Photo by Taryn Elliott on Pexels.

← CHAPTER OVERVIEW

This will be so much fun (eventually)

Do you remember the first time you bought yourself flowers?

If you haven’t done this yet, I sincerely hope you will start after reading this.

The first time I bought flowers for myself, was not the first time I bought flowers for my home.

I had done that plenty of times:

To make the kitchen look nice for my flat mates (and me), when guests were coming, when my love was visiting, and also, of course, when I lived with my partner and wanted our home to look and feel nice.

The first time I bought flowers for myself, was, when no one but me would see them.

It felt a little bit like doing something illegal.

I was and am such a home-maker, and I love it.

I build houses for the birds to come visit, I love designing, creating and shaping spaces.

I love filling my home with love and life and (com)passion.

But I was also raised and socialized in a way, that really installed the belief in me that we do this for other people, not for ourselves.

We create a nice home so that guests or the family feels welcome.

To say: “I just do this for myself” – not to post it on Instagram, not to share with somebody or to show them how well I can do things, but just for myself – felt revolutionary and really wrong in the beginning.

By now, I have quite a bit of practice in making myself happy, and just doing things for myself.

But at first, it was hard.

The thing is, that we all deserve and can be happy, and we don’t have to wait for another person to make us happy – or feel like we have to make others happy first so that they can make us happy in return.

While that seems obvious, in reality, for most people it is not.

We’re all entangled, and it creates a lot of unhappiness and disappointment.

But we can untangle, start to buy flowers for ourselves (and others) and practice being there for and loving ourselves.

How easy it is for us to treat ourselves as kindly, lovingly and attentively, as we would treat someone we love, shows how much we actually love ourselves.

For most of us, it’s not what we’ve learned or have a lot of practice in doing.

But we can start to be there for ourselves more with this simple ritual.

Cook yourself a fancy meal

Can you take a moment to check in with yourself?

Do you think you deserve to be treated first class?

Or do you think that if other people, your parents, your friends, your lovers, or your partners don’t treat you like you deserve everything you wish for in life, you can’t treat yourself that way either?

I believe that this, how we treat ourselves, is actually where we can and need to start everything.

Once we begin to treat ourselves first class, others will too – because we won’t accept anything less.

I’ve been using dating apps for a while now, and whenever I see a description in which people say that travel or concerts or other things are more fun with a partner – I stay away.

Because I know that kind of thinking from my past self, and I know that it only leads to pain.

When we expect other people to bring the joy to events and activities, we are not in our power, we don’t take ourselves seriously enough, and we don’t allow ourselves to enjoy something just for ourselves.

When we need to see that others are happy, for ourselves to be happy, we are not free.

But we can free ourselves.

And that doesn’t mean we can’t also enjoy things together.

(If this is easy for you, that’s wonderful! Enjoy! However, it’s not easy for everyone, yet.)

What do you like to do with a partner?

One of the things I loved about being in a relationship was making nice and fancy breakfasts on the weekends.

It’s something that I loved growing up as well, my dad cooked the eggs, and my mum was excellent at making nice breakfasts for the family, setting a nice table, and I still have very fond memories of that.

So, while I loved this, I never thought of making this just for myself, I only made fancy breakfast when I was with someone.

Until I decided to change.

And now I’m inviting you to do the same.

You can cook yourself a fancy dinner. Set the table, light the candles, just like you would when you have someone you love around.

And see if any resistance comes up.

If it does, embrace it and do it anyway.

Treat yourself like a person you love – that’s how you can begin to love yourself.

Try to make things extra nice for yourself.

You are worth it.

Who would be more worthy of your love than yourself, really?

And then see if this is something you can do for yourself at least once a month.

If you like, you can also share your experiences, thoughts, ideas or suggestions in the comments or in our Facebook Group.