The Self-Love Lens

My Tik Tok has been littered with all kinds of self-help and self-love videos; you know, the ones that make you want to organize every single aspect of your life and make you believe that you can start getting up at five in the morning. The kind of videos that talk about falling in love with yourself, how you can romanticize your life, and how Trader Joe’s flowers seem to always help with that. 

And although these videos are extremely helpful, I’ve discovered something in this whole self-love process. (Something that doesn’t involve getting up at five in the morning.) 

The idea of self-love, romanticizing your life, dating yourself, whatever you want to call it, is all just a mindset. 

Maybe some of you have already figured this out, and this isn’t as profound of thought that I initially assumed it was. But self-love is just a state of mind.

So, for example, when someone is in a relationship, we can say that they usually do things for their partner, like treating them to lunch, maybe dressing up for them, or buying them a special gift. 

You can do all of this for yourself. And you probably already do all of these things for yourself; you get dressed every morning, you make yourself food, and maybe every once in a while, you buy something for yourself.

Using the self-love lens, you aren’t just whipping up a quick dinner after an eight-hour shift at work. You’re making yourself a nourishing, romantic dinner, just like you would for a partner. Heck, light some candles and actually make it a date. 

You aren’t just running through Starbucks to wake yourself up on a busy day. You’re treating yourself the same way you treat a partner to a coffee or a little something special to get them through a tough day. 

When you wake up in the morning, put something on that makes you feel good in it. People dress up for dates all the time; treat every day like a date with yourself. Get dressed up for it.

We do activities that we typically save for loved ones, for ourselves, all the time. The little things that we like to do for a partner, we can easily do for ourselves. 

Compliment yourself. Treat yourself. Or, simply feed yourself. Dress yourself. You can take anything and throw that self-love lens on it, and suddenly you’ve fallen in love with yourself, your life has been romanticized, and you’ve become that best version of yourself Tik Tok promised you could become.

Before long, you won’t even need to take your self-love lenses on and off. It’ll become so natural to wear them, you won’t remember when you didn’t treat daily activities as an excuse for some self-love.