Basic AF Guide to Self-Love on Valentine's Day & The 5 Love Languages

It's the day of love. (No, it's not basic to want to celebrate Valentine's Day!) It's nice to have a day dedicated to love (or the idea of it anyway). Love's cute... ish. But self-love, now that's beautiful. And so, this Valentine's Day, I say spend a little time loving up on you!

I'm also fascinated by the concept of love languages. If you aren't familiar, it's an idea that breaks down the ways to express and experience love into 5 categories. It's based on the book The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate by pastor and Dr. Gary Chapman. There are 5 primary love languages: physical touch, acts of service, words of affirmation, gifts, and quality time. My love languages are very much acts of service and quality time. You can take a quiz here to figure out what your love languages are.

The idea behind the book is that once you know how you and those you care about receive love, you can get to affirming that love in a way that they can actually feel and understand. This is a game-changer! What if, instead of waiting for others to properly show their love to you ('cause let's be honest, this can be hard), what if... you loved on yourself! 

Boom!

So, for this most sacred of non-sacred days, I present to you a how-to-guide-for-self-love-on-Valentine's-Day, vis a vis, the 5 love languages. Enjoy

Physical Touch
Basic Tenant: Learn to love your body.

• Masturbate
• Give yourself a gentle head massage.
• Lightly touch, tickle, wiggle and/or graze parts of your body that are often 
• eg. feet, knees, calves, hips, biceps, elbows, neck, fingers, toes. 

Quality Time
Basic Tenant: Solitude (or Taking Yourself Out aka Enjoying Your Own Dang Company)

• Collect your Favorite things. 
• Find a quiet area/room/corner. Lock the door (or build a fort).
• Spend time by yourself and enjoy your own entertaining and glorious-ass company. 

This, without a doubt, will be me.

Acts of Service
Basic Tenant: Take care of your (basic) needs.

• Put a small task on your to-do list, do it, and cross it off.
• Pay for someone else to do a task on our to-do-list, and cross it off.
• Take an Uber/Lyft/Rideshare to work
• Get your groceries delivered
• Hire a chariot to take you around the neighborhood.
• Order a cleaning service
• Get a mani/pedi/eyebrow situation going 

Words of Affirmation
Basic Tenant: Positive Self-Talk/Be Your Biggest Cheerleader

• Take your phone and go into a quiet area.
• Record yourself saying favorite things about yourself (go as far back as you want to)
• Go to a mirror. Look at yourself. Smile in the mirror. Play the recording.
• (Alternatively you can just go to a mirror and say the things. I find that the recording may help for the future when you don't believe how awesome you are, or can't put the words together, and need an outside force to tell you.)
• If you cry. It's okay. 
• If you struggle, go find some Maya Angelou text. Be Uplifted. 

Gifts
Basic Tenant: Self-Investment

• Buy. Yourself. Some. Nice. Shit. 
• Twice over. 
• Minimum of $20.
• Maximum - The limit does not exist. 

Happy Valentine's Day. 
(Leave a note in the comments with your love language!)

PS. If you have duo-love languages, by all means mix and match my suggestions above.

• Quality time + physical touch = Masturbate
• Words of affirmation + gifts = Buy yourself a trinket with a powerful quote... or get a tattoo. 
• Acts of service + quality time = Book a 2-hour massage, or book four 30-min sessions for the next 4 months.

PSS. If you know someone's love language, share the love. Sprinkle them with some warmth. 

5 Things to Start Before the End of The Year

Welp, it's October. Homegirl's come hard and fast. The year of our lord two thousand nineteen is rushing towards us with open arms. And even though 2019 is not a prime number, I have a feeling that this year will be primetime for many peoples' lives. (Yes, I realize I that was corny.) All that aside, even though I am prone to overthinking my future because... you know, why not, I want to make sure that I take the time to really soak up the remainder of 2018, and all her voluptuousness, before she bounces on out. So, I present to you the five things I'm going to start doing (more of) before the end of 2018.

1. Make Gratitude an Active Practice
During the latter part of this year, I came across an exercise that was so simple, that my not doing made me feel guilty. What is it? Practicing gratitude on the daily. Instead of waking up in the morning and going on autopilot into Instagram (damn you and your addictive algorithm), I am going to continue to make a list of things I'm grateful for. I'm gonna pop open my notes app and jot down the first 5 things that pop into my head. I can't like, air conditioning is always at the top of the list, followed by functional knees that don't lock, followed by having a job or somewhere to go collect coins.

In all seriousness, I'm going to make Gratitude it an ACTIVE PRACTICE. Like athletes to drills and musicians to scales, I'm going to condition that muscle of gratitude. This means if I have a lull in the day or a moment of sadness, yes I will acknowledge it, but I will also find something to be grateful for. Here's the thing, you can still be sad yet happy at the same time. I believe you can do so by practicing the act of gratitude. And just in time of Thanksgiving.

2. Be of Service
Sometimes being of service is annoying. Especially when you feel like you're being taken advantage of. But I realized, sometimes, you're not actually being hurt, you're just being inconvenienced. This active of simple service is absolutely different for everyone. Maybe it's offering my seat to someone on the train/bus when its full. Maybe it's even smaller than that like TAKING YOUR BAG OUT OF THE SEAT NEXT TO YOU SO SOMEONE CAN ACTUALLY SIT DOWN. (I digress).

Maybe yours is a little bit bigger, like cooking a meal for your family and loved ones once a week just because. Or being consistent with a chore or some mundane tasks that makes someone else's life easier. And don't even let them know, just do it. Heck, you can become the tea/treat person at your work just randomly giving out treats like that imaginary melanin deficient man of yonder who lives somewhere north. Those little surprise acts of service may brighten someone else's day. And beyond that, you will find an this adds joy to your own day. 

3. Learn Some Sh*t About You
People be out here dating and not even knowing what they like to eat on a restaurant menu. How's about you pick a day, once a week, or maybe twice a month, PUT IT IN YOUR CALENDAR WITH AN ALERT, and treat yourself to some new experiences. Try something new (and legal) that makes you nervous. Try something that makes you uncomfortable. Try something that you know you like but haven't done in ages. Just figure some shit out about you. You speak to yourself everyday and sometimes we can be mean to ourselves. Let's work on it by just treating ourselves to some real moments of joy and self acknowledgement. But for real, be about it. Put an actual date, once a week, in your google calendar, with an alert and a reminder! (I'm all about being tangible). Your brain will get so used to that weekly "me" time you won't know what to do. (Cue "I'm Feelin' Myself").

4. Read a book.
Any book. Please. You can follow my online book club/recommendation profile on GoodReads.  Let's expand these minds.

No seriously. You need to be able to answer the question "what's your favorite book?" without 'uhmmming.' Or at least be able to answer the question "what kinds of things do you like to read?"

Again. One. Book.

5. Write It (All) Down.
Whether it's your feelings, your goals, your to do list for the morning, you need to write it down. And revisit it. Check the list off. Writing things down will really make you get more stuff done and will get you more in tune with who you are and eventually with what your purpose is. It sounds so basic "Just write it down on paper." Yo, I'm serious. It will change your life.

A few years back, I started writing down my goals for the upcoming year, and usually this was usually in December. Then a couple years back, I started breaking them down into quarterly goals. I figured, business have yearly goals and so do I. I can probably reverse engineer this sh*t outta my life. Reminded me of how I started preparing for college freshman year of high school. And last year, I broke it down to a monthly level.

One of my favorite things to do now is have regular quarterly meetings with myself. Having stuff written down let's me see what's not working so I can fix it and what IS working so I can applaud myself. It's so easy when you're grinding on person goals and fulfilling mundane adult tasks to feel like you're not moving the boulder, or climbing the mountain, or ... you choose your own metaphor. Having it written let's you actually see progress! Not only with "success" markers with your career but you also so emotionally guideposts of changes. Have you ever read your journal from middle school and high school and felt for yourself? Things that were so heavy in that moment, compared to now, seem silly. Writing it down lets you actually see that change and growth in the self.

So. Let's Finish. Let's Finish Strong.

In the immortal words of the famous poet Waka Flaka "Oh let's do it, YUP!"