Sara's Virtual Notebook

It’s Madly In Love With Me™ Day! If you didn’t already know, there are Self-Love Day Celebrations happening in four cities today — San Francisco, Chicago, Orlando and Detroit.. and there’s still time to go!

This post is divided into three parts:

• My own personal Self-Love Manifesta
• Ideas and suggestions for how to spend your Madly In Love With Me™ Day, inspired by Gala Darling, Christine Arylo, Terri Cole and Cheryl Richardson
• Information on how you can win a “Me” heart pendant necklace, courtesy of Christine Arylo of madlyinlovewithme.com

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My Self-Love Manifesta: my ever-changing and growing new philosophy, inspired by Christine Arylo and in answer to the first question for Gala Darling’s Radical Self Love homework.

Self-love is being totally honest with myself, which includes awareness of places where I may be avoiding truth or otherwise in denial.

Self-love is healing the self-betrayal of times past by being impeccable with my own word toward myself — I will not speak cruel words of myself that I would not say t o a five year old. I will also honor decisions made in the moment, even when they do not match decisions made in earlier moments. I will own that I am deciding differently, and that everything I choose to do or not to do is a choice made of my own sovereign being.

Self-love is spending my hard earned dollars in places where it honors me most; and never indulging in post=purchase self-loathing when I miss the mark.

Self-love is knowing that I am always good enough; I always was and I always will be.

Radical Self Love is embracing fashion and viewing my body as this artist’s first canvas, throwing away sneaking suspicions of what others might think if I step out of my current sloppy style comfort zone.

Radical Self Love is being a winner in my own life and regularly handing out the prizes. What did you win a gold medal in today? We’re all good at things and we all express those things in our day-to-day lives. Own it!

Radical Self Love is cutting up the credit cards (or, in my case, paying off my credit card debt which I did today!!) and clearing the clutter from my life. What’s left behind will be things I use regularly, so they serve me, and things I love, so they bring me joy. The rest goes.

Self-love is accepting the bumps in the road toward sovereignty, as well as remembering to always reach for — and savor — simply joys.

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Things to do on Madly In Love With Me™ Day:

• Commit to a 40-day Self-Love practice. Christine Arylo, author of Choosing ME Before WE and founder of the Madly In Love With Me™ movement, gives ideas about this practice in this TV clip and also in both her Blog Talk radio appearances (links are below). Some ways you can do this: ask yourself each morning what you can do to most honor your relationship with yourself; say a specific vow to yourself daily; or practice saying ‘I love you’ while looking into your eyes whenever you pass a reflection of yourself in the mirror, which Cheryl Richardson proposes in her book The Art of Extreme Self-Care.
• Buy yourself a present, with presence. This is the opposite of buying something to fill the void or buying something for the sake of buying something. This is finding an item that honors your relationship with yourself. I have been one to indulge in emotional shopping, and the fruits of those trips always leave me with reminders of my own self-loathing and self-betrayal. When I chose my Self-Love Day gifts, I did so with respect and love and because of that the money I spent and the items themselves honor me, and every time I see them I will remember how I honored myself with their purchase. I bought myself a solitaire red garnet ring set in sterling, a copy of Tranquilista: Mastering the Art of Enlightened Work and Mindful Play, two bottles of purple nail polish in different shades, and a Brita water filtration pitcher. That’s what self-love looked like to me this week.
• Find a photo of yourself as a young child and frame it. Use this photo as a visual reminder to ask yourself, whenever you find yourself being unkind in your head and heart, if you would treat a five year old the way you are treating yourself. (Inspired by Terri Cole’s Self-Love chat on my.crazysexylife.com).
• Create your own Radical Self Love Bible. Check out this video from Gala Darling for inspiration and prompts on this yummy idea.
• Get yourself a self-love talisman. Gala suggests this as a physical reminder in your daily life to love yourself. Prior to hearing her suggestion, I had already ordered my solitaire red garnet ring in its velvet ring box, which will be my talisman. Each day I will take the ring out of its box and speak a vow to myself aloud — the first one I’d like to work with is from Christine Arylo: “I vow to see my beauty every day.”
• Write a Self-Love Gratitude journal. Challenge yourself to write 1-5 things every day that you adore, love and appreciate about you.
• Enter to win my giveaway for your very own Self-Love talisman!
• Put one some shimmy-inspiring tunes and dance! I know I’ll be putting on my purple jangly hip scarf today and listening to some Shakira and Loreeena McKennitt.
• Get yourself Christine Arylo’s free ME-Love Kit, which has even more ideas on how to celebrate YOU. My favorite suggestion is writing a Love Letter to You.

Places to go for more inspiration on the web:

• Go here to share your own Self-Love Manifesta or get inspired by reading others’ manifestas. All manifestas will be sent to dictionary.com to petition against their current definition of self-love which is: conceit, vanity and narcissim. #$%^&@
• Listen to Christine on Girlfriendology at Blog Talk Radio
• Listen to Christine on City Enlightenment at Blog Talk Radio
• Gala Darling’s Radical Self Love blog posts are full of juicy inspiration
• You can also check out Twitter searching for hashtag #radicalselflove

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Christine Arylo is offering one ME heart token necklace to one of my lucky readers! To enter, you must:

Head on over to http://madlyinlovewithme.com/join, and download the free ME-Love Kit, if you haven’t already, and then leave a comment below, telling me either:

• The self-love dare you took and why?
• The self-love vow you took and why?

These dares and vows are in the Madly In Love With Me™ kit, full of great tips and ideas for having a Self-Love party, whether with friends or solo. Contest runs through February 27th, so please, after you enter, tell your girlfriends about the kit and tell them to enter, too!