There's so much stuff about love and romance in the air but my question to you is do you love YOURSELF enough? And how do you show it? How many of us do actually love ourselves (and I don’t mean in an arrogant, show off type of way) and take care to treat our ourselves accordingly? 

 

Do you take good care of yourself? Do you look after yourself as if you’re a precious thing to be loved and treasured? Nope? Thought not. I’m the first one to admit that I don't possibly treat myself as well as I could. Quite often us women feel guilty about spending time on ourselves. We look after our families and prioritise making sure they have what they need, and we slide down the list. 

 

More recently I have been making time for other things that I enjoy and giving myself a break. I realise that all work and no play is not good long term. I’ve started mosaic classes, picked up my knitting needles, joined the WI. All things that are ‘me time’. It's too easy for me to end up whiling away the hours working on social media. These hobbies might seem only little things but if we start thinking about the bigger picture and self esteem and self worth it's all linked to self care. Not selfish, important. 

 

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. What bollocks that is...on my Facebook feed recently an article came up from Twitter July 2017 with the hashtag #TheySaid. 

 

The article is basically women relaying stories about comments made by parents or other people during childhood or teenage years that stuck well into adult life. Quite often offhand, throw away comments from our nearest and dearest that weren’t necessarily said with malice but have an enormous impact for a very long time. 

 

 

There are scars. Some are still open wounds, twenty, thirty or forty years on...comments made about our bodies, our physical appearance, our weight, perceived inadequacies related to our appearance. 

 

Do you think they even notice? Perhaps they are so hung up on their own 'flaws' they have no interest or concerns with yours. 

 

My biggest 'flaw' in my eyes is my limp. I've had it since childhood, I've had lifelong problem with my hip and developed a limp after one of my surgeries despite my legs being the same length.  

 

My limp has even got a name, it's... called the 'Trendelenburg Gait'. it's a specific type of limp - not just a common or garden limp. 

 

Some days it's worse than others but it's always there. My big goal after my hip replacement a few years ago was to improve my gait - it didn't happen...I'm stuck with it. 

 

I'm not telling you this for sympathy or anything. I'm telling you in order to illustrate my point ...Just recently, twice within the space of a fortnight, I was asked why I was limping by people I'd known and mixed with in my networking circle for quite sometime, they thought I'd hurt myself. 

 

My biggest flaw had not even registered with them previously, something that I'm conscious about had not even been on their radar for whatever reason. 

 

Food for thought ladies...what are you focussing on that isn't really on anyone else's radar?