Spring Overalls and Self-Love

SWEATER // OVERALLS // SHOES // SUNNIES // EARRINGS // RING // WATERBOTTLE

PC: Sarah Sweeney

Valentine's Day may be over, but I still think of February as the month of love. And I don't think it's just about being in love or having a valentine. A huge part of love is loving yourself. Loving yourself for who you are and who you know you can be is critical in being able to show love to others—and to receive it!

Self-love is a battle that I fought hard for a long time. I was always self-conscious in junior high and high school, and I dealt with an eating disorder for many years. I've been to all kinds of counseling—personal counseling, eating disorder treatment, marriage counseling, the works. And so many of those issues stemmed from having trouble loving myself. I didn't really intend to go this deep about this topic, but it really can be a deep issue. I could blog all day about a lot of the things I just briefly mentioned, but today I want to touch on a couple of easy things to boost self-love. None of these things is an end-all fix-all, but I think they help on a daily basis to boost self-confidence and to get in the habit of treating yourself better.


1. Stop weighing yourself. I haven't weighed myself since I can't remember. At least before Baker was born. When I was in outpatient treatment for an eating disorder, my counselor told me to throw my scale away. And I did. We have one now because Soren likes to keep tabs on himself (and they are useful for weighing things like luggage!), but I don't use it. I don't like how it makes me feel. Whether it makes me feel better or worse about myself, neither is really a good thing to attach to a number. I go off of how my clothes are fitting, and I avoid knowing my weight if I can.
2. Start taking some extra vitamins. Add a hair and nail supplement and vitamin D to your everyday regimen. These things are just good for you. You can give yourself a pat on the back for maintaining a good habit, and if you are low on anything you may notice you start feeling better. This one is just too easy not to do!
3. Add an extra exercise habit into your day, like calf raises or squats while you brush your teeth. I struggle with finding time to exercise regularly. Instead it's much better for me to include a lot of movement into everything I do. I'm mentally healthier if I don't attach being good/bad, good looking/not good looking to whether I've exercised. So I just try to move a lot. And with four boys, that isn't too hard hard. It's easy to throw in some extra movement during the day if I'm thinking about it. 
4. Go through your closet. Get rid of things that don't make you feel great. Don't hold onto things you think you should wear or that you think you should fit into. Spend a little bit of time weeding out the confidence suckers in your closet and focusing on the winners. Add a few more winners to that pile as your budget allows.
5. Journal things that you are grateful for about your body. Journaling was a big part of my overcoming my eating disorder and my negative body image. I started journaling about how I was feeling instead of keeping a log of what I was or wasn't eating. Once I learned to notice my feelings and how they affected my behavior, I could process things better. I started to remove food from feelings, and journaling helped put those feelings in the right place. Gratitude is another part of finding love, so if we can find things we love about our bodies and our minds and how they help us, we can come to know ourselves better. And we just may find more awesome things about ourselves than we knew we had!
I hope these tips give you one or two good ideas, and I'd love to hear yours! What do you do to increase your self-love?