Well I made it to the end of the series, and gain many insights, more understanding and honed my sketching skills at the same time.
The ‘I love you today’ series was a way to show 'self love' and look for ways to show love to others. It can be hard to appreciate how far you have come as you continue to busy yourself with ‘getting on with it’, and you are not able to find the room to celebrate these qualities that lay within as they often go overlooked. It is easier to give encouragement to others and to cheer them on, but we can think of 100 reasons why we are not up to scratch and we end up speaking about ourselves negatively, or underplay the big leap that we actually make.
The journey for me in February fulfilled three purposes, one was to appreciate and value myself more and encourage myself to recognise when I had done a good job, recognising how far I had come, to be able to look in the mirror and not see 100 faults, but to appreciate the reflection staring back. We all need to be able to be comfortable in our own skin and be confident with who we are and our abilities. Some are able to do it with greater ease than others, it can feel uncomfortable saying to yourself what a good job you have done, but you have to recognise that your growth is determined by how you can see, reflect and acknowledge your growth without being self conscious or fearful.
Secondly, I included a self portrait, and a few from my imagination. We have a perception of what we think that other people see, but the exercise in self-love is about how God sees us with unconditional love, without any strings, not governed by what we look like, latest clothes, or skin colour, so either looking in the mirror or looking at a photograph forced me to see me. I experimented with techniques, starting out with coloured markers, adding promarker pens which I really enjoyed using. Thirdly - it is not only about me – when you can love yourself you will find it easy to love others in a more genuine way....the commandment is ‘Love your neighbours as you love yourself’....we have got to be able to demonstrate that love for ourselves to be able to express and show love to others.
This was why I had the section ‘share some love’, calling us to do something for someone, thinking how we can help someone else and be a blessing in their lives, however small. What we consider small could be the miracle that someone else was praying for.
So I’ve come through enlightened, with a great set of sketches and drawings that can be used for other projects and new way of looking at myself and where I fit in the world, alongside 28 ideas for blessing others. I am excited for the changes and challenges that will take place this month.
What challenges have you got ready for yourself this month? The focus for me will be health and I will be sharing some of the delicious smoothies I intend to make to improve my health and well-being. Blessings!
