Self-Love Is The New #Relationshipgoals | Neeltje’s Thoughts: Self-Love

It’s almost Valentine’s Day! Not everybody celebrates Valentine’s Day (for many different reasons) but I think you don’t really need one specific day, like Valentine’s Day, to share time with a loved one. I do think it’s essential to think about yourself, because self-love is very important. That’s why Valentine’s Day is the perfect reminder for that. Besides that, I also wanted to share how you can make these cute cookies for Valentine’s Day, on a day where you practice self-love or just whenever you feel like it. ❤️

♥ Self-Love ♥

It might sound selfish but it really isn’t because self-love is so important. I was seeing the term ‘self-love’ everywhere and I didn’t even know what it meant. That’s why I decided to look it up and I found this:

Self-love / self-ˈləv /: regard for one’s own well-being and happiness.

When you read the meaning of self-love like this, it makes a lot more sense, at least for me. It’s all about a feeling and not about being something. Some weeks I feel like I just keep going, don’t have one moment of rest and don’t feel like myself. That are the weeks that I need to really take care of myself. This is something I only realized about a year ago, when I started choosing for myself, working out and doing yin yoga every week. This has given me a lot of insight and that’s why I wanted to share some of my tips to practice self-love.

♥ Tips ♥

#1 || Take time for yourself. Write down what you are grateful for or what you love about yourself, maybe go on a long walk in the woods, read a book you’ve been wanting to read for a long time or take a long bath.

#2 || Do something creative. Make a vision board with your dreams and goals, make a scrapbook with your favorite memories or practice your photography skills.

#3 || Be present & mindful. Starting yin yoga is something I really recommend since this has changed me so much. Yin yoga is a combination of yoga and meditation. The perfect combination if you ask me.

#4 || Be kind. It’s not only important to be kind to others, you also have to be kind to yourself. Don’t be so harsh or yourself.

♥ Valentine’s Day Sugar Cookies ♥

What you’ll need || 200 grams of flour, 100 grams of butter, 75 grams of white caster sugar, 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and half an egg & 400 grams of powered sugar, 60 ml of water, 10 grams of protein powder (I used a vegan kind) and food coloring (recipe inspired by Laura’s Bakery).

How to || To make these cute cookies for Valentine’s Day, you’ll first need to measure everything and mix the caster sugar, vanilla extract and butter together in a bowl. Mix these together until you get a smooth batter and then add the half of your egg. Lastly add the flour to the mixture and knead this to a one big piece of dough. Pack the dough in foil and leave it in the fridge for about an hour to chill.

After an hour, get your dough out of the fridge, sprinkle some flour on your kitchen surface and roll out the dough. While rolling out the dough, think about how thick you want your cookies to be. Then take a heart cookie cutter (I also had a hashtag cookie cutter btw) and start cutting all of your cookies out of the dough until there’s no dough left. Put all of your cookies on a baking tin (with baking paper) and leave them in the oven for about 10 to 12 minutes on 180 °C.

To make your own royal icing mix the powered sugar, water and protein powder in a bowl until you get the icing you want. I would say be careful when adding the water because if you add too much, your icing will be too watery and you don’t want that. First make an outline of your heart with a thicker icing (for this you won’t need that much water), which was just white. Then I made another batch and added the red food coloring to it to make it pink. I put at part of the icing in a piping bag, cut of the end and started piping the icing into the outline I made. Lastly, I made another thick icing, added the red food coloring and started writing on the cookies. I have to be honest. This takes some practice but I love how they turned out. I put things on there, like: kiss me, I can’t, nope, xoxo and cute AF.

“Self-love is self-acceptance. We need to accept who we are, identify the strengths in that, and let those strengths guide our growth as people.”
– Sherry Benton, Ph.D.

I know sometimes it’s hard to actually take time for yourself, don’t be hard on yourself and love yourself. That’s why I wanted to write and share this blog post. Sometimes it’s hard for me as well so hopefully this will be a little reminder, especially with Valentine’s Day on the way. Btw, if you try and make these cookies, please send photos to me or tag me on Instagram. I would love to see them! What are your plans for Valentine’s Day? Do you practice self-love as well?

Love,

Neeltje