Real Self-Care: Love Notes

This post is part of a month-long series on Real Self-Care for world-changers. It’s about the experimentation: figuring out what works for you and following your heart. Simple, messy and everything in between. Self-care should be custom, intuitive, feasible and kind – to serve your actual life.

Love Notes: what words that sustain you?

Last night, I was at an event where the ice-breaker/intro question was really interesting: What’s the best/most recent/most memorable compliment you’ve gotten? Peoples’ answers varied wildly: from the simple, to the raunchy, to the incredibly sweet.

When I plotted out Real Self-Care, “love notes” was today’s theme, but I wasn’t sure how it would play out. Listening to a room full of (mostly) new-to-me people talk about meaningful compliments, I knew this is what I wanted to share.

Our words have power. We have the capacity to create a lasting impact on someone.

We also have a choice: do we remember the criticism? Or do we remember the little love notes that people leave us throughout our lives? We can choose to store those kind words for when we need them. We can leave them for ourselves as reminders: we are not alone.

We are supported. We are loved. All is not lost.

This is actually deeply connected with Gratitude. When we offer words of gratitude and appreciation, we are acknowledging the inherently worthy parts of the people around us. When we say thank you, we recognize that these acts came from a place of love. When we say thank you, we mirror that love back.

In this exchange, we see one another clearly, anointing that experience with loving words.

Kind, loving words can keep us going.

They can remind us of our purpose, help us to feel more connected, allow us to reclaim our center.

Call to mind some of the compliments you’ve received. You might start a file of nice emails. You might simply leave yourself a loving post-it note on your mirror.