@aneid / Sydney Smith / Unknown / @bakwaaas / @nutnoce / @dearestvita

kinda really wish i had someone to come home and melt into.

stuck in the time loop but i just use it as a free day off. im not even trying to get out. i am teaching myself to knit. i am crocheting. i am cooking. not even doing anything crazy. just escaping capitalism for a week. day 375 and im not sure what lesson it's trying to teach but i've taught myself to hand make lace so all is well

gentle reminders:

🌷 sometimes, being kind to yourself is to study instead of procrastinating, even if it makes you feel uncomfortable - when the exams and deadlines approach, your anxiety won’t be so bad.

🌸 sometimes, being kind to yourself is to log off everything, stop looking for the rush of validation - at the end of the day, you can’t fill an empty mood with more emptiness.

✨ sometimes, being kind to yourself is to make yourself uncomfortable for a while. to get rid of habits that initially comfort you, but ultimately make you feel worse. all habits are uncomfortable to stop, but the rewards will be so satisfying, and so worth it !!

a bouquet fairy!

be busy. busy not checking messages. busy reading those books you never started or finished. busy having a good night of sleep. busy taking care of yourself and your skin. busy moving your body. busy helping your community. busy reflecting on your life and what you can improve. busy doing things aside from the capitalistic viewpoint of “productivity.” busy slowing down.

it’s not a myth. it gets easier. every bit of hard work is worth something. it builds you up.

l'amour est la beauté de l'âme 𓈒

How do i love myself???

I've been meaning to write something like this for a while!

First off, what is self love?

I consider self love to be compassion towards yourself. Aware of your flaws, and aware of your good traits, but not hinging your sense of worth on either. I think of it as similar to characters people like - oftentimes our favorite characters are highly flawed people, and it's not that we love them despite those flaws, but we love the whole picture and want to see those characters grow.

How do you learn to love yourself?

I think it takes time! It's not something you can learn overnight, but something that comes with going through life.

And I think another important thing to remember is that baby steps are great, and it's absolutely okay if you don't love yourself right now. Your journey will take time. It might be a huge accomplishment for you to be self neutral - being okay with yourself and being neutral in your skin, even if you don't 'love' yourself. Here's a short blog post that talks about self neutrality!

Something simple you can do to change how you think of yourself is replace things like "ugh, I'm so stupid" with more neutral self talk, like "whoops, I made a mistake!" Your mind is listening to things you say to yourself, so work on replacing negativity with kindness.

Resources

Who Am I? Worksheet: Helps you enhance self awareness by looking at other people's perception of you, and your own perception of yourself (you can print and handwrite or just type your answers on a doc, whatever's easier for you)

'Love Letter' to Myself Worksheet: Helps self love by having you write down things you love about yourself, how they benefit you, and how you can continue to honor them

Loving Kindness Meditation: If meditation is your thing, loving kindness meditations are amazing! Essentially, they have you direct statements like "may I be happy, may I be well, may I be peaceful, may I be loved" at yourself, then a close friend, then an acquiantance, etc. I've linked my favorite one here, that I've done countless times. But if that particular recording isn't doing it for you you can search "loving kindness meditations" on youtube, spotify, etc and see what you like!

Ways to practice self love: An article that I really liked, because the author talked about how she'd pinned her sense of worth on her accomplishments and learning to let go of that.

You can also go through my self love tag! I use it for strategies, as well as things that you might have needed to hear.

oranges (and clementines and tangerines) as vessels of love   

Alessia Di Cesare, Eduardo Mueses, Rebecca O’Connor, Frank Ocean - Golden Girl (Feat. Tyler, The Creator), Nina LaCour, @smokedsugar, Gary Soto