Romancing Yourself

This dear friend always kills it - enjoy <3

"While sometimes this romancing is meant for one night or just for the building of a short-term connection, frequently it can be seen as the beginning of a tender dialogue, a period of mutual intimacy and knowing, setting the stage for deepening relationship and affection. It can potentially lay the seeds for love, or for the transformation, redefining, or recontextualizing of love through sensual awakening. And while I’m not a fan of models that paint long-term commitment as the only valid framework for relationship, or that privilege romantic and sexual relationships over deep, intimate, meaningful friendships, I do believe we can learn self-love from the ways in which we conceive of romance as an awakening, arousing, and blissful bathing of the senses.

For those of us who learned to love ourselves from an early age, romancing ourselves can be self-care, giving us needed moments of solitary contentment and relaxation. And for those of us who never learned how to love ourselves, who were never taught our worth or value, or who still struggle on the daily with how to love what we see in our mirrors and minds, maybe romancing ourselves is the key to allowing tender, sweet love to seed itself. Maybe in showering our bodies with lush luxury and our senses with safe, pleasurable experiences, we can fall in love with ourselves, with the one taking the time and making the effort to bring us nourishing warmth, sensual touch, and renewing awareness of our bodies as sacred, valid, and praiseworthy."
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- Christy Croft

medium.com/@christycroft/romance-yourself-71ff17a845a?fbclid=IwAR1nAjXSxPWPJ6_wMR91ukDC1awPlGl91_TxlVKBmtAL8ZxnPaKfFDmbWYk