April

Overview

• April's Origin
• Importance of Self-Love
• 333

April:

Like most months, April goes back before January and February were first introduced. It was originally the second month following March. Even before this, how did April come about? Though there are many theories about its origins, the most common is that it was named after the Greek goddess Aphrodite. The goddess of love, beauty, and procreation.

Importance of Self-Love

Inspired by April’s origination, the principle that Loom will primarily discuss is the importance of self-love. If you have not noticed, one of Loom’s purposes is to spread self-awareness. Having this quality allows us to make better decisions, and with better decision-making, we can influence our outcomes.

So why is self-love important? What effect does having self-love have on our lives? How can we practice self-love? There are many other questions that you may ask yourself about self-love, but we will keep it short and straightforward, providing the most helpful information. Before we begin, this blog was inspired by “The Mastery of Love” by Miguel Ruiz. This book offers many principles about love for yourself and others. We highly recommend that you consider reading this book.

To have true 20/20 vision, we must see with eyes of love. If we do not see with eyes of love, we see with eyes of fear. This fear comes in many different forms, some of which you may recognize. It could be having expectations and conditions, worrying about others' opinions about us, or even focusing too much on the past. The list could go on. But understand that almost anything that restricts our love is because of fear. Seeing with eyes of love, we have no expectations. We love our unique bodies. We don’t let comparison demean us. And so on. Preceding love is self-love which is why we must start within ourselves or work inside-out, which was also mentioned in February’s blog. Once we love and accept ourselves, we can truly express what we are. Expressing something that we are not will only lead us down the track of fear. As we travel down this track of fear, pretending what we are not, we seek acceptance and validation through our partners. This leads to dependence which also results in an unhealthy relationship. So, we must focus on the most critical relationship. The relationship we have with ourselves. Others may perceive this as “selfish” or “vain,” but it is not. It is self-love. Ruiz says, “What makes you happy is love coming out of you. And if you are generous with your love, everyone will love you. You are never going to be alone if you are generous. If you are selfish, you will always be alone, and there is no one to blame but you.” So, could the deficiency of self-love be the solution to a majority of your problems?

If you are comfortable, please comment and share your thoughts that occurred while reading this month’s blog. We are also open to any criticism that may help us so that our blogs are consistently practical and helpful to you.

333

3 Tips : 3 Quotes : 3 Links

Tips

1. Extract yourself from society’s standard of beauty. It’s only a concept we learned that we allowed to domesticate us.
2. Practice Self-Care. This can include physical exercise, a healthy diet, practicing good hygiene, doing things that spark your creativity, etc.
3. Face your negative thoughts or, as discussed earlier, fear. Determine what is causing these thoughts and effectively heal the wound. Don’t put a temporary band-aid over it.

Quotes

1. “The real mission you have in your life is to make yourself happy, and in order to be happy, you have to look at what you believe, the way you judge yourself, the way you victimize yourself” - Miguel Ruiz 
2. “When you are truthful with yourself, you start to see everything as it is, not the way you want to see it.” - Miguel Ruiz 
3. “You are what you are looking for” - Unknown

Links  

1. 8 Things You Need to Know About Self-Love – Psych2Go

2. 4 Truths to Grow Self-Love – Robin Sharma

3. The Power of Self Love & Forgiveness – Motivational Vibes