turns up in my house with Davido and Burna Boy. It was lit! Don’t even get me started with the karaoke with late Whitney Houston. I started to sneak in a few secular songs into my fast.
I didn’t know that God was drawing my attention to the wells from which I draw pleasure, inspiration, and comfort. By the end of the 21 days, I accepted that I tasted both worlds, and it was time for a change. It was time to love and take care of myself better. It got to a point where all I wanted was worship music because I felt at home, at peace and more connected with God. So I quit secular music.
I sought understanding from God why worship music now hit different and just right. God said to me that a person who has just come out of surgery could not continue to eat what they used to or go about life as they used to. They must rest and take time to heal. This revelation translated to me as the place you’re in life will determine the sources from which you feed your spiritual, emotional, physical and psychological hunger and thirst.
In Conclusion:
- Passion - Who are you? Who are you not?
- Pursuit – What do you stand for? Why do you stand for it?
- Commitment – What is on your daily priority list, and are you prioritised?
- Pleasure – What makes you unique? How can you embrace your uniqueness ferociously?
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Sacrifice – Who and what do you need to let go of?
I hope you enjoyed reading this and learnt a lot. Share with a friend so they too can learn. Keep loving you right because it is the only way you can love anyone or anything else right.
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