Images of Self Love, Sounds of Self Care

Tshepang Pooe
Dec 21, 2017
2 min read

(click to listen while you read)

Jamila Woods is one of my favourite artists. I've written before about her music on my previous blog and I'm writing again about her today. Since switching to listening to music on my phone, her album Heavn is one which I seldomly listen to from my laptop, on the few occasions when music powers me through study sessions.

So today, in the dreaded heat of December, I'm sitting at home trying to get through some content for my January exam, and the song Holy comes on. This is one of my favourite tracks on the album and one which I can't help but always sing along to. I've been asking myself for some time what to write about for my blog, and I've noncommittally had a few ideas here and there. Jamila's ethereal echoes of feelings of loneliness pushed me to the edge of writing. Her melodies of self love and acceptance brought me to share this with you today.

One of my greatest afflictions in life is feeling alone. When I'm not home, which is most of the year, I spend an awful amount of time alone - alone studying, alone in my bed, alone at at the gym. Loneliness is my greatest source of despair, but I often find myself being dumbfounded as to how to reach out to people in my life and how to comfort myself when struck by the feeling. I've always been one of those people who prefer to be alone, but generally I have had the comfort and drifting in and out of company. Except for when I'm at home, that comfort no longer exists. So seeing as I have so curtly been confronted by loneliness, I've had to think of ways to be alone without feeling alone. I've had to figure out how to start doing the things which give me joy, such as drawing and singing. I've had to allow myself to express myself emotionally, which I do by writing in the form of prose in my journal. This is me trying to learn how to feel my own presence when I have no-one but myself to speak to.

In the two weeks preceding my return home, I was beginning to figure out how to plunge myself out of loneliness and its accompanying heavy emotions. Through learning and experimenting with this, I realised that when engrossed in activities of writing, drawing etc. I feel a sense of livelihood. I feel present and whole. I feel like myself. By detaching from aspects of my life, such as university, which do nothing but withdraw energy from my being, and redirecting my focus to activities from which I generate energy, I am able to heal from emotions which weigh me down and feel okay with being by myself.

Finding out how to self care/self love is a tough task because self care looks different for different people. Self love feels different for different people. It's an abstract concept with a multiplicity of images and feelings. As such, one might not know how it feels to love oneself. What does self care look like to you? How does self love feel to you?

Love and light

Tshepang