Lets talk about LOVE
LOVE can really be a four-letter word.
When you have it, you want more. When you crave it, you can’t seem to find it. Sometimes love is conditional. Sometimes love is blind. And, most heartbreaking of all, sometimes love is unrequited. It can make us sad or happy, Love can leave us sleepless and confused.
But isn’t it ironic that we would not be so susceptible to love’s influences if we learned to love the most important person deserving of that love – ourselves?
This month we celebrate Valentine’s Day – a day to prove your love to someone else with a gesture. Whether it’s overpriced red roses or elaborate dinners, so many of us, yours truly included, are guilty of expecting to be struck by a bolt of lightning hearts on this one day. I’m not going to lie – it’s nice to be wined and dined in the name of romance, but how many of us can honestly say that we would be ok with zero arrows shot our way by Cupid’s bow on Valentine’s Day?
Sometimes I feel that I have unintentionally contributed to this harmful notion that to be loved you need to look a certain way. We offer hundreds of treatments that make you thinner, make your lips plumper, make your jawline stronger etc. etc. etc. But the intended messaging has always been to do these treatments in order to achieve your own best self. Not to get the approval or love from another person. That can sometimes be the dilemma I struggle with – being part of an industry that promotes altering or enhancing one’s appearance, but also advocating for self-confidence and self-love. Do we seek to enhance our appearance because we love ourselves? Or do we seek to enhance our appearance so that we can love ourselves, or even worse, so we can be loved by others?
What I have come to realize, not only as a cosmetic doctor but also as a regular person with flaws and insecurities, is that no aesthetic treatment under the sun will ever make us worthy of true love. How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you. Unfortunately, sometimes we are accused of being vain the minute we start taking care of ourselves. Vanity implies something self-centred and obnoxious. It’s a word that is meant as criticism. However, realizing your worth and loving yourself is vital to being a complete person. Having the confidence to spend Valentine’s Day, or any other day alone, knowing that you are enough in every way, is the one defining element of happiness that cannot be bought or compromised. A little pampering treatment here and there is just the reward you give yourself – not the defining factor of whether you will be loved or not.
So, doctors’ orders:
Pour that bath.
Drink the wine.
Watch The Real Housewives of Wherever.
Eat the chocolate.
Be YOUR Valentine.
xoxox