posted by:retrohousewife

Self-Love is defined on Dictionary.com as: 1. The instinct by which one's actions are directed to the promotion of one's own welfare or well-being, esp. an excessive regard for one's own advantage. 2. Conceit; vanity. 3. Narcissism

By that definition, it's no wonder why women have such a hard time loving who they are! This past month, I had the priviledge of getting to know an amazing woman named Christine Arylo. She has created a self-love movement called "Madly In Love With Me" that is celebrated on February 13th. There isn't a more perfect day for this because as the saying goes, "you can't love if you don't love yourself." We definitely need a day where we can celebrate loving ourselves before the day we celebrate loving someone else.

I have accepted Christine's challenge to discover what self-love really means and I will be spending the next few weeks (bravely) sharing this journey with you. I hope that you'll be inspired enough to also accept the challenges and share your journey with me. I have noticed lately that I have put others first so often that I don't even know who I really am anymore. I don't know what I love to do or even what I really love about who I am. While there is nothing wrong with doing things for others, it can create a downward spiral where you stop doing things for you. I think this is where I started gaining weight, stopped taking care of my body, and started getting totally stressed out began. So I need this journey. I need to discover what it is I love to do and what it is I really love about myself.

The first challenge was to read the official self-love manifesta and then create my own. You can read other manifestas that women have created on their Facebook fan page. I'll share mine below and hope you'll be inspired to share your own with me, too.

Here's the official Self-Love Manifesta:

We believe that every woman has the right to fall madly in love with herself. To be so in love with who she is, to so deeply honor her body, mind and spirit that every choice she makes reflects that same deep honoring. That she is not only entitled to love herself, she is empowered to love herself simply because she is. In this world, where a woman KNOWS how to fall madly in love with herself, there is no need for her to fit into someone else’s image of what beauty, intelligence, and success is, there is only being the woman who she truly is inside of her soul. She is free to be, fully. In this new world, where a woman is ENCOURAGED to fall madly in love with herself, there are no apologies for who she is (or is not), there is full acceptance and celebration of who she is, right now in this moment. She is free to love, fully. In this world, where a woman LIVES a life where she falls more madly in love with herself everyday, there is no living for tomorrow or sacrificing and settling for today, there is only creating the world that her heart and spirit desire at the very core of her essence. She is free to live, fully.

We Believe That…
1. Every woman desires to be loved, deeply, for herself.
2. Every woman desires to be free to fully express herself.
3. Self esteem is not enough. Lasting happiness demands self love.
4. The love, freedom and happiness every woman seeks can only come from inside of herself.
5. Finding that love, freedom and happiness within ourselves is a journey that deepens over a lifetime. Although we feel it more and more as time goes on, falling in love with ourselves is something we do forever.
6. All women deserve to love themselves… to have fun doing it… and to have the
company of other women along the way.

My Own Manifesta: Self-love is more than love and more than myself. Self-love is recognizing and focusing on my strength and not the challenge. It is looking in the mirror and loving my eyes instead of hating my hips. Self-love is being so honest with myself that I forget how to lie to anyone at all. It's compromise without sacrifice. Self-love is about learning to appreciate myself so that I will know how to appreciate others, and not the other way around. It's understanding how words will no longer hurt me. Self-love is knowing how to live well and living even better than that.