On Falling In Love With Yourself Again

There comes a moment — quiet, unannounced — where you look at yourself and realize you are returning.
To softness.
To curiosity.
To the woman you were before you learned to rush more than you take time to just breathe.

It doesn’t happen dramatically. It happens in fragments.
The way morning light touches your shoulder.
The sigh you release when silk glides across your thigh.
The first time you hold your own gaze in the mirror and don’t look away.

Self-love is not always fireworks.
Sometimes it is a tiny spark, asking you to breathe.
To touch.
To remember.

We are taught to earn rest, to justify beauty, to love ourselves only after proving our worth.
But what if worth simply is?
What if tenderness toward yourself isn’t a reward — but a beginning?

There was a time when romance meant candlelit dinners and someone whispering your name.
And yes, there is magic in being chosen.
But there is an even deeper magic in choosing yourself — deliberately, passionately, with the kind of conviction usually reserved for grand love stories.

Make yourself the grand love story.

The world will tell you it’s indulgent.
Excessive.
A luxury.
They misunderstand luxury.
Luxury is not about having more — it is about feeling deeply.
It’s in the way lace traces the curve of your waist, not to impress someone else, but because you wanted beauty close to your skin.

It’s slipping into a long kimono robe that feels like a secret.
Wearing perfume before bed.
Saying yes to softness even on the days your heart feels heavy.

Love is not loud.
Sometimes it is a quiet ritual you perform alone.

Run your fingers over your collarbone.
Notice how warm your skin is beneath your touch.
This body stays with you through every season — tenderness is the least you can offer her.

You are not difficult for wanting more beauty in your life.
You are not dramatic for wanting to feel.
You are alive.

If there is wildness in you, honor it.
If there is softness, protect it.
If there is desire, listen to it — desire is not the enemy of discipline; it is the compass to your most honest self.

And yes, there will be days you forget.
Days where you move through life like a shadow of yourself.
On those days, do not ask for perfection — ask only to return.

Return through sensuality.
Through touch, ritual, adornment.
Through the simple act of choosing something beautiful and placing it against your skin as if to say,
I did not forget you. I am here.

Fall in love with yourself in small, unapologetic ways:
A lace bralette for no occasion.
A silk slip beneath a sweater.
A slow morning where you stay in bed just a little longer, wrapped in softness and sunlight and the knowledge that your worth is not tied to your productivity.

There is nothing frivolous about beauty.
It is nourishment.
It is rebellion.
It is permission.

Let the world hurry.
You — move like honey.
Unhurried, intentional, unashamed to delight in your own presence.

Somewhere along the journey, you will wake up and realize you did not become someone new — you returned to someone true.

And she was waiting for you all along.
With a hand on her heart, and a whisper only you could hear:

"Welcome back, beautiful. I missed you."

With softness,

Anya Lust