”Sometimes you don’t get what you want because you deservebetter.”-@myselflovesupply
Are you asking too small? Many times when we receive a “no” we are devastated and disappointed. In fact sometimes we give up on that hope, dream, or goal. When in actuality, that “no” was a protection from ourselves. What we want or think we want is often not the best for us. So God has to protect us from our own self. It’s a correction, protection, and redirection. Don’t get discouraged. Ask yourself, what am I supposed to do with this “no”. God what are you trying to tell me? GOD IS A KEEPER How many times have a circumstance actually played out and you said, “I’m glad I didn’t get what I thought I was going to get.” It’s because the one thing that we want so bad may not be the best. You deserve the best. Are you asking for the best? Enjoy the rest of your day!!!!!!!
Selfcare is simple and can be done any moment of the day. In actuality, I find the more simple the activity the greater impact it have. It’s all about being mindful that you are doing something that feels good to you. Here are 10 simple activities that I intentionally attempt each day. 9 DAILY FEMININE SELF CARE HABITS TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD
Stretch. As soon as I get out of bed I have to stretch. Not only does it awaken my body, but it gets the stiffness out, and provides me with a little boost of energy. Also before and after a workout I do a good stretch. It helps relaxes me and give me a feeling of being lose.
Give Affection. I make it a point to give me kids hugs and affection from morning to night. I make sure to ask them how they are feeling when they wake up. I tell them I miss them when I pick them up for school. I think it’s missed on what a parents touch can do for a kid on a daily. I want my kids to know and feel my love.
Make My Bed. This is the easiest and quickest selfcare activity. Making my bed instantly makes my room look and feel tidied up. In return I’m prepping my mental to be productive throughout the day. Focusing on the small task that builds up to something greater.
Morning Coffee. Having a cup of coffee and taking my time drinking it, is one of my greatest forms of relaxation. I make sure to sit in silence and look out the window into the sunlight. I day dream, pray, meditate and just give myself a moment.
Laugh. I have to find something to laugh about. It’s good for the soul. Either on television or just finding a quick video on YouTube. Seeking good humor allows me to let lose and not take everything too seriously.
Listening to Music. In the car, at my desk, cleaning up, cooking, or working out I’m going to listen to some music. Getting in the groove helps loosen your body and give you a mental escape. If you’re having a hard time with negative thoughts put on some feel good music and escape.
Eat Green. Getting in some good veggies is key to your entire wellbeing. Not just greens, but having many colors as possible in your meals will improve your mental and emotionalwellbeing as well as physical. Eating in color is another simple selfcare activity that you sometimes do without thinking.
Express Gratitude. Prayer is an important part my dailylife. It just doesn’t have to be in a form of prayer. Having a conversation with someone about how grateful you are to just be able to talk is expressing gratitude. Telling the person ”thank you” in drive thru or at the checkout is expressing gratitude. The smallest act of kindness goes a long way.
Taking Vitamins. Taking my morning vitamin is a part of continuing my healthy lifestyle. If you have to take medications ensure to be consistent and follow through. Making sure we are healthy on the inside comes before what we look like on the outer.
Sleep. Your body needs sleep. The mind and brain needs sleep to function daily. The idea that you can live off little sleep is nonsense. Make sleep a priority. We can’t be as effective as we want to be if we aren’t recharging enough.
Those are just 10 simple dailyselfcareactivities that will help you feel good, be happier, and live intentionally. Your selfcare needs are for you. So in whatever order you need to practice selfcare, how often, and where, is totally up to you. Just do what you have to do to be at peace and live in peace.
Who doesn’t love to be pampered and get pampered? We all deserve the pleasures of feeling good and looking good. However, having treatments done head to toe can get expensive. Here are some simple things you can do to have a spa day at home. Feeling good and looking good can be achieved everyday.
Set The Mood Before beginning to pamper yourself, you must make sure your space is free and clear. Clean and tidy your home. Declutter, dust, and disinfect your space or home. Now that your physical is clean, set the mood with an aroma or scent of your choice. Candles are great options and provide aroma that will last and cover a large area of your home. You can opt for calming scents like Lavender or Vanilla. However, I love a good clean fresh scent that isn’t too harsh or loud, like fresh linen. Lastly, to set the mood, get you a beverage of choice and music. Wine, tea, coffee, water, or whatever you enjoy to make you feel good. A good choice of music, something soothing and slow. Jazz is always a good option.
Hair Everything begins with hair, right? If we are having a bad hair day, then the entire day is off. Prep your hair routine by mixing your deep conditioner first. https://amzn.to/3OLJxNf I have a bowl purchased from the dollar store specifically for this. Get your favorite deep conditioner or regular conditioner and mix in some of your favorite oils into the bowl. https://amzn.to/3AvGy7m I’ve found using a drugstore deep conditioner mixed with oils is a better treatment than going to the salon. Just because it’s expensive doesn’t mean it will be more effective. Then you’re ready to wash, condition, and deep condition. After placing the deep condition onto the hair and combing through, place a shower cap on for heat activation or reuse an old plastic grocery bag. It works the same. Most of the time I allow my deep condition to set for an hour.
Face/Neck First figure out what your face and neck needs. Are you feeling dry? Do you see alot of dead skin cells and need to exfoliate? Are you experiencing large pores? What kind of facial mask do you need? I begin with removing unwanted cheek hair, chin hairs, and upper lip hairs. https://amzn.to/3OKTqL1 From cheek bones down I epilate to get rid of any unwanted tiny hairs that may have popped up. Next, cleanse with a good oil cleanser to remove dirt, makeup, and sweat. https://amzn.to/3OKrNSr Follow up with a double cleanse to remove any impurities that the oil cleanser didn’t get. https://amzn.to/3yhRmmE After that you may follow with a mask for moisture, tighten pores, or anti aging. My favorite is a good clay mask. Self Care Beauty Routine Final step after rinsing is to treat and moisturize.
Bonus Tip: Don’t forget to scrub your lips of dead skin and moisturize. https://amzn.to/3NKout1 You can purchase a lip scrub for under $5, use a toothbrush and vaseline, or just a little of your facial scrub will work as well.
Body Here you have a choice of hot shower or bubble bath. Because I have a hair mask on my hair as well as a facial mask, I’ll probably opt to hit the hot shower. Here again, what does your body need? Are you experiencing dry skin? Does your body need a good exfoliation? Using your favorite soap bar, body wash, or cleanser give your body a good lather. https://amzn.to/3urFJbITip: Between washes, because we’re going to wash up twice in the shower. Rinse your hair mask out and then your facial mask off. After that, wash up again. Because you don’t want the oils and conditioner that ran down your back to give you acne. Once out the shower, moisturize and put on something cute and comfy.
Bonus Tip: If you go to a spa or salon to groom yourself and do hair removal perfect. But, if you don’t, use this time to do an at home wax, use hair removal cream, epilate, or shave if you have to.
Feet/Hands If you are one who treat yourself to a mani/pedi weekly or biweekly, you are awesome. For my ladies that don’t, you can definetly experience it at home. Using a rubber dish tote for under $5, warm water, and foot soak you can give yourself a great pedicure. A good foot pumice stone is $3 and you can get rid of dead skin on your feet. https://amzn.to/3P6avih Lastly, don’t forget to moisturize and lock in the moisture with some cute fuzzy socks. You can opt to polish your toe nails or leave them clean after shaping and filing them. As for your hands, clean, exfoliate, and moisturize. Keep your nails filed and shaped.
There you have it. An at home spa day that didn’t cost you a car payment. You can get your money worth and use the products again. Furthermore, the amount of me time you’ve experienced with yourself is priceless and will be forever rewarding. If you are feeling like you need a pick me up, plan yourself an at home spa day to get back in tuned with yourself.
We have to be very careful at easing our foot off the gas pedal. Don’t lose focus on yourself and drift off into another lane. When we lose focus and drift off, accidents happen, we hit a bump in the road, end up going down the wrong street, and stuck between trucks that hinders our vision front and back. In result, we have lost time and now playing catchup trying to get back on track.
Keep your focus on why you started in the first place. Anytime you get a little tired, take a break and regroup yourself. Don’t lose focus on why you started that new course, financial savings goal, relationship, healingjourney, or whatever else you’ve begun for yourself. Take a moment and list all the milestones you’ve reached so far. The lessons you learned thus far. Make a list of 3 goals going forward. 7 SELF REFLECTION JOURNAL PROMPTSJournal your thoughts and experiences on how your journey is going. Regrouping and reassessing will give you clarity and motivation to keep going.
Don’t lose your focus yourself and keep going even when you feel like nothing is happening. Even when you don’t see physical results or change happening, every little step you take is progress. If we saw results, activity, or change every time we took a step then we’ll have nothing to look forward to. That is the idea of hope and faith. Believing in the things not seen or heard. When feeling a little discouraged pray, meditate, and center yourself. https://amzn.to/3I8TuSt Remind yourself that you are here for a purpose, a vision was placed in you to fulfill, and you have everything needed to complete the assignment.
When you get bored and lose your focus it’s time to get creative. Switch things up, try something new, and renew your focus. As we grow, what worked for us will no longer work. The more we heal the more we grow. Therefore, the need for new and exciting is broadened. Creativity allows for endless space to grow.
Are you tired of all this selfcare talk? Don’t want to hear about routines, habits, and caring for yourself? Guess what, we have to stay in our lane so we don’t veer off. That’s whyselfcare, routines, and creating habits are a constant must. Focusing on you, being the most healthyphysically, mentally, and emotionally, will allow you to withstand whatever is going on in the world. Keeping your focus on you is motivation for others to focus on themselves. It inspires everyone to be whole thus having a healthy community of support.
Staying committed to yourself is the best selfcare you can do for yourself. The relationship you have with you, will be the best one you have and the strongest. You owe it to yourself.
Keep your focus. Empty out the negative. Focus on the positive. Believe in your own strength.
We’ve all had those moments of feeling anxious. Sometimes we don’t realize it, until after the fact that we were in a frenzy. When your heart start to pound, your hands get sweaty, your body becomes unsettled, or you just have a sense that something isn’t right you’re probably feeling a little anxious.
Often times we think it takes huge measures to calm down. In actuality, it’s your small selfcare practices that will help ease your anxiousness. Here are some things I do when feeling a little anxious.
Exercise/Go for a walk
Clean
Listen to music
Call a friend or family member. If the first person doesn’t pickup, I keep calling until someone does.
The key to calming myself when anxious is to focus on myself. Do things to get my mind occupied, figure out why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling, and to move past it. Most importantly it doesn’t last forever. Relying on your selfcareactivities and do the things that makes you feel you is key to overcoming your anxiousness. SIMPLE SELF CARE MORNING ROUTINE WHEN FEELING BLUE
Even if you have a moment of anxiousness at work, doing certain selfcare practices will help calm yourself down. Several practices from the list can be done at home, work, vacation, or anywhere you may begin to feel your blood pressure rising.
Whatever you do, don’t ignore those feelings. It’s important to acknowledge them. Understand the why, and grow through it. We can’t stop them from happening but we can manage it well if we keep our self awareness high.
What does self love mean to you? The truth is we all have different ideas of what self love is, should be, or can be. Here are 5 reminders we all can use when exercising self love.
EMBRACE THE GOOD AND BAD Neither one of us is perfect. Nor, will we ever be. To the end of time we all will have flaws. The key to self love is knowing we were made in the perfect image of God. We are enough no matter what the flaw is. Embracing the good in you increases your confidence and boosts your self esteem. However, embracing the perfect imperfections allows a great sense of self awareness. Knowing where you lack in something or need assistance gives you power to seek help, assistance, and get better. In return, will also increase your confidence. TUESDAY TIP: LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES
SELF LOVE IS A MUSCLE Unfortunately, we can’t just wake up one day and say I have self love. It’s a muscle we have to exercisedaily. This self love muscle will need intentionalcare, actions, and recovery. As we age, grow, and heal we will have to exercise the muscle accordingly. Our ability to evolve and have self awareness will depend on how strong our muscle is. There isn’t a destination for self love. It’s the journey that makes the love grow stronger and stronger.
ARE YOUR GOALS REALISTIC When exercising self love, we have to be mindful of our expectations, goals, and reality. We can always dream, hope, and wish. But living in reality and setting realistic expectations will allow us to achieve the love for ourselves. Not looking to be perfect or seeking perfection will help stay on track. Accepting, embracing, and acknowledging each step before we move forward is key to achieving self love. Completing a level before moving forward will make for an enjoyable journey.
WHAT YOU THINK, IS WHAT YOU BELIEVE If you believe you can, then you will. What we tell ourselves is important to the journey of self love. If our mindset is lack, then we will operate in lack. If we think we deserve abundance then we will make abundance decisions and choices. Think highly of yourself, believe in your abilities, and know you deserve the lovefirst. Once you do, then everyone else will follow suit. We teach people how to treat us.
GRACE IS KEY Because self love isn’t a destination, there isn’t a such thing as perfection, and it’s ever evolving grace will be needed. You will have good days and bad days. There will be times you feel love, inspired, and motivated. Other times, you may feel alone, no one understand, and nothing is happening. Give yourself the grace to feel. Once you feel, adapt, adjust, and continue to love yourself. Healing and growth is a process.
Keep these 5 self lovereminders handy when going through your journey. Your journey is unique to you and no one else has to understand.
We’re constantly evolving and growing. The more you grow and learn about yourself the betterlife you can have. Certain aspects of life are important to you and meaningful than before. So I’d thought I update a previous post from earlier. The More You Grow…
The More You Grow
First as your grow having a life insurance policy is IMPORTANT!!!!! This isn’t something we want to think about when we’re younger or even think is important. Well its very important for everyone, even the children in the family. Making sure your family is ok in the event of something happening will eliminate unwanted stress. You can go online and get a quote, and guess what its not even expensive. The only thing that’s guaranteed for all of us is death.
Next, maintaining your home and cars. I was very guilty of this when I was younger. Routine maintenance and checkups on your vehicles saves you money in the long run, keeps your return on your investment high, and provides a sense of security. Maintenance on your home is more essential to you mentally and emotionally. Home is where you go to rest, relax, and release. It’s the place you feel most comfortable. So to ensure it’s updated, maintained, and inviting, allows you to focus on yourself.
Keeping regular doctor and dental visits are primary healthcarehabits. We can do everything right and if we don’t get checked out something can go wrong. However, thinking preventive will keep you inspired to stay ahead. Making sure we’re the most healthy is essential to selfcare.
Along with physical health having a good spiritual foundation is the one ingredient that can’t be missed. Having a sense of gratitude and knowing that there is a higher power, provides the hope and faith needed to know everything is going to be alright no matter what. Whatever you believe and how ever you believe is up to you, your business, and is for you alone.
As you become more seasoned, you know the importance of having a great understanding of your finances. Where they are, what you want, where you need to improve, and have a clear plan on how you’re going to get there. You no longer fly by the seat of your pants.
By this time you’ve lived and know the importance of having a great work life balance. So many of us in our early years work work work, and missed out on familytime and milestones that we can’t get back. Furthermore, most of us don’t even enjoy the fruits of our labor. Now you know that taking time to breath, pat yourself on the back, and enjoy family and friends is priceless.
As we grow the relationships in our life is essential to our well being. Knowing what we need from each one and how we can reciprocate the love is clear. This is for your romantic, friendships, coworkers, family, and anyone else in your life. Long gone are the days of having 20 best friends. We keep a couple and throw the rest away.
When it comes to holidays, you really don’t need a gift. As long as you are around family and friends, good food, love, and laughter you are content and happy.
Avoiding people, places, and situations is essential to your mental health and you now know that. You no longer view it as running or punking out. Not putting yourself in uncomfortable situations or circumstances is smart and wise.
These are just some things I’ve picked up along the way and thought I’d share. Someone may feel the same way and not know what exactly is happening. It means you’re growing my love and becoming more aware of who you are. Don’t be afraid or run from it, embrace it because it’s going to make your life easier and more enjoyable.
The one thing that is constant is change. And while we’re on this journey of life, we’re going to forever grow. Let’s grow in the right direction.
Say what you mean and mean what you say. We’ve heard it a million times, but being honest about how we feel and expressing our emotions saves us from heartache. Many times we are afraid to express how we feel out of shame, guilt, or embarrassment. When in actuality, how you feel and your emotions are perfect the way they come.
Ironically this week, I’ve had conversation with two different women about this same topic in different scenarios. On one hand, Lady X puts up this harsh exterior and wall in an attempt to show she’s not ”weak”. She so desperately want her relationship to go to the next level, but is afraid to say that’s what she wants. Lady X can’t even admit she wants, yearns, and needs love and affection. In many of our conversations that is repeated ”I don’t like weak people.” Finally I stopped her and said, “it’s not that people are weak, they are willing to be vulnerable and express how they truly feel.”
Next, I told her, you’ve expressed to him you don’t want anything and he can’t do anything for you, when in actuality you do want a relationship. I said, be honest with your emotions and how you feel. Express what you truly want and desire. Everyone has needs and wants emotionally, you’re no different. At last, she confesses. SELF LOVE: BELIEVE IN YOURSELF
”We destroy ourselves when we stop feeling. If you bury your feelings within you, you become a graveyard.”-Bernie S. Siegel
Now on to Lady Y. She’s upset because her ex-husband has passed away and feels left out of the plans for the final resting place. After she expressed how disrespected she felt and anger, I kindly reminded her of the instructions she gave when they divorced. She clearly made it known she didn’t want to talk about him, know anything about him, and dissolved mutual relationships. I said, if I recall, you made it very clear about your feelings. Yes, it’s your ex, but you expressed forcefully your boundaries. Now that they are being respected, it hurts your feelings.
Again, I had to explain, whatever your honest feelings are, say it. If you want people to genuinely love, care, and have concern you have to be honest with yourself first and then others about your feelings. You can’t trick people into reading your mind, or expect them to already know.
Sometimes we find ourselves getting frustrated because our emotional needs aren’t being met. Ask yourself, ”am I being honest about how I’m feeling?” Then go from there. In order to heal, grow, love, and be loved, we have to acknowledge to ourselves first and then express to others our true feelings.
I love a good quote. I can spend hours scrolling Pinterest for inspiring quotes to keep me motivated. The best thing I heard this week was, “you owe you first”.
Quote of the Week:
”The only person you owe is you. You can’t hire someone to care about you.” Whitney Hedrick.
Please go check out her channel on YouTube. The other day I was watching her and she said that, I nearly fell out of my chair. She was explaining how she came to realize she needed to put herself first. She said I can hire someone to clean my house, pay someone to get my groceries, and even walk my dog. But I can’t hire anyone to care about me.
OMG!!!!! She is absolutely right. In a nut shell, you have no other choice but to take care of yourself and care for you. We heard it all our lives. If you don’t take care of you no one else will. No matter what others say or do, you owe it to yourself first. You can’t pour from an empty cup. KEEP GOING AND PUSH YOURSELF
You owe it to yourself to make yourself a priority. No excuses. There isn’t a such thing as a perfect time. The time is now. Put you first. Invest in you first. And you don’t even owe anyone an explanation.
I heard a coworker say, “I just do it for my kid”. Yes, we all want our kids to have the world. We want them to have everything they want and desire, but not at the expense of you twisting yourself into a pretzel to make it happen. Trust me, I had to learn this. And still have to stop myself sometimes. However, its ok to tell them you’re going to work towards it, save for something, or wait until you are available to do it.
You owe you first. Stop twisting yourself into a pretzel to make sure everyone else is straight. There isn’t anyone in the world who can care for you like you can.
P.S. It is NOT selfish to put yourself first!!!!!!!!!
Knowing you want to improve certain areas of your life is half the battle. Don’t know where to begin and feeling stuck, here are 30 questions to get your mind running.
When was the last time I gave myself a compliment?
What is one of the biggest fears that’s holding me back from doing what I want to do?
