8 Thing You Can Do to Glow Yourself Up

May 01, 2020

Hello, my loves! Welcome back to another monthly message! WOW! As I always say in every monthly and weekly message that time flies super fast, that I feel like there is no time where I feel bored or having nothing to do. I’m grateful that I’m given the chance to experience this kind of life where I feel mostly excited (yeah there are some time where I cry for hours too). For some of you who still have to go to work, we are on the same boat, haha. For some of you who do Ramadhan fasting, we are on the same boat too, haha. So, I need to change some of my schedule and it’s fun to arrange new schedules too.

Also, happy birthday to all May-born babies around the world! Yeay! You are growing to be more shining shimmering splendid!

Like the previous monthly message, I pulled some cards from my current kanji cards for May theme. When I opened the cards, I immediately laughed because there’s Hope card again. If you watch my kanji learning videos, you will know that this card loves to be everywhere, haha. Yeah, I got Glow, Dark, Hope, Cloud and Float. The image I got when I saw them was fireflies. They glow in the dark and float like clouds, haha.

So, the theme for May is GLOW.

Glow might be the thing that’s currently in the 2020 resolution for some of you. Whether it’s glowing in the school, glowing in the career you choose, or literally making your skin glowing. No matter what kind of glow you want to have, if you find this post, I believe it’s a sign that the GLOW you want to achieve is a couple steps ahead. You just need to keep going and not to stop.

In this post, I want to share some tips to glow yourself up, to let yourself shine as you are. To glow up means you are comfortable in your skin, you are confident and feel beautiful by just being you and doing your calling. Shortly, it’s being the best version of yourself. You don’t need to look like Hollywood stars or Korean idols to feel beautiful. That feeling is the one that you decide yourself, no matter how other people see you.

8 Thing You Can Do to Glow Yourself Up

1. #DefineYourself

You can be literally anything you want. Don’t let other people influence what you want to be and to do. They might project their dreams and expectations onto you, but you have the rights to decide your own life. You have the right to define yourself, to be who you are meant to be. I ever said that we are all connected and originally from the same source, yeah, that means there is so much potential available for us. If you don’t have anything you want to do, you can look up someone you admire, read books, or learn astrology. Honestly, I found the things that I really want to do when I have graduated from college, haha, that time I learned my own birth chart and it’s kind of an inspiration for me to do something that I never thought of. I always love writing and expressing myself through words, but I never did it seriously, some of my blogs were left unmanaged, so I decided to make one that speaks my heart out years later which is this blog. Now, I see myself as a blogger, a spontaneous blogger who writes things without tight plans. And it’s fun.

2. Shed that dead skin cells

Like the dull skin, you need to shed the dead skin cells on the top of the skin to allow your skin to glow naturally. You need to let go of the old habits, thoughts, and patterns you have for years that are no longer serving you for the good. By letting go, you allow yourself to be the real you without the clouded views and beliefs. As long as you haven’t shed the dead skin cells, you don’t need brightening skincare or instant whitening cream. It might work at first, but the problems will still be there because you still hold onto them. It’s the same as your life, as long as you haven’t faced your shadows, your old clouded beliefs, your fears, or anything that doesn’t serve you, you don’t need expensive cars, big houses, luxurious wedding parties or millions of followers. Those might make you “happy” for a couple months but your old stuff is still there wanting your attention.

3. Set boundaries

Setting boundaries is like wearing sunscreen. Yeah, as someone who doesn’t wear foundation or even make-up, sunscreen is the most important army to protect my skin from UV damage. Your expensive skincare won’t work effectively if you walk around the city without the right amount of SPF on your skin. Setting boundaries can be anything that won’t allow other people to sit on your driver seat. It’s your life, you are the only driver, nobody is. The most difficult thing for some people might be saying NO. You were taught that to be a good person, you won’t make other people upset. That makes you constantly say so many YES-es that it’s so overwhelming. You don’t need to keep doing that now. By saying yes to unnecessary things, you say no to important ones. So, know which ones are the important things and know your limits too.

4. Express yourself

Expressing yourself might be scary for some of us (it used to be scary for me some years ago). It might be rooted on our childhood days when we experienced certain situations where we were limited to express our needs and emotions, from that place you learned that expressing yourself honestly means hurting yourself because other people go against you and say that you don’t deserve to express yourself. This makes you live in a small cage for years. If you find this post, and you are still living in that cage, it’s time to break free. Those voices that constantly say that you are not worthy or don’t deserve freedom of self-expression are outdated opinions. The updated version is that you have the same freedom as the other person to express yourself.

5. #FocusOnTheGood

As I always mention in my blog post, that by focusing on the good we magnify its power. By focusing on the good, you then affect your surrounding whether or not you can see it. You are attracting what you are. By constantly putting your focus on good things and surrounding yourself with good people, you have a good energy that will bring more good stuff into your life. Even though being negative is now easier (that’s why negative contents get more attention), you don’t need to follow that stream. Swim in your own direction. #FocusOnTheGood even if it’s only you doing that.

6. Be gentle

Darkness allows you to see your own light. Sometimes we can’t see our own lights because we always see other people’s lights. Then the darkness comes to remind you that you also have that light inside you. It exists but you didn’t realize it. In this journey, you are NOT required to ALWAYS feel good and have positive feelings, darkness is needed too. When you fall into the darkness, it’s the chance to see your own abilities and skills that have been unnoticed for so long. Don’t make the darkness to be your reason to fall deeper and never go up by beating yourself. That’s your chance to notice your glow.

7. Try new things

Trying new things can be learning new skills, doing your routines differently or doing something that you used to have no idea about before. By trying new things, you allow yourself to learn something new, you allow your brain to make new pathways. Even if it's a small thing, it will change how you see yourself positively. For me, I’m doing some changes for this blog starting 2020. Writing this blog in English is one of the challenges I made for myself. I then try different formats to use and try new things like doing #MyKindFebruary project and making youtube videos. You shouldn’t need millions of likes from people to do new things, even if nobody sees you, it doesn’t change the value you get.

8. Know that it’s not competition

There is no competition to be more glowing than others or to compare whose light is more beautiful. The journey to being confident and comfortable as yourself can’t be compared to other people’s. Everyone experience different path and different things, you can’t compare yourself to your sisters or your friends. By comparing, we are prone to have ‘you win-I lose’ mentality. Instead, choose to see other people’s glow as a sign that you too can glow. There is no winning and losing in this journey. It’s a journey where we can be the best version of ourselves and help other people to do so.

Like the fireflies, they don’t compete with each other to be more beautiful or to shine more light than others. They all glow as themselves. They work together to create beautiful scenery we can enjoy. You too, you can glow as yourself, you can feel comfortable by being yourself, and work together with everyone to create a beautiful glowing planet.

Yeah. This post seems to be the longest monthly message I’ve ever done. And I think it’s another cool post I made, I’m proud of this baby. Thank you for visiting and stopping by, see you on the next monthly message. Keep living, keep loving and peace.