He whom love touches not walks in darkness – Plato

The day starts with an alarm clock and then it all starts with a BIG BANG!!! All the rushing around, running around, trying to get the kids ready for the school, getting yourself ready for the rat race, pushing through the daily traffic, it’s full throttle from Monday to Friday, as we all know it. There might be a few differences in people’s daily routines but more or less, you are pretty stretched. They call it a ‘balancing act’. So, how do you balance it all whilst also balancing your mental health, physical health and everything else around you?
There is so much pressure on an individual, you are supposed to be juggling everything at the same time – relationships, career, health, kids…..staying on top of everything under the sun at all times. To add to it, you have your ever present social media and social networking sites. You are always clicking your phone, taking pictures of your breakfast, your new hairstyle, your baby bump, your steaming coffee, your work desk, your nails, your ears, your whole life from A to Z. You are never ever ‘present’ in the moment, you are living your life through your expensive hand held hi-tech toys. You are instagramming instantly and constantly whilst photoshopping all your pics. You check twitter, WhatsApp etc every few minutes. You might have your headphones inserted in your ears too, listening to some “motivational podcast’ or ‘calming music’ or trying to search for some App to help you to sleep peacefully every night.
Your personal calendar looks jam packed – you make a mental note of wishing someone on their birthday or was it someone’s anniversary? You have an appointment with your personal trainer, you need to meet your kid’s teacher just after the school pick up……oh yeah, you got to pick up some cheddar cheese too on your way back home because you have promised your five year old that all of you will be having a pizza tonight for dinner. By the time you reach work, you already feel so over worked and drained out…..but hey hang on, few more hours to go yet. We hardly have a moment for ourselves, we hardly have a moment to ponder and just to be. Busyness is seen as a mark of success – you are wanted, you are in demand, you are popular! However, the price we pay for being busy is costing us our lives. We are always on the go 24×7. Personal ‘me’ time is a luxury item these days.
You hear and read about so many people getting burnt out – top athletes, politicians, celebrities, ordinary mum and dads, people cracking under pressure. Even kids as young as 10 are complaining about life’s growing pressures. So, you say to yourself, “Keep quiet and carry on!” Mental illness is fast becoming an epidemic, why? There must be a reason. It’s this constant stress and pressure that we all are putting ourselves through – willingly and unwillingly. So what is the solution?
We have billions of blogs about tackling this new age problem. They all talk about different strategies to cope with all these pressures and keeping sane. The most popular mantras are – simplifying your life, practicing gratitude, practising minimalism and the most important of them all is to ‘LOVE YOURSELF FIRST’!!! They all say unless and until you start loving yourself, you can’t really love anyone. If you don’t love yourself, you will eventually feel depleted and run out of love. You will end up becoming an irritable, depressed, sad, frustrated and an angry soul. So where do you start and how do you love yourself?

Defining Love

The word ‘love’ usually conjures up this gushy and all-consuming image of romantic love in our minds and hearts. We think of lovers declaring their undying love at the top of their voices from the mountain tops for their beloveds and sweethearts. But this whole concept of romantic love is fairly a new concept, apparently it came into existence around the 18th century. Love is a very broad concept and encompasses a lot more than just romantic love. To define love in few lines is literally impossible and everyone’s definition of love can differ based on their experiences, culture, religion, language and various other factors.
J.A. Lee’s 1973 book Colours of Love talks about seven kinds of love. They are extracted from Aristotle and Plato’s musings on love. They are classified as Eros, Philia, Storge, Agape, Ludus, Pragma, Philautia. Philautia means self-love and it has two sides to it – healthy self-love and unhealthy self-love. Unhealthy self-love leads to arrogance, inflated sense of self, narcissism and ego mania. Whereas healthy self-love talks about a healthy dose of self-esteem, self-confidence, self-care, self-worth and all such positive notions. According to Plato, love is all about beautiful and good things. He further expands on how the possession of beautiful and good things leads to ‘happiness’. And happiness is an end-in-itself. Plato called love a philosopher which leads to truth and wisdom. All religions also prescribe love as the only ‘solution’ to all our woes on this planet called Earth.

Recipe for Self-Love

How do you love yourself? I guess we can all start our journey with small steps. First of all, accept yourself as you are, forgive yourself, let go of any guilt and past mistakes, treat yourself with respect and loving kindness. Always be the ‘guest of honour’ in your own life, celebrate yourself. Here are few simple steps to initiate self-love:
1. take time to make your soul happy
2. love yourself fully, deeply, honestly, faithfully, gloriously
3. light a candle, read a new book, go for a walk outside
4. binge watch your favourite TV show, take a bubble bath, cook a healthy meal, buy yourself flowers
5. talk to yourself like you talk to someone you love
6. forgive yourself
7. say ‘no’ sometimes
8. be your best friend
9. laugh often
10. get enough sleep
11. express your feelings
12. listen to your instincts
13. exercise
14. be present and mindful
15. practice the power of positive affirmations
16. have some quality ‘me’ time
17. have some playtime
18. dance often
19. spend a night under the stars
I can go on and on but then everyone’s list of happiness and definition of love are different. Do whatever makes your heart and soul sing, whatever brings a smile on your face, whatever makes you love life again and most importantly, do whatever makes you fall in love with yourself, over and over again!
PS: This list is an ever-growing list, you can keep on editing it or keep on adding onto it. It changes depending on your changing definition of self-love. You may one day think ‘Well it’s time to turn the page….” It’s not always about the final destination, what matters is the journey itself. It’s about stopping over and smelling the roses along the way, it’s about enjoying your journey. It’s about hopelessly, madly and passionately falling in love with yourself – head over heels!
I am a believer in love….give love a chance!!!
Go on….fall in love…..with yourself….I dare you!!!

Love & Happiness Always