Today is Day 30 of my 31 Days of Self-Love posts to celebrate Self-Love Month with suggestions for jump-starting your own self-love and joining The Self-Love Movement™.

I got this inspiring anecdote from Colleen Sheehy Orme, a freelance journalist.  I asked if I could share it here. Let it motivate you to find your own Joie de Vivre. Here’s what Colleen had to say.

A few year’s ago, while I was working on a marketing plan for a client, I had an epiphany. I had lost my own self, my own brand. I had worked tirelessly to save my marriage, working on two when I should have been working on one first and then seeing if the two of us worked out. I made a decision to turn my office into what I call my dorm room.

Remember when we were young in high school and college? How we celebrated who we were and announced it to the world? Locker’s filled with pictures and words, like Irish, Animal Lover, Virginia is for Lovers, Family, Friends, etc. and dorm rooms filled with posters and words all about us and who we were and who we were going out into the world to be. So I decorated my office with silly things that are about me and who I started the world to be. I also spent hours pouring through magazines looking for those self-defining things that remind me every day who I am.

Why? Because I always say, “No one’s heart is shaped the same. It’s where our purpose lies.” I didn’t want to forget me as I had for all these year’s because I felt I had temporarily done so and because of that stopped contributing to the world the way I was meant to. I included my little corkboard (I’m about to buy an even bigger one HA HA) When I get up and look at it every day I remember the little girl in me and what I love about her. I love animals and rescuing them, I love Virginia, I love entertaining, words, the beach and in many places I have the word, “Joie.” >From a very young age, my mom always said, “Colleen has Joie de Vivre.” I had temporarily lost that joy of life and I don’t want to ever forget it again.

*************

Join The Self-Love Movement™! Take the 31 Days of Self-Love Commitment—“I commit to do my best to do something loving for myself, however big or small, for the next 31 days.” and get my book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways for free at http://howdoiloveme.com. Read my 2013 31 Days of Self-Love Posts HERE. Join the Self-Love Movement™! on Facebook.