I happened onto the hashtag #selflove on Twitter one night, and I was curious about how it was being used. So I checked out the definition someone had given it on tagdef.com.
Could have several empowering meanings, but is often used as a politically correct term for solo masturbation.
Basically, I’m not buyin’ it
Interesting, and maybe useful to some. But a waste of a beautiful phrase in my view. And honestly, it confused me a bit. Just not at all what I expected. So I looked up self-love on dictionary.com. Check out this bummer of a definition:
Yikes. That’s nothing less than harsh! After reading that definition, my mood dropped from confusion to downright discouragement. But then I realized, I’m just not buyin’ this either. In fact, I decided in that moment that self-love needed a 21st century reboot.
So what’s a self-loving woman to do?
In short, I took matters into my own hands. :)
I went back to tagdef.com, entered #selflove, and added my own definition:
Self-love: a healthy, positive sense of self that creates resulting habits of self-nurturance and self-care, rather than waiting for someone or something outside us to deem us lovable and to care for us.
Example Usage:
“Self-love creates a healthy foundation for empowered choices.”
To be sure, I could have worked on that a bit more before I hit “done.” But so be it. It’s there now, and I hope it’ll be helpful to someone, somewhere, sometime.
Because I say self-love is essential in our action-packed lives. In our lives of service to family and community. Our lives jammed with productivity.
Self-love makes the difference
In fact, we’re wise to take extraordinary care of ourselves in the midst of whatever we’re up to in the world. And more, I say extraordinary self-care creates the ‘fertile soil’ from which everything we want to be can blossom and grow.
So go get ’em from a foundation of self-love, my dears. And then keep coming back to the place of balance that self-love demands.
After all, we can’t go entirely off the deep end in our hyper-driven lives when we’ve also got to get in a nutritious meal, a good night’s sleep, and all the other healthy parts of our self-care lists. All things in their own time and place, right?
Are you with me on this? Good. Because I’ve gotta get some rest!