If you’re stuck on the idea of what “loving yourself” means you’re not alone. Learning to love yourself is a process of bonding with your inner-self, learning and honoring your own love languages, and carving out parts of your life for you and only you.
When I was a child I remember hearing stories of women leaving their families to “find themselves”. The idea of “finding yourself” was confusing to me. The questions my young mind asked itself were “if we don’t leave to go find ourselves are we forever lost?” and “why is our ‘self’ off in the world somewhere? Why isn’t it with us all the time?”
Finally, years later, I heard someone talk about learning to love yourself and thought “Okay, I can understand that!” Yet, no matter how enlightening the concept is, loving ourselves usually gets pushed to the bottom of our list until, eventually, it gets overlooked so many times that it stops making the list.
Have you ever though that not loving yourself is neglecting yourself? If we don’t take proper care of our pets or our children that is neglect- clearly. So, do you realize you’re neglecting yourself when you don’t care for and love yourself? Probably not. Some of us even consider it extremely selfish to focus on ourselves.
Here’s a short story for you. When I graduated high school my parents divorced. Of course, as you can imagine it was devastating. But what I saw happen in the months ahead really surprised me. My mother began changing. She would wear fun dangling earrings- something she never did before. She bought herself sneakers- something else she had never owned before. She began taking walks and classes, and working in a job she had never worked before. To me my mom had found herself and I was happy for her.
But I couldn’t help but think about how sad it was for her to be 55 and free. Now don’t get me wrong, my mom was the greatest mom and always happy, but what I didn’t know about her was that there was more to her that was being suppressed while she was married to my dad. She had been neglecting herself all of those years.
After divorcing my dad, my mom lived in the present. How many times have we told ourselves things will be better when we lose weight, own a home, get a good job, find a spouse, get out of debt, and on and on and on? That’s in the future. Don’t ignore today! As you start accepting yourself just the way you are you will realize that those “it will be better when” promises aren’t where your happiness lies. As we become accepting of the person we are, things shift. What becomes important is loving today and what it has to offer us.
Put yourself in the present with meditation and reflection.
Nothing helps you focus on the present quite like meditation does; much like the same way nothing puts you in a reflective place quite like journaling. To me meditating is listening to God. “Be still and know that I am God” is exactly what I try to do, while journaling gives me time to reflect on what I am thankful for.
What my mom also did after she got divorced was try new things. Now it’s time for you to try something new! Maybe that’s a pair of dangling earrings or… well… I’m sure you could list 100 things to try, but the point is to actually do them.
#believeinyou
No negative self-talk allowed! Give yourself a break! Start fresh today and when you have an idea tell yourself to “go for it!” It’s past time to believe in you.
It’s past time to love yourself.
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