Self love during the lockdown
Love, implies intimacy, the opening of one's soul to another, and much more. Manifestation in the physical such as hugging, kiss, attention, or just a deep affection, all of these is different facets of love. Love can be physical or platonic, self or with others,s and many more. During this greatest hour of lock-down, self-love is important, maybe more so than other forms of love.
Staying isolated for so long with oneself takes a lot of toils. There are hobbies or activities one needs to be preoccupied with to stay sane. To do so, one needs a deep understanding of self in the form of interest and self-discovery. People may be financially weak or strong, socially awkward or socialite, couch potato or fit maniac, everything boils down to the simplest element when one finds oneself for at least one moment, with oneself. Forced to think about all those things when one did not, leads to a lot of energy and do so one can take the simplest way, self-love, a feeling of thankfulness for what one has, is it material wealth or immaterial experience, is the feeling one has for oneself and one has a relationship with meaningful or not.
It takes courage to make the relationship happen. And then it requires more to bring meaning to it. To love is to be strong and to be weak. Strong in the sense, the one who loves if is supportive then it is not impossible to achieve one's aspiration. To do that the loved one may have sacrificed something meaningful to them. Out of love, parents may have worked hours and hours for the sake of good schooling for the children, a spouse may have sacrificed her career, and so on. And during lock-down, when we have so much more time to be with our loved ones, we may feel a kind of awkwardness, a distance, during that time self-love can play a role. We have to discover ourselves and then take steps to think from their shoes, this will lead to a kind of breaking of ice, understanding and then efforts to mitigate the distance, thus happiness can be achieved. Happiness is not spontaneous, it requires work from self, from the self that is often neglected, when we look in the big picture forgetting that small moments matter most
Self-love takes a lot of courage too. There is none more understanding about one's own faults than oneself, as well as the good points. There may be some facets unknown to us but known to others, but in general, we know ourselves best, what makes us happy. For loners it could be a good book, a touch of silence, a meaningful workout, for the socialite; a piece of amorous gossip, an interesting titbit of anecdote in the company of peers, or a personal achievement celebration, and so on. Loners are forced to be social and the socialite forced to live in isolation. Being social, during lock-down it leans to isolation more, we cannot have intimate moments with our friends like before, go to a stress-relieving shopping and much more group activities that are possible only when we are physically there. Yet, with self-love, we can mitigate the feeling of isolation, the feeling of depression mostly to the socialite. We can do some meaningful things every day, we could be thankful for little moments which make us and those we care about happy. A little thank you or good morning can brighten the mood of people who are going through loneliness.
Self-love is the cornerstone for creativity, be it art or simply a hobby. We can re-embrace those things which we could not do so, due to lack of time, energy, and such. Learn little do-to-do steps, a series of musical instruments, involve in personal projects, meditation, yoga, time with friends online, play games, or just have relaxing rest. Happiness lasts with experience, for we get used to the physical richness, with time material wealth dims its attraction but we will still relieve the experience. This is an opportunity thing which we had never dared to do, never given thought to, for we are facing a question of mortal existence due to the corona crisis. Let go of all the negative things in Twitter, Instagram, or social and mainstream media. The major crisis (China-India Border, Korean Liaison Office Bombing, Oil Price downturn, Corona deaths) is out of our control and we cannot do anything about it.
Yet, during this time, we can take a close look at the socially accepted discrepancies and social injustice. Racial oppression in the USA, the Mismanagement of Government to tackle COVID-19, and such are the major things that can be advocated upon. This questions our very identity and existence. If similar cases happen again and again, what good we have will be lost, self-love. Self-love is not being selfish it is about being, about taking the first step towards brother and sisterhood, to bring unity, equality, and happiness to each and every individual irrespective of color, financial/social standing, or any discrepancies. We may not be born equal or live equal but at the very basic we are equal, we are capable of self-love and through that be good to oneself and to others, for what is the meaning of self if there is none to share what one has or is?
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