Self Love Check Up

Last night I slept in my Mum’s bed. I’m 26. Dad is away on a golf weekend and I’m wondering how he slept without the soothing harmonious rhythms of my mother’s melodic snoring. Any who, as we hopped into bed, we spoke about the various ways of practicing self-love. In that sense, I was practicing it as we spoke, as I avoided another social Saturday night out, often surrounded and fuelled by things that don’t support my ability to feel good about myself, I pondered on my ability to say No. I’ve always been encouraged to say Yes, growing up in an optimistic and encouraging environment, it is almost a reflex action to say yes to things, even when I don’t really want to, and I’m wondering if it is about people pleasing? When I’m saying yes to opportunities that give me a slight gut movement, there’s a slight sense of obligatory pressure that washes over me, but why? I understand sometimes we say yes in moments of need and sacrifice, when someone really needs us to say yes, and if we’re saying no in those times, then I think that just means pausing and reflecting on our moral accountability, because y’know, sometimes we’ve got to help that friend in need, which takes us back to balance. Saying No is practicing self-love, it’s listening to yourself and eradicating the guilt that often comes with saying yes.

My Mum then went on to say, “you can’t give yourself out to everyone, then there’s nothing left of you for yourself, your number one pal.”  This sentiment resonates with my self-love methodology in a nutshell, and something I’m learning to respect even more as the days slide by, because we give out so much energy to work and people, then we are left with not so much energy to use on ourselves. Learning to be by yourself is at times such a bore, gee it can be hard, because sharing moments is partly the meaning of life, right? But I’ve figured out that you really can share a moment with yourself, sitting in a moment, whether it be humorous, sad or neither this or that, at least feeling it and observing how you may respond to it is such a delicate way of learning more about yourself. Also, doing too many things and making too many commitments and filling your schedule up to the brim, I feel, is slightly distracting yourself from hanging out with your inner mate, which definitely deserves time. That lil mate inside is with you forever.

Another self-love lesson I’ve recently pondered on is hiding my emotions, where the fine line between suppressing my emotions and being positive can be somewhat blurry. Masking your emotions with positivity can be far more exhausting than what respecting the full front of that feeling is, and I feel as though concealing your realistic feelings, stowing them away in corners of your body where no one can see them will eventually have to reveal themselves. By storing them, you are giving the emotion power to unleash itself in much larger ways later on, by hiding that lil sucker away, your feeding it, giving it more energy to turn into the beast waiting for release. By respecting whatever it is that you may feel, is equipping yourself to be able to deal with the bite of the inevitable feelings ahead. Let’s face it, the only one your lying to is yourself anyway, yeah fake it til you make it can apply in a lot of areas in life, but unfortunately, not your emotions, those things gotta breathe.

Atmosea is a nutshell of self-love, everything that Atmosea stands for is about constantly respecting and congratulating yourself, especially your body and all its ability. Put good things in it, and good things will glow out of it, treat it well, and it will function well, and heavens to betsy, understand that it is different from the one next to you, or on the screen, because if you don’t, you’re really just setting yourself up for self-sabotage.

And one last message from my darling snoring 62-year-old mother, “don’t sunbake your face, just don’t get your face sunburnt. Just don’t.”

Self-love! you decide how you love yourself and essentially, that’s how others will love you. Your actions are just mere reflections of your thoughts, so best to reflect on them every now and then, because a good old self-check is a really good way to realign with why you think things aren’t going to plan.



Words by Daini Stephenson