Dr. Anisa Shomo
Herald Beauty Contributor
I named my brand “Health is Love” because I was searching for a title for my book. From my perspective as a Geriatric specialist, health is about living longer and maintaining most functions of your mind and body. That was the easy part. The harder part was finding a word to pair with “Health”. I thought about naming it “Health is Not a Size” because many people equate health with weight. This is a bias that many people have, however, a person being thin does not mean that they will live longer or age functionally. They could be drinking liters of soda and eating hamburgers daily but because they are thin, people assume that they are “healthy”. That word “healthy” could be separated to “heal thy”. That phrase led me to pair “Love” with health. I was exploring books about trauma informed care when I stumbled upon All About Love by bell hooks. In this book love is defined as “nurturing”. It explores different relationships that should be nurturing, the key word is “should”. Nurturing leads to healing. Love should heal thy. When you define love in this way, you can reflect on your actions and the actions of other: are we working to heal thy?
Diving into self-love should be healing. Here are 5 tips for starting your self-love journey:
- Examine your coping skills: do they contribute to your healing (constructive) or are they destructive? Try our book Health is Love: A “Love Heals” Journey through 14 Reflections and Meditations. Try our course “14 Day Coping Skills”
- Examine your mindset: do you hate everything about yourself and your life? Try starting a gratitude journal.
- Examine your relationships: do you feel stressed out by certain people? Maybe it is time to take a break from that person or let them go all together.
- Examine your work habits: are you working too much? Do you feel valued by your employer or co-workers? Maybe it is time to change jobs or careers.
- Examine your home environment: what improvements could help? Try de-cluttering your living space.
Working with a therapist can help you work through some of these areas of your life. Taking a moment to reflect can help you identify the next steps of your self-love journey.