Romanticizing Your Life: A Growing Trend
Recently, you may have noticed a booming trend on social media. It’s the idea of romanticizing your life. It’s a motto that both influential and not-so-influential people adopt when they’re looking for a touch of consideration and gratitude in their daily routines. If you don’t know what it’s all about, we’ll explain.
On the Internet, healthy behaviors aren’t always promoted. In fact, being on social media can lead you to pretend, compare yourself with others, and filter your reality so that you only show the most desirable aspects of your life. However, in the case of romanticism, the proposal is both positive and beneficial. It suggests that you’re aware of every second of your life and that you enjoy it and value it for what it is. Do you think you’d be able to romanticize your life? Read on to find out more.
Romanticizing your life
This movement has no rules or fixed steps. Indeed, each individual adapts it to their own tastes and possibilities. Its premise is to abandon living on autopilot and begin to appreciate the beauty that surrounds you. Because, every day, you carry out endless activities that you barely even notice due to the fact that you’re either reminiscing about the past or worried about the future. Therefore, life passes you by without you ever really embodying the moment.
Moreover, you tend to despise your daily routine, examining every moment of boredom in detail while you wait for the weekend, vacations, or the ideal future you’ve been waiting for for so long. But, what if you spent a little more time being grateful for what you already have? To appreciate and be grateful for your experiences. In fact, how about changing your defeatist speech to another kind that’s more inspiring and motivating?
The idea of romanticization comes from the fields of positive psychology and mindfulness. It proposes to cultivate strengths such as gratitude, optimism, curiosity, passion, and appreciation of beauty. In addition, it urges you to connect with the present and get involved with your five senses at every moment of the day.
The benefits of romanticizing your life
You may think it sounds like a rather banal trend. Undoubtedly, there are those who only look at it from an aesthetic perspective, but if you assimilate its essence and begin to apply it, it can bring you several benefits. Among them are:
Positive emotions
Romanticizing your life is an invitation to experience positive emotions, as it leads you to create pleasant and comforting spaces and experiences for yourself. It’s similar to the Danish hygge philosophy. It involves generating cozy and pleasant environments and experiences in your daily life that improve your mood.
For instance, it could be as simple as keeping your home clean and tidy, burning scented candles, and using particular materials that you like. It might also include presenting the food you cook in a colorful and appetizing way and serving it in dishes you like. These small details generate calm, tranquility, pleasure, and mental order.
Practice self-care
Romanticization suggests that you begin to see yourself as the protagonist of your own movie. It means that you pay attention to yourself and take care of your well-being. Moreover, it invites you to dedicate time to yourself, your physical and psychological health, personal development, hobbies, and emotions.
Some common practices related to romanticization include daily reading, journaling, taking care of your skin and your physical appearance, and going out alone. All these activities, although simple, favor introspection, benefit your self-esteem, and can help you to get to know and love yourself in a way you weren’t doing before.
Live in the present
Mindfulness is a concept that, when it’s put into practice, has been proven to bring numerous benefits. More specifically, it helps prevent and combat stress, anxiety, and depression, since it increases your attention and emotions and promotes greater awareness and equanimity. Thus, mindfulness makes it possible for you to accept the present without judgment and reduce your emotional reactivity.
By romanticizing your life, you choose to be present in each moment, living it with every one of your five senses, appreciating and savoring it, instead of losing yourself in mental wanderings. For instance, the views from your window, a particular song, a talk with a friend, or a nature walk become moments and scenes to savor and connect with, instead of being overlooked.
Establish good habits
Another of the benefits of romanticization is in establishing good habits and maintaining them, in order to generate a commitment to yourself. Romanticizing your life means committing to your routine. You design it in such a way that it allows you to move forward, improve, and create your best version.
Eating healthily, exercising regularly, meditating daily, and advancing in your plans. The objectives are down to you, but the key is to persevere and be disciplined.
You’ll find you reinforce your self-esteem, the confidence you have in yourself, and your life satisfaction. In addition, setting yourself personal goals and meeting them promotes the release of dopamine. This is the reward hormone linked to motivation.
Strengthen your social relationships
Finally, your social life will also improve, since romanticization helps you focus on those around you. Just ensure that they’re inspiring and wholesome people who enrich you and help you achieve your goals.
If they are, perhaps, from now on you’ll be able to appreciate them and value their company more. Because you may well have previously taken them for granted. This approach promotes an open attitude. It allows you to successfully observe others and understand that everyone has something to contribute to you. Moreover, it helps you understand that you can learn from everyone.
As you can see, there are many benefits that you can experience in your day to day if you use romanticization. Remember that it doesn’t mean impressing anyone or uploading your progress on social media. It’s a personal path aimed at living with gratitude and appreciation, reducing stress, and being more connected to your present. One final note, when making comparisons, try to adopt a broad perspective. Make sure you choose points of reference that allow you to grow and don’t flood you with negatively valenced emotions.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
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- Moyano, N. C. (2010). Gratitud en la psicología positiva. Psicodebate. Psicología, Cultura y Sociedad, (10), 103-118.
- Park, N., Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. (2004). Strengths of character and well-being. Journal of social and Clinical Psychology, 23(5), 603-619.
- Vásquez-Dextre, E. R. (2016). Mindfulness: Conceptos generales, psicoterapia y aplicaciones clínicas. Revista de Neuro-Psiquiatría, 79(1), 42-51.