100 Day Self Love Affair

My dear friends, 

It has been a long time since I've written a blog entry. Many of you don't know about the life-transformation that I have been going through since end of July and that is why I stayed away from writing. To be honest, I have been feeling so emotionally drained that I didn't have energy or inspiration to continue doing the videos. So, after a few months of taking a break, I am back with a new project that I am excited to share with you.

You see, a few months ago I sold my condo, ended an almost 6-year relationship, moved my stuff in to storage and moved in with my parents. I knew that even though my relationship was loving, it wasn't the right one for me. Even though I loved my condo, I didn't feel it was the place where I wanted to continue to live. So, I decided to start fresh and temporarily stay with my parents until I figured out where I wanted to live. 

As far as relationships are concerned, I have never felt as loved by another person as I did over the last 6 years. Unfortunately that love wasn't enough, as deep inside I knew we weren't right for each other. It was incredibly hard to part as there was so much love present, but it was for the best. Two weeks after we moved out, I decided to change scenery and left Florida for a few days to spend alone in California and reconnect with myself. There I got to reconnect with my soul as hiked, nourished my body by eating at my favorite raw food places and got new perspective on life as I got to meet new people.

I had a great time, but it wasn't easy. Every few minutes I would get sad about the break up and feel lonely and start questioning if I did the right thing. When dark thoughts would cloud up my mind, I would bring myself to the present moment and ask myself three questions:

"How do I feel right now?" - usually the answer was "lonely and unloved"
"How do I want to feel?" - usually the answer was "loved and happy"
"What can I do to make myself feel loved right now?" - the answers varied from moment to moment and I would do my best to act on the answer. It could be anything from "I want to take myself out to lunch" to "I want to focus on a peaceful thought."

I would (and still do) repeat this process 20,000 times a day and constantly work on changing my thoughts to feel good in the "Now." It is not an easy task, but that's the only thing we actually have control over - our thoughts in the present moment. We can't control future and we can't change the past, but we can make a choice to feel good now. We also can't make anyone else love us, nor do we need to. In the end of deep contemplation, I realize that all we can do is fall deeply in love with ourselves and feel fulfilled on our own.

When we do that, 3 things happen:

1. We feel 100% loved.
2. We actually increase our chances of having someone else fall in love with us, because we are being real. After all, if we don't love ourselves, why would anyone else?
3. We can choose who we fall in love with as we longer "need" their love, we simply choose a partner that we unconditionally like for who they are.

Easier said than, done, you think? This is exactly why I decided to start a new project #100DaySelfLoveAffair ! 

I have several friends who are going through a hard time in their relationships and as I was advising them to practice what I just described, I realized that the best thing I can do is lead by example. My direct experiences can help people much more than my recipes and so starting today, I am going to daily blog and do videos on how I practice self love to inspire and empower you do to the same. If I can do it, so can you!

It may be hard for many people to even accept themselves as they are, not to mention love. I get that. I remember the day in 2007 when looking at myself in the mirror I had a hard time finding just ONE thing I liked about myself. But now 8 years later, after a lot of work, I can look at myself and say that I deeply and unconditionally love myself. The challenge that I have right now is actually ACTING on that thought every single day. Hey, I am not perfect and it is all about committed practice! 

So, this project has two goals:

1. Create a commitment to a daily practice for myself to show self-love and appreciation
2. Inspire YOU to fall in love with yourself by sharing my experiences and creating a non-judgemental community where it is safe to be yourself.

I am going to hashtag everything with #100DaySelfLoveAffair starting today, November 14th. I originally wanted to start on this day because it is  just 3 months away from Valentine's day and why wait for someone to possibly show their love on February 14th, when the only person who will ALWAYS be with you can start loving you right now? That person you've been waiting to love you is YOU! You do have the power - you have the seed of self-love that is just waiting to blossom. 

As I was preparing to launch this project,  the tragedy in Paris happened on November 13th and the world went into deep mourning. I was thinking, how can I start this project when our planet is suffering so much? And then I thought - this is the only thing that can actually help bring us peace. When each one of us starts to fall in love with ourselves and radiate love, then there is more and more love in the world. And love is the only thing that can truly bring peace. They say peace in the world starts with peace in the countries, peace in the countries starts with the peace in the cities, peace in the cities starts with the peace in the homes and peace in the homes starts with the peace inside each individual heart. 

So here we are - in the world that is suffering because we are all suffering inside. Some more than others, but we will never stop this suffering until we fall in love with ourselves unconditionally. And our loving vibration CAN change the vibration of the planet. 

All you need is the right tools - you need to pull out the emotional and physical weeds and feed that little seed with the right food and emotional nourishment. I invite you start a #100DaySelfLoveAffair and finally experience that abundance of love that can be yours! Make a commitment to do at least one thing a day that makes you feel loved and make a post about it on social media use the #100DaySelfLoveAffair 

Let's bring more peace and love into this world. Let's love ourselves up and Let Yourself Blossom!

With love, 

Alina

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