February 2018 – Elysian Life Design

Self-love has been something I have personally struggled with all my life. It has, by far, been one of my most difficult lessons in this life. I can play the guilty blame game with myself all day long, and I am the best at it. “You’re this, why that, I can’t believe you” are all famous words in my mind. I have been strongly focusing on my view of my own self-love for the last ten years. The first year along the journey, I had to spend figuring out who the heck I had become. The second year, I did something that I highly recommend to do at least once in your life if you can. I cut my hair from more than half way down my back to a pixie cut. This had been something I had felt called to do for so many years, but let others talk me out of it. One day I woke up and said today is the day. I made the appointment and I basically forced myself to jump off the self-love ledge. Not only did I release the weight of my hair, but years of emotional weight that I didn’t need to hold on to anymore. For some reason, we associate hair with what makes us beautiful. By cutting all my hair off I had no choice but to take a look at me and love me for me.

I am not going to lie. There were empowered days, bad days, ugly days, self judgement days and downright months of awkward hair days along this journey. But, it was so incredibly powerful and an amazing self-learning experience. People I didn’t even know would stop me and talk to me about my hair. Perhaps they had seen me around the grocery store, or saw me out and felt the need to let me know I was rocking it. I learned that it wasn’t my hair that made me beautiful. I was the real me projecting my happiness and inner glow. Each year brought something new that I would focus on. Finally, I was in the position where I was finally living my purpose. Sure, not all areas on my life were amazing. But, I had faith, support from important people in my life who loved me and cheered me on, and filled me with inspiration. Once again, I found myself in the grocery store while my hair in a hat, no make-up, sweats with other women telling me how they could see my glow and I looked happy. I recently read an article on the topic which blew my mind. We place a lot of emphasis on “Love” in our lives. It is right up there on the list of “wants” for our lives. Society, in general, tends to base our worth on who loves us and finding “the One”. The article I read explored the concept of what if “The One” was ourselves? What if the one person that completes us is us (and queue the mind blown emoji). We are the love of our life. All along we were searching for it and it was in us all along! This is an interesting concept to explore. Although, we can have a significant person in our lives be “the one” we love, I have longed believed that we have to start with Self-Love. We have to realize we are worthy of a healthy, happy and loving relationship of any kind, before we can share our heart truly with another person.

Self-Love is becoming increasingly more to a lot of us. We live in a time where fake is real to people and time is moving so quickly because we are being told what we should look like, or wear, or how to act to be considered beautiful. While exploring this topic, I knew that there must be a lot of other people who also have issues with Self-Love. So, I wanted to create a 21 Day Self-Love Challenge. It takes 21 Days to form a new habit. That is why for three weeks you are going to take some needed “YOU” time to regroup, relearn and rejuvenate yourself! There are some basic rules for this challenge. Remember that you are doing this for you, nobody else. Please try to take it day by day and don’t jump around days. You will see that there is a reason for the order of the activities at the end of the challenge. Over the 21 days, there are three things you are going to do EVERYDAY for the whole challenge!

Compliment yourself every day in the mirror ( No matter what)
Listen to your body & take care of yourself
Check in with yourself even for a minute a day and listen to what your soul is telling you
Say “No” to things that don’t make you happy

Here is your guide to your 21 day Self-Love Challenge:

Day 1: Write down something you already love about yourself and write down something you hope to love or accept about yourself at the end of the challenge.

Day 2: Surround yourself with Inspirational Self Love quotes. For example, computer screen, phone background, and post it’s on the mirror, etc. Any quote that makes you feel nurtured.

Day 3: Write down 3 things you would define Love to be

Day 4: Do a meditation that helps connect you with your Higher-Self

Day 5: Take 5 minutes to yourself to just be you

Day 6: Write down a set of Chakra Affirmations for yourself

Day 7: Make yourself a special meal just for you

Day 8: Listen to that song that just makes you feel good and helps you feel empowered

Day 9: Spend some time saying the Ho’oponopono (Hawaiian forgiveness) Prayer. Repeat the words “I am sorry, Please Forgive Me, Thank You, I Love You.”

Day 10: Buy yourself some fresh flowers

Day 11: Disconnect from technology at least one hour before bed

Day 12: Do this EFT exercise for Self-Love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGybX8_8mto

Day 13: Today, Live in the moment

Day 14: Do something that makes you happy

Day 15: Reflect on 5 things that made you get out of bed today for yourself

Day 16: Stand in your best Superhero pose for at least 3 minutes

Day 17: Look at yourself for 3 minutes in the mirror and give gratitude for your mind, body and spirit

Day 18: Write down your core values of Love

Day 19: Write yourself a letter that releases everything you no longer need to hold on to

Day 20: Have a complete YOU day (and go make up free)

Day 21: Treat yourself to something you Love

Each day we will be following along with you through our Instagram @elysian_life_design and our Facebook event at https://www.facebook.com/events/2018054151796192/ . (Please be sure to read event post about multiple days)

We will be providing in-depth details for each day. Our goal is that, at the end of the 21 days, you will have the tools you need to truly be in the best relationship with yourself and find your own inner glow. The only thing that is expected of us each day is that we give that day 100%. That is going to be different every day. Some days your 100% is 2% or 28% but it is a 100% of what you have. That is all you can expect of yourself. So, honor that within you.

The Ho’oponopono Prayer can be a very powerful exercise. Here are a few videos we like for this prayer that may help you along your self-love journey:

“I think the most important thing in life is self-love, because if you don’t have self-love, and respect for everything about your own body, your own soul, your own capsule, then how can you have an authentic relationship with anyone else?” – Shailene Woodley

Stay Inspired,

Stacey

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Month: February 2018

Finding the Love of your Life…YOU