Celebrate who you are, as you are©
The cornerstone of living a solo lifestyle is celebrating who you are, as you are. It’s self-confidence. It’s self-awareness and accountability. It’s viewing hard times as lessons and allowing yourself to move forward. It’s self-reliance. It’s self-love. These attributes are what gives you the strength to pick yourself up and keep going when you feel like you can’t. They empower you to embrace fear and push past it be it walking away from a toxic job or relationship, eating at a restaurant alone, redefining the ridiculous “bikini body” standard and rocking whatever the hell you want to wear with confidence, or traveling to a new city or country. It’s allowing yourself to be vulnerable: To find your voice and the courage to use it in a way that’s authentic and meaningful to you.
What is a solo lifestyle?
A solo lifestyle doesn’t necessarily mean a single one. It doesn’t mean foregoing spending time socially with friends and family or traveling alone. At the heart of it, a solo lifestyle is a journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance. It’s a journey as unique as the individual.
December 14, 2017, was one of several pivotal, life-altering moments in my life thus far; at the time I didn’t know that. This moment was the genesis of my solo travel journey. Like many of you, it was born from heartbreak. What rose was something and someone I wasn’t expecting. Something and someone I didn’t know I needed. It was the moment my journey of self-love and self-acceptance truly began. The details of this particular story will be shared in a later post.
Celebrate who you are, as you are©
You choose how you perceive yourself and the world that surrounds you. When it comes to how you view yourself – how you perceive your reality – why would you choose to see anything other than the super amazing human you are? Sure, we all have flaws and make mistakes. However, we learn. We grow. We evolve and move forward, even if “forward” sometimes means taking a few steps back, which may feel counterintuitive but it will get you to where you need to be and who you need to be.
Imagine if we spoke to ourselves the way we speak to others? Celebrated and complimented ourselves the way we celebrate and compliment others? For example, as I scroll through my social media feeds, I often compare myself to others but not in a way that’s constructive to my journey of self-love and acceptance. It’s a process and mindset that I’m working on. When I find myself doing this, I actively acknowledge the thought, give myself a compliment, and keep it moving.
Stop for a moment and think about this:
- What is one thing you love about yourself physically?
- What is another thing you love about yourself that can’t be seen on the outside?
Moral of the Story
The journey of self-love and acceptance is lifelong, with many highs and lows and places in between. At the end of the day, this blog is a reflection of how I’m living a solo lifestyle – the things I do that are pieces of my ever-evolving journey of self-love and acceptance; it’s sharing the things I’m passionate about that make me happy. Be it through the foods I make, sharing style inspiration, the places I travel to, pictures of my dog Luna, and the like. You’ll also find deeply personal stories, some of which are emotional and at times, highly-sensitive, potentially triggering topics. But you know, that’s life. It’s not all sunshine, champagne and shopping hauls (though that’d be awesome). It’s at the lowest of times that we truly find ourselves. We find what we’re really made of. That we are resilient. We are strong.
I hope you take a moment each day to celebrate who you are, as you are. To recognize how far you’ve come and what you’ve overcome. And hey, if you need a little inspiration, I’m here for you.
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