This is my response to this week's (reworded*) @abundance.tribe's question of the week 'how to promote one's own personal well-being', which in my interpretation is in the same spirit as the original question.
NB - I reworded the original question which was 'what is the highest form of self-love', it just sounded a bit wrong.
How to Improve one's well-being
For me, this all about spending time focussing on my physical, mental and spiritual well-being,
I guess a lot of people would include emotional well-being in there too, but thankfully being a bit on the spectrum I'm not afflicted with emotions so that's something I don't need to really worry about, I'm good if I just focus on the other three things above.
TBH I really need to think about this right now as I've had quite a stressful last four months transitioning to another country, and a very stressful last week, but now it's really time to put my own well-being top of the daily agenda.
I used to have half days, days or even weekends to myself where i'd focus on my own well-being
Improving my physical well-being
This is a relatively simply matter of the following:
Getting my diet right - no alcohol, minimal coffee, plenty of herbal tea and water. Simple but tasty food involving LOTS of fruit and vegetables. Ideally intermittent fasting, basically pushing breakfast back to 11.00 a.m.
Focusing on posture - doing a yoga session for at least 30 minutes, a bit of Tai Chi, and some lying down, and generally paying attention to having good posture as much as possible.
Going for a walk is an ideal activity for physical well-being, walking IMO is just one of the best activities!
Getting a decent nights sleep and allowing myself to doze as much as i like during the day. Sleep is golden.
Improving my mental well-being
This involves a balance of physical and intellectual activity, for me on a well-being day it involves MORE physical activity than usual because I spend the majority of my workadays online and thinking.
So the first aspect of promoting my mental well-being involves doing plenty of basic physical tasks, an aspect of Right Effort in one sense. So plenty of cleaning, cooking, tidying and sorting.
I also try and do some kind of physical project - fixing or building something, for example, or some gardening.
I'm not completely opposed to doing intellectual activity, but something substantial and for several hours - like writing something relatively long-form is preferable rather than lots of micro tasks.
In fact, I like to avoid micro-tasks on a well-being day - so my usual daily Hive and surfing activities should really be kept to a minimum - less than an hour for sure.
If I MUST do stuff online, I'll do as much planning offline first to minimise my time connected - TBH I should do this all the time anyway, it's probably more efficient than getting distracted online and working across multiple windows.
Crucially, this involves being mindful and aware of thoughts that arise, and allowing them to come and go but without being carried away by them, but also not beating one's self up if one's monkey mind is active, as sometimes that's just the way it is.
Eventually the mind will calm itself. It just might take a day, a week, a month, or longer. In the meantime, just be patient with it.
Improving my Spiritual well-being
Slowing down and doing one thing at a time - which can be easier said than done, but it's amazing how this simple practice improves one's quality of being.
Starting and ending the day with a simple seated meditation session of 20-30 mins, and ideally doing two other 10-20 minute sessions during the day.
Getting up early and sticking to a Timetable - I won't repeat it here, but I have a standard 'meditation day' timetable I use with set meal and meditation times.
Spending a bit time just sitting there, without meditating.
Pretty much everything on the list above is a spiritual activity if done with appropriate mindfulness.
Maybe reading something about Buddhism, I find this helps!
Final thoughts - this Saturday and Sunday are 'well-being days
Albeit that I'm starting off by dicking about on Hive, I am at least doing this mindfully!
I'll make sure I get round to many many productive offline activities laters!
Have a great day and peace!