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Happiness is a butterfly 
Try to catch it, like, every night 
It escapes from my hands into moonlight

So, to begin with, I’m a fan of Lana Del Rey. Why? Because her voice beats any I’ve heard, for those little suspenseful, menacholic vibes that it gives off.

Secondly, I recently Googled the actual meaning of these lyrics and realized that it was just a hugely poetic, metaphorical comparison between happiness and a butterfly. The more you try to chase it, the more it flies away.

And this is what inspired this post: How to start being happy again? How to actually catch that butterfly? Not in the catch it and tape it in your scrapbook kind of way, but in the catch it and hope it stays nearby kind. The watching it fly around in circles over your little periwinkle plant kind.

Forcing happiness in your life instead of letting it naturally flow inside of you some day or the other tires you out. That’s why it needs to be genuine when it is present.

And what better way to make yourself happy than to love yourself right?

I bet you’ve felt before how hard it is to tru?ly find happiness in today’s world. We’ve got too much stuff to take care of, too much information, too much exposure, too many responsibilities, just over-all, too much going on in our lives.

Only people who stay disconnected from all this mayhem can actually begin to find focus and peace within their minds.

Focus and peace naturally, automically fosters happiness. The butterfly, you know. Here’s how you can find it too.

How to Start Being Happy Again?

It’s too easy for us to get caught up in this web of negativity and chaos that reigns around us. There’s a ton of stuff to worry about, to feel bad about, to regret, to fruitlessly try to change. It’s hard trying to accommodate everyone’s (often prejudiced) views regarding ourselves, and sometimes you just DON’T want to indulge with ANYONE.

And them we don’t feel good about ourselves because we couldn’t live up to the perfect expectations we had held of ourselves in our dreams. This is why self-love is hard.

So what are you supposed to do when, take, you don’t want to worry, or be anxious, or take care of all the fricking responsibilities in the world? What do you do if you, say, just want to be happy?

There’s a powerful antidote for that.

No, don’t cringe, it’s self-love.

Now just let me define what I think about self-love. This is purely my own interpretation. I’m not talking about that massaging-your-body, using fragrant lotions and oils, buying all those kinds of acupressure tools online. No, I’m not into that. Not my type.

Self-love looks like, what I think, plainly, very simply, anti-climatically, taking care of yourself. Treating yourself just the same way how you would treat someone you love and respect.

Notice how important respect is.

That kind of self-love is purely psychological. Empathetic. Emotional. And on some days even spiritual.

Everyone’s a soul, so why not just fall in love with ours?

Your Life is Magic

…and you are a magician.

When you take the time out to treat yourself kindly and compassionately, something very magical happens. The little, supposedly meaningless things that you used to do, now carry a different, far deeper meaning.

Self-love looks like this: you start smiling more. You check yourself out in the mirror. You know it’s self-love and self-care, not self-obsession or narcissism. You view yourself in a new light and are positive that a whole new beginning in your life is waiting for you.

Self-love looks like accepting that you are the driving force in your life, that you change your life yourself, that you loving yourself is all that you need. That’s what self-love looks like, as far as I know.

Self-love looks like trusting yourself. Higher self-esteem, high self-confidence, ultimately it all gives you a new power to see the challenges in your life, not with unease or fear, but with the reassurance that you will overcome them.

Happiness is not elusive. It can be yours. The butterfly can perch atop your finger and you can stare at it all that you want.

Embrace your quirky behaviors, empower your strengths and celebrate all the victories. Don’t be afraid of speaking up. Don’t ever. You’ll only regret it one day if you don’t say what’s on your heart, right now. That being said, another important lesson that goes hand-in-hand with this is to never hurt anyone intentionally. If you end up doing so, on the reason that it was purely unintentionally, hope that they forgive you, and then forgive yourself too. This is why self-love is hard: we are never kind enough to ourselves.

How to Start with Self-Love

Now the question arises, if you’re particularly new to all this, how do you start practicing self-love and self-care?

You can start by taking a break.

I know you might be excited and eager to start now, to find your butterfly right now, start being happy, but if there’s too much stuff on your mind, you’ll be overwhelmed with it. I face this whenever I’m trying to organize my life.

I’ve got too much going on in my head and in these cases it’s best to first just take a break.

A short break. Clear your head. Move. Drink water. Feel your body right now in this moment, in this space. Look around yourself a little. This world is pretty amazing. Wherever you’re sitting, on the bed, chair, cross-legged on the floor, feel the surface under yourself. You’re here, in this moment.

You should be here. In the present. You’ve got to start being happy right now. No worries. No tensions. No fear. Just enjoy yourself, experience life as it is now.

You’re alive and despite all the baggage it carries, all the unwanted drama and sorrow and hardships, alive is a pretty great thing to be. When you know that, when you think about it, you’ll find that happiness might be a butterfly, but you are also the periwinkle plant sitting in all its pink and purple glory on the windowsill.

As long as your leaves are green and your flowers bloom, as long as you stand tall and trust the sun to come out of the shadows every morning, some butterfly or other will come fluttering down on its own.

You just have to make sure it keeps hovering by.

Why Self-Love is Hard

Self-love might be kind of hard. I mean, we all feel uncomfortable at first, right? We don’t know what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, or how far we’re even going to go.

Don’t worry, because you’re not alone. In the beginning, I used to feel like I was just pretending to be a hotshot, if you know what I mean.

Here are reasons why self-love is hard. Understand them first to conquer them later.

1. Sometimes we feel like we’re being too selfish, like imposters, like we don’t need to make such a big deal out of ourselves.
2. Sometimes we feel like we’re being too pretentious, like we’re making everything about ourselves when it should actually be about other, more important stuff, like family and friends and the world.
3. And then sometimes, we become self-conscious. None of us are successful motivational gurus, are we? We’re just wannabes. We just want to learn how to do proper self-love. Not that we actually know how to do it. What if we’re doing it wrong?
4. What if we’re being too narcissistic? Or self-obsessed? Or we come across as having a superiority complex?
5. What if someone laughs at us, because we’re literally taking ourselves too seriously? What if they say, who do you even think you are?
6. Self-love and self-care makes us tired, feel kind of exhausted after a few initial days. Because since our childhood we’ve been wired for toughness, to not be gentle with ourselves, to be rigorously working all the time, rigorously trying to make our lives better, through money, or relationships, or status because they seemed to be the only few options. Now when we suddenly change this way of thinking, and make it more inward-oriented, we naturally feel a little exhausted after some time. We are often taught to reprimand ourselves, often quite harshly even because of just one mistake. And self-love doesn’t allow for that kind for behaviour.
7. And to be honest, treating ourselves harshly seemed to be our favorite past-time activity. It’s kind if toxic, yes, but it’s also kind of cathartic. It makes you feel somehow better in that it also makes you feel somewhat worse. It feels like a kind of self-regulation, like you’re being a good self-judge, being fair, being just.
8. Self-destruction is not a coping mechanism for nothing. People feel that if they can torture themselves, emotionally and sometimes even physically, they can prevent the world from torturing them. It’s the worst kind of power move, taking the control in your own hands, and preventing anyone else from having the power to hurt you (or save you).

But what people forget is that this kind of control is no control at all. It’s just sad. And eventually it’s sadder than anyone else being that cause of your pain because all you can blame, is yourself.

Self-love can be hard. Self-loathing is easier, but that’s where the real challenge lies. Are we willing to move past the old patterns and choose a new life that we well know we deserve?

Self-Love Looks Like

• Waking up early most of the days but sleeping in late sometimes, on rainy mornings when the smell of the earth drifts in your nostrils and you smile in your sleep.
• Taking your time to do whatever you want, not always rushing and worrying about what you’ve got to do.
• Organizing your life however you dreamed it and preparing yourself for the amazing future that you’ve got, but not forgetting to firstly live in the present.
• Being kind to yourself, not treating yourself too harshly. Forgiving yourself for all the mistakes you might’ve ever made.
• Doing one thing every day that feels like magic, that reminds you that you’re alive, and are living a breathtaking, beautiful miracle.
• Laughing out loud.
• Keeping the people who matter to you closer.
• Treating yourself to stuff that you like.
• Not worrying so much for once in life, just letting it all happen, gradually unfold as you live.
• Accepting that you are a human being too, and can make mistakes, over and over again, learn from them, try it out as you feel better, make more mistakes.
• Accepting that you need rest too. You can’t be a machine working all the time. You aren’t.
• Saying a clear no and distancing yourself from stuff that harms you or makes you uncomfortable, without having to explain yourself. This also goes with people.
• Self-love looks like plain, unconditional love—inward-oriented.

This is what self-love looks like. And this is how you can design countless other ways—really, innumerable—in which you can instill the habit of self-love and self-care into your daily routine.

Keep spreading the good vibes!

The butterfly is near you. Look around.