Self-love and care can come in a lot of forms, and it changes for each person. Depending on each person’s life experiences or emotional environment, self-love can be practiced and viewed in several ways. Concurrently, recovery will be different for each person. While some go through the recovery of an eating disorder, addiction, self-harm, or other habit-based experience, recovery can also be from a mindset or state of being. Recovery can mean the process one goes through after a breakup or loss of a loved one. The importance of recovery is that it entails whatever your body and mind need in order to be loved, nourished, and taken care of.
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hen learning to practice self-care, it is easy to confuse acts of self-love with acts of selfishness. Learning to put ourselves first is a difficult mindset to learn in recovery when so often, these actions come after wanting or needing to escape a darker mental state where we are our last priority. Coming from these dark times we hear, we feel, and we live like our feelings do not matter. We convince ourselves we are not worthy of being first in our priorities or being treated with love. Taking these thoughts and turning them into words of affirmation like “I am worthy of happiness,” “I am loved,” or “I matter” can feel impossible. Meals turn into a chore, getting dressed feels unnecessary, and self-love becomes selfish.
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An aspect of self-love that is consistent is learning to understand the importance of nurturing and prioritizing one’s emotional and physical needs. “Self-love is taking care of yourself,” said University of Oregon student Keyilah Harshman. “Put yourself first sometimes. Make yourself a priority. You don’t have to be your first priority, but definitely make sure you’re taking the time to appreciate yourself and what you do.” Harshman shared her experience going to therapy where she learned to acknowledge how much she does each day. From homework to personal errands, to even just making the bed or taking a shower, Harshman made a point of emphasizing that we need to acknowledge our busy lives. From there, it’s been a journey for Harshman of taking mental health days when she needs them, reaching out for help from therapists, and finding ways to make time for herself and her needs.
UO student Kaitlyn O’Rourke found that through self-reflection, she was able to develop a mindset that has helped her learn a new level of self-compassion. “I used to feel like I didn’t deserve selflove... I noticed the biggest change in view of self-love when I became my own best friend.” O’Rourke acknowledges a big turning point in her journey through recovery which was accepting that we are the most constant thing in our lives who can provide ourselves with the purest and most consistent forms of love. “There’s a lot of other stuff that you could be doing [besides practicing self-love], but sometimes we just need to
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