I noticed something marveling about my niece, Ndalwenhle, Ndalo for short- her name means beautiful creation. My parents live in Port Elizabeth, I stay in Johannesburg currently. After returning from my trip to Australia I went home for a few weeks. My niece just turned One by the way, she has recently started walking, has the best laugh ever, she is very smart and creative- the kind of creative that makes every adult in the room, scream NO! Because she just shocked everyone with what she tried to do; a creative nonetheless.
I spent some time watching this baby, or observing her rather (watching sounds creepy), and she had a rather strange habit, most babies have this habit I think. She religiously kisses herself. Yes! I said kiss herself. Every time she sees herself on a mirror, or a reflection of herself anywhere; 1) she gets extremely excited, 2) if you are carrying her you have to stop and lean her close to the mirror or the reflection so that she can kiss herself, and 3) she will try and hug the reflection and smile at it the whole time with complete adoration and amazement. When she sees a picture of herself on a phone; she takes it, and she would kiss the image and even lick it (yea its grows and cute i know) . Seeing herself made her happy, and excited. As a person who has been on a journey of self-discovery, and self-love for many years, seeing this from my niece helped me put together a puzzle that I have been working on for years.
I had to do some digging, and find out what happened to me kissing myself, what made me stop? How can I start kissing myself again? Life happens and we stop loving ourselves like we used to. When we look at pictures of ourselves, what first catches our attention are the things that are "wrong"; how we standing, how we smiling, how “weird we look”, and so on.
With the pressures of social media and influencers that have “perfect” pictures, “perfect” bodies, it’s getting harder and harder to correctly and genuinely love ourselves, instead it has become a norm to envy another and compare. Strange thing is, we always compare our worst, to another person's best, which will always be an unfair comparison designed by our insecurities to leave us feeling like failures.
As we celebrate the month of love. I wanted to encourage you to kiss yourself again, like you used to as a child. Get excited when you see YOU! More excited that you are to see your man. Whenever you see a reflection of yourself get butterflies in your stomach, because OMG, it’s you!!
You’re smart
You’re Funny
You’re Creative
You’re gorgeous
You’re Amazing
You’re Awesome
You’re a perfect creation, with nothing missing!
I recently started kissing myself too (yes I did) when I look in the mirror, and afterwards, I would say “I love you Zintle”, something shifts inside of me every time I do this and I can’t help but smile at me. It’s a beautiful feeling to love yourself, and it truly transforms how you love others. It helps you love selflessly, and without expectation because your tank is overflowing.
This Valentines Day, Celebrate yourself, love YOU hard, get yourself a cute meaningful gift and remember to KISS yourself!
Happy Valentines Day!
