February is the month that has us thinking about our hearts. The physical one and the emotional one. They are equally important to your well-being. The physical one is placed in the center of your body. The emotional one is placed in the center of your soul. The physical heart has many different parts, and when it is working properly, it can literally save your life.
When you love yourself, you take care of yourself with exercise, good nutrition, adequate sleep, proper hormone levels, low stress, and fun. Your physical heart loves when you love on yourself, so it loves you back by gifting you with good health, energy, and longevity. When you’re neglecting yourself, your physical heart gives you things that come with a lack of self-love…the lows and the highs – low metabolism, low energy, low hormone levels, high blood pressure, high LDLs, high risk for disease.
What’s so wonderful is that the heart is very forgiving, so even if you are riddled with the highs & the lows from mistreating yourself, it will allow you to reverse it. As you start loving on yourself, it starts opening up the doors to the gifts of good health, energy, and longevity.
Your emotional heart, similarly, has many different parts and when the parts are working well, it can save your life. Because you can’t physically touch your emotional heart, sometimes we forget it is even there. That’s when you experience sadness, depression, loneliness, self-loathing, procrastination, and confusion. On the other hand, when you are loving yourself, your emotional heart bathes you in joy, optimism, self-love, positivity, and enthusiasm.
Whether it’s your emotional heart or your physical heart, all it wants is for you to show it some love. And when you do, it thrives and renews you. For the last two years, our world has been in such a divisive and disconnected state. We have had to physically disconnect from people due to the worldwide pandemic. This led to emotional disconnection. But the real tragedy is that this disconnection from others has resulted in a disconnection from ourselves, from our feelings, and from our voice. It is more important now than ever that we have these things.
The solution is creating a new connection with yourself in a loving way. Re-learning how to love yourself unconditionally with compassion. Loving yourself despite your imperfections. Loving yourself the way you love your children, your grandchildren, your pets. No matter what they do, your love for them doesn’t change. You remain committed to helping them get it right. How would it feel if instead of thinking less of yourself when you messed up, you were more committed to helping yourself get it right? And each time you get it right, you celebrate your victory.
We are in a new year, a new month, why not start loving a new you?