A Year of Dating Myself

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2020 Date Thyself

2020 is going to be about me. I’m dating myself. It’s a pledge to take myself on a date each day for a year. These dates can be however long or short as I desire. I may go solo or invite a friend to join me. The definition of ‘a date’ to me is any activity that I do for myself that is kind, and fun and is outside of my weekly core-routine. The date cannot be any of the things that I already do regularly: I have a strict weekly schedule that involves university work, creative work, working out, walking my dogs, meditation time, family work, and research-reading time–these times do not qualify as dates. Though, because I love dancing, and yoga is so therapeutic, I’ve decided to allow dance and yoga classes to pass as self-dates.

I came up with this idea out of necessity. 2019 has been a year of trauma. The previous blog describes one of the main traumatic experiences in my life, and I also have been navigating another devastating issue, that occurred this past year, that I am not at liberty to speak of. Seriously, the year has been so surreal and traumatic, that the emergency plane landing at midnight in Honolulu this past May (I was traveling with my daughter Tabitha), doesn’t even make in on my trauma list this year.

Despite these challenging times, I’ve been doing great, lifting myself from the trauma with my tight familial bonds and a regular self-care schedule; however, just when I think the trauma’s behind me, suddenly I’m back in it, feeling raw and vulnerable, and interacting with others feels like too much effort and I long to stay at home, away from the stressful world.

Thus, I’ve decided that I need a little boost, something out of my ordinary life, to consistently lift my spirits. One thing I’ve learned in life is that one can’t sit around expecting anyone else to look after them. The one person you must be able to rely on–to never stand you up on a date–is yourself. If you let yourself down, who can you trust?

I’ve got my back

So here it is, a year of daily dates with myself. I actually started this journey 2 weeks ago and have successfully dated myself for the last two weeks of 2019. My dates have included a nighttime forest walk with my dogs (Pablo decided to stop and growl at a tree–in the dark, that’s spooky as he never growls at anything in daylight), I also took two my of daughters on an evening date to Karat, a patisserie that I have always wanted to try out, and on another date, I invited my hubby to an evening downtown skate and afterward a stop for an ice cream cone–that was a chilly date: ice cream, ice skate and icy wind off the lake as we walked to Parlour Ice Cream.

Though I applaud myself for my efforts thus far, I am can honestly say, lifting myself from the trauma void is a work in progress…onward…

I hope to check in with this blog on occasion, to keep a journal of these dates. I’ve already anticipated that anyone reading about the dates might think: oh my god, she is the most boring woman in the world!

It’s okay because the dates are not about wow factor, they are simply small acts of kindness to myself, to help me get on top of my life-game once again–so yeah, they’re gonna be super simple and Zen, as the whole idea is to be kind to myself.

Be kind to yourself & Happy New Year

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