February is the month of love, and though it is often seen as romantic love towards another person. I want to ask you, how do you practice self-love? Self-love isn't narcissistic, it's about taking care of yourself and your needs. Are you getting your needs met to thrive? I’m not just talking about your basic needs (shelter, food, water, clothes, sleep) - though it does include these.

I’m talking about your needs to make you feel alive, and to support a healthy body and mind. Are you getting your movement in? How about connection, creativity, or fun? Are you getting these met? Because if you’re not, then there’s a chance that you are moving day-to-day in a daze, not present, and looking forward to sleep. This is not really living. You are not experiencing life, you are existing - which isn’t bad at all, especially when you’re going through a hard time, and this is the most you can do. However, I want to help support you with this month is thriving, and experiencing life to the fullest. So how do we do that?

Reflect on your needs - what do you need to be a vibrant human being? This can be different for everyone, but it will involve, sleep, nutrition, stress management, and movement (because those are your foundations of health). On top of these, you have other needs: the need to feel loved and appreciated, the need to connect with people you enjoy, the need for alone time, etc. What are they for you? For me, I need to be creative every day, and I need to be with people I love and enjoy.

How often do you need them? - once you find what your needs are, how often do you have to have them fulfilled? Your foundation will need to be met daily, while your other needs to thrive will be different. Do you need to be with your friends one or two times a week, a month, etc? How often and for how long do you need to be active? Are you pushing your body daily (eg. HITT, Barr, Flow yoga, etc (all of these are very yang)) or are you mixing it up and doing LITT, yin/restorative yoga, etc every other day? Once you’ve decided how often you need them, put them into your calendar and follow through with them.

Reframe - sometimes on our journeys to becoming better, we get in our heads and negative self-talk occurs. During these times, work on reframing the way you are talking to yourself. It first takes recognition to realize how you are talking to yourself, and noticing the negative thoughts that come up. Next is reframing it with something more positive. For example, I can’t do anything right. Reframe this to I’m learning how to do this better. Or something that resonates with you. The point is you are talking to yourself differently, This is important because the way you talk to yourself, and your thoughts create physiological responses in your body, causing certain hormones and neurotransmitters to be released. You can influence this by changing the way you think. With time, this will change how you behave and how you perceive your world.

Be patient yourself, we are all human experiencing with it is like to live as one. You may stumble and fall on this journey, and that’s ok. Pick yourself up and dust yourself off and keep walking. Reframe your thoughts, and do your best to get your needs met so you can be the radiant human you are meant to be.

~Dr. Charmagne