There is nothing more important then Self Love. Recognizing and putting your self first is the most important thing you can do. It changes your life for the better and makes everything easier. For when challenges arrive or people hurt you, they Don’t have to cripple you. Sometimes things happen from others shortcomings and recognizing patterns in your life you can see where you might have gone of course or weren’t loving yourself enough in situations to simply walk away. I lost a dear friend years ago, and for years I felt like I should have done more. I know now I did all I could and it’s not my responsibility to save people and pull them out of their ruts. This has been my hardest lesson in life because whenever I try to do so they drag me down there with them. So let’s go over the importance of Boundaries and self love so you never have to get in a rut or try to save someone from a rut. Nor do you have to spend countless years suffering, blaming yourself or living in fear of criticism and blame from others faults and issues deflected on you. or if nothing else you can simply hold space for them without losing your self in the drama and emotions of their situation.
It’s always easier when you can love yourself heal and recognize why you created the patterns. They often come in from a childhood feeling or situation in your past. If you allow the emotion to vibrate through you without judgement you can breathe into it and heal it. After you accept its part of you, you can learn to love it through compassion and not judge where it will no longer effect you. As a child and as a model i dealt with rejection and often ridicule daily. Kids can be mean, but only from feeling that pain and accepting, that the feeling is part of me can i free it so it doesn’t harm me.
If you do this with all emotions or hurts of the past it’s very freeing, and allows you to love your self instead of judge. I use to believe everything was my fault or that I had to fix everything, because I was blamed for things but I know now that it wasn’t and that i don’t have to, but only from diving into those feelings expressing them to myself and feeling them, forgiving the people who made me feel that way and let them know i am not judging them anymore could i let it go.
“Everyone’s heard this self-help platitude: We need to love ourselves before we can love anyone else. This may sound wise, but it misses a great truth; if we want to experience true intimacy, we need to be taught to love aspects of ourselves–again and again–by the people around us.
As much as we want to control our own destiny, the humbling truth is that sometimes the only way to learn self-love is by being loved-precisely in the places where we feel most unsure and most tender.
Like “Show me all the pieces you do not love so i know where to start”
When that happens, we feel freedom and relief-and permission to love in a deeper way. No amount of positive self-talk can replicate this experience. It is a gift of intimacy, not of will-power.
Yet if our vulnerability is met with derision or disinterest, something tender shrivels and retracts within us, and we may think twice about ever sharing that part again. In my favorite Chipmunks episode, Simon falls head over heels in love, but has no idea how to win the (chip)girl’s heart. Dave exhorts him, “Just be yourself.” In response, Simon wails, “I tried that already!” When our authentic self doesn’t work in the world, we create a false self which lets us feel safe and accepted–but at significant cost. The great psychoanalytic theorist Donald Winnicot said, “Only the true self can be creative and only the true self can feel real.” I would add that only the true self can bear the risk of deep intimacy.
Every time we face the choice to share our deeper self, we stand at a precipice. Often, it’s just too scary to take the step forward.
Imagine taking a pet you love and putting it in a yard with an invisible electric fence. When it moves outside its allowed space, it gets stunned by an unexpected shock. It will only take a few jolts before your pet gets the message: if it goes too far, punishment will be instantaneous. In a short period of time, your pet won’t act as if the borders even exist; it will simply avoid them. If pushed closer to the danger zone, it will exhibit increasing signs of anxiety. The world outside the fence just isn’t worth the pain.
Now imagine turning off the charge from the invisible fence, and then placing a bowl of food outside its perimeter. Your pet might be starving, but it will still be terrified to enter into the newly free space. And when it finally crosses the line, it does so with trembling; anticipating the pain of new shocks. It is the same with us; even though we yearn for the freedom of our true self, some deep reflexive instinct still tries to protect us from being hurt again.
We can each learn more about our true and false selves by answering these two questions:
* What parts of your authentic self did you have to hide or camouflage in your childhood?
* In your current relationships, where are you confined to too small a space? What parts of yourself are you not expressing?”
Now Let’s look at Simple Steps to Self Love
1.Be kind to Yourself
You may have hurts, emotional pain, and shortcomings. Learn to accept yourself, shortcomings and all, even if your family and previous partners may have berated you about your inadequacies. I was ridiculed and nitpicked a lot as a child and learning to love myself has not been a easy journey. I often felt like I had to fight to be seen or heard and now as I have gotten older I have learned to recognize it wasn’t my fault and I stop blaming myself. I don’t have to fix the world, I can just live and be happy.
We tend to be harsh on ourselves, often because the people who were supposed to love us were unusually cruel and heartless to us. We hear their non-stop chatter in our minds and our beings and we don’t want to disappoint the people we love, but without living our authentic selves we are only hurting ourselves.
Focus on your many positive qualities. Focus on your strengths, your abilities, and your admirable traits. Let go of harsh judgments, comparisons to others, and self-hatred.
When you can see yourself as the soulful and divinely inspired person you are, the damaging internal dialogue doesn’t hold up.
Be gentle with yourself. You deserve this.
2.Feel the Love within you and Be that love
You may experience both self-hatred and self-love. Spend more time focusing on self-love.
Try loving and positive affirmations. Nourish your soul through a love-kindness meditation or spiritual practices that help you feel compassion and love toward yourself. I love breathing in love and out any bad feelings I am having. I can also simply sit in meditation and call on LOVE to take over my life and feel warmth and wholeness.
Once you feel vibrations of self-love or the peace of positive affirmations, try to be in that place of love throughout your day. Moving Meditation, Tai Chi and Chi Kung can be wonderful for this.
Infuse this love with your interactions with others in your life.
3. Give Yourself a Break
You’re not perfect. No one is. We all make mistakes, and fall down. It’s not the end of the world just a moment and this to shall pass. You don’t have to be at the top of your game every day. No one is happy all the time. No one loves themselves always. No one lives without pain. People make mistakes and the best thing you can do is forgive your self when you do. When you hurt other are lie to them this hurts you. Definitely make amends, apologize and make things right.
Be willing to embrace your imperfections and excuse your bad days. Don’t set such high standards for yourself emotionally and mentally. It’s normal to feel sadness and pain and to hit some low points in life.
Allow yourself to embrace these emotions without judging yourself for them.
4. Embrace Yourself
I love spending time alone and have found for me it is a necessity for my soul. Are you content being alone by yourself without feelings of anxiety, fear, and judgment?
You may have to go within and seek solace in yourself to be comfortable in your own skin. Practice moments of alone time and be aware of how you treat yourself.
Learn to embrace solitude and allow yourself to be mindful of your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about yourself.
The process of self-discovery can happen through the process of clinical therapy or counseling. This healing process can help you discover who you are and what your obstacles to loving yourself are.
In the alternative, periods of introspection, silent meditations, journaling, and sharing your feelings with supportive friends may help you be more aware of who you are.
The process of loving yourself starts with understanding your true nature.
It took a combination of meditation, therapy, writing, and silence to come to terms with my past and my present. Only once I realized I wasn’t loving myself could I attempt to change that.
5.Be Grateful
Rhonda Byrne, author of The Magic, shares with us a powerful way to change all of our relationships and our life.
Byrne encourages us to practice gratefulness and regularly count our blessings and i do so daily by keeping a gratitude Journal. There’s nothing better then telling the world what you are grateful for. You can incorporate this into family rituals and dinner parties by asking everyone to say what they are grateful for most today.
“When you’re grateful for the things you have, no matter how small they may be, you will see those things instantly increase,” Byrne says.
She encourages you to write out the following sentence for 10 items you’re grateful for everyday.
“I am truly blessed to have ____________________________, because __________________(why?)_____________.”
You will immediately start loving yourself more when you realize all the things you’re grateful for in your life.
6. Give Yourself in Service to Others
When you think about kindness toward others and being love to others, you open the door to divine love.
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” ~Rabindranath Tagore
Yes, giving to others is a gift of love you can often give yourself which brings you more love.
When you’re being kind, considerate, compassionate, and giving of yourself, your soul will rejoice. You’ve reached the highest level of self-love in this state of serving others.
Find ways to do small and large tasks to assist those living in your house, neighborhood, or community. Practice conscious acts of kindness and giving.
The love you’re sharing with others in the form of service will help you feel more love and fulfillment in your life.
You’ll realize you don’t need someone else to feel complete any longer. You’re complete.
A relationship will only make you shine brighter and bring more love in your life.
Here is another Seven-Step Prescription for Self-Love.
Become mindful. People who have more self-love tend to know what they think, feel and want. They are mindful of who they are and act on this knowledge, rather than on what others want for them. They are honest with their words and forthright with them for they do not want to hurt others or themselves.
Act on what you need rather than what you want.You love yourself when you can turn away from something that feels good and exciting to what you need to stay strong, centered, and moving forward in your life, instead. By staying focused on what you need, you turn away from automatic behavior patterns that get you into trouble, keep you stuck in the past, and lessen self-love.
Practice good self-care.You will love yourself more, when you take better care of your basic needs. People high in self-love nourish themselves daily through healthy activities, like sound nutrition, exercise, proper sleep, intimacy and healthy social interactions.
Set boundaries. You’ll love yourself more when you set limits or say no to work, love, or activities that deplete or harm you physically, emotionally and spiritually, or express poorly who you are.
Protect yourself. Bring the right people into your life. I love the term frenemies that I learned from my younger clients. It describes so well the type of “friends” who take pleasure in your pain and loss rather than in your happiness and success. My suggestion to you here: Get rid of them! There isn’t enough time in your life to waste on people who want to take away the shine on your face that says, “I genuinely love myself and life”. You will love and respect yourself more.
Forgive yourself. We humans can be so hard on ourselves. The downside of taking responsiblity for our actions is punishing ourselves too much for mistakes in learning and growing. You have to accept your humanness (the fact that you are not perfect), before you can truly love yourself. Practice being less hard on yourself when you make a mistake. Remember, there are no failures, if you have learned and grown from your mistakes; there are only lessons learned.
Live intentionally.You will accept and love yourself more, whatever is happening in your life, when you live with purpose and design. Your purpose doesn’t have to be crystal clear to you. If your intention is to live a meaningful and healthy life, you will make decisions that support this intention, and feel good about yourself when you succeed in this purpose. You will love yourself more if you see yourself accomplishing what you set out to do. You need to establish your living intentions, to do this.
Louise Hay has a wonderful webpage with Info http://www.louisehay.com/do-you-truly-know-how-to-love-yourself/
