Renew Your Lifestyle Through Self-Romance (Part 1)

When was the last time you romanced yourself? Engaging in self-romance can be beautifully rewarding as you enter your 60s and beyond. It offers a wealth of fulfilling and pleasurable experiences, providing you with a renewed sense of purpose, self-worth, and new levels of genuine happiness.

Not surprisingly, self-romance directly affects the quality of your lifestyle.

• But what exactly is self-romance?
• How would you begin romancing yourself if you have spent your entire adult life
• believing it’s someone else’s responsibility to romance you?
• What if you have tried self-romance and stopped because it felt awkward?

In this first of a three-part article, we will answer these questions and more about how to engage in self-romance to create a renewed sense of purpose, boost your self-worth, and improve your overall happiness after 60.

This article and the accompanying video are the fifth of a new, 10-part exclusive series for 60 and Me readers titled “Improve Your Lifestyle After 60 by Boosting Your Sexual Confidence.”

What Is Self-Romance?

Self-romance is an essential part of your well-being and plays a vital role in creating and living a fulfilling lifestyle. It allows you to focus on new ways to stimulate love, happiness, and pleasure on your own terms.

Romancing yourself is an act of self-love and an expression of showing yourself the appreciation and affection you want and deserve from others.

Self-romance is also an act of self-empowerment for it is prioritizing your needs and wants without waiting for someone else to do this for you.

The 3 Pillars and Foundation of Self-Romance

Despite numerous studies that have been conducted on self-romance, and the positive impact self-romance has on so many people’s lifestyle, it is still relatively new to most of us who are 60 and over.

If self-romance is new to you or feels unfamiliar and even impractical, you’re not alone.

Whether you’re in your 50s, 60s, 70s, or beyond, self-romance was not something you heard a lot about, nor is it something you were likely taught how to do.

To set the foundation for self-romance at this stage of life, it requires the acknowledgement that you are worthy of its immense benefits. It also means accepting that you are right where you are supposed to be to get started loving more of yourself.

I invite you to write these in your journal and speak them out loud to yourself as many times as you need to embody the essence of their truth:

• I Am Safe to Engage in Self-Romance.
• I Am Loveable, Desirable, & Worthy of Self-Romance.
• I Am Right Where I Am Supposed to Be with Self-Romance.

These are more than just affirmations. They are the 3 pillars by which the foundation is laid for self-romance without shame, guilt, or resentment.

Setting the Tone for All Relationships

Despite a general lack of understanding most people have about self-romance, it is a subject that has been extensively studied and clinically researched.

Psychologist and author Robert Holden, once wrote: “Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have.”

According to the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which is one of the longest-running studies on happiness, the quality of your relationship with yourself directly influences your emotional resilience, physical health, and overall well-being.

By embracing self-romance, you become your own source of love and fulfillment, which makes you more open, confident, and emotionally secure when connecting with others.

3 Steps to Healing Unworthiness Through Self-Romance

With so many benefits, why is self-romance such a challenge for women and men over 60? Unhealed trauma is one of the biggest barriers to not only starting a daily practice of self-romance, but sustaining it.

At the heart of this trauma, are deep-seated issues of self-worth that becomes a slippery slope into the pain of loneliness, isolation, people pleasing, and unworthiness.

By using self-romance as a self-guided healing practice, you can take your power back, restore self-worth, and reclaim your ability to love yourself deeply.

Here are three simple steps for healing unworthiness through self-romance:

Step 1: Challenge the False Belief That You Must Earn Love

In your journal, write down three beliefs about love and worthiness that have been holding you back. Reframe them with empowering truths, such as: “I am inherently worthy of love, just as I am.”

Step 2: Engage in Self-Intimacy Without Judgment

Explore self-touch, sensual movement, or self-pleasure as a way to connect with your body and desires. Replace shame with appreciation for your body’s ability to feel pleasure.

Step 3: Look in the Mirror & Express Self-Love Daily

Stand in front of a mirror every morning and say, “I am worthy of love, passion, and joy.” Make eye contact with yourself and embrace the power of loving yourself unconditionally.

Next Steps:

By setting a foundation for self-romance and implementing these three steps, you can transform traumatic experiences of the past and reshape how you see yourself today.

In our next article and video, we will look at the role people pleasing plays in the epidemic of loneliness and isolation. We will also explore how self-romance is not a luxury but a necessity for overcoming the devastating effects of loneliness.

I invite you to join me in the video, where I share five immediate benefits of self-romance and three journal prompts to help you integrate what you are learning.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

In what ways does self-image affect loneliness? Do you think self-romance could be a positive learning experience that helps with all kinds of relationships?