I start with this quote I found on a blog I linked at the bottom of this notecard, no idea who wrote it but it is a great quote to share with you ♥
“If you do not respect your whole, you cannot expect to be respected as well. Don’t let your partner love a lie, an expectation. Trust yourself. Bet on yourself. If you do this, you will be opening yourself to be really loved. It’s the only way to find real, solid love in your life.”
Self Love is not about putting yourself first in a manner it hurts those around you, nor is it posting 10 pictures on Instagram a day, that is the self-love we act out to get validation from others.
Treating yourself to expensive meals, spending a night with someone regardless the consequences, procrastinate and delay everything to later, rejecting things that take effort, reject challenges, seeking validation and approval from others, believing it's all about you...
This may seam about self-love but it is actually not, it takes the idea of self-love too personally, while self-love is a journey that is primarily focused on the self, it doesn’t mean that you must become obnoxiously selfish, thinking of no one but yourself.
Every time you don’t get exactly what you want, you might become frustrated or annoyed, leading to a mental state that is the opposite of what self-love is supposed to achieve.
While a temporary happiness comes in the form of direct benefits – if your goals and wishes becoming fulfilled as clearly and quickly as possible- the satisfaction and happiness is short term and makes place for more disappointment, frustration and wishing things were different and total lack of gratitude.
Nothing of that will stop the nagging 'voice' or thoughts, this internalized dialog is at the root of much of our self-destructive and maladaptive behavior.
This critical inner voice is experienced as thoughts within our head. The stream of destructive thoughts forms an anti-self that discourages us from acting in our best interest.
Most common thoughts like “You’re stupid,” “You’re not attractive,” or “You’re not like other people.”
Or about your career, like “You’ll never be successful,” “No one appreciates how hard you work,” or “You are under too much pressure, you can’t handle this stress.”
Or about your relationship, such as “He doesn’t really care about you,” “You’re better off on your own,” or “Don’t be vulnerable, you’ll just get hurt.”
So what do I mean then with self-love???
Time is your most important currency, live mindfully, truthfully, and intentionally. Try to train your mind to no longer get lost in thoughts, stop jumping on the train of association. Help yourself by leaving little reminders everywhere to call yourself to the present moment.
Things to do: Hang little Post-its or Stickers in the bathroom, your office, your car, the kitchen... to remind you to be in the present moment.
Treat yourself well; physically, emotionally. Listen to your body and your mind at the most basic level – if something doesn’t feel good, then it is probably bad for you. Protect yourself, from the dangers of both greasy food and toxic friends.
Eat healthy, exercise regularly even taking walks, sleep enough hours, and surround yourself with people that help you grow and not pull you down.
Don’t limit yourself, but don’t confuse self-love with hedonism. Moderation is good for the soul.
Treat yourself with the same respect, kindness, and mindfulness that you would offer the people who matter most to you in your life.
Love yourself with the same patience and tenderness you would give your own child, partner, sibling, or parent.
Be kind but be stern; learn to discipline, but learn to forgive. You are your own greatest fan, your own greatest rival, and your own greatest love.
Learn to see yourself in ways you have never considered.
Things to do: make a reminder to be kind to yourself. Draw a heart on your wrist, on your water bottle,
hang little smile and heart stickers on your mirror, smile at yourself.
Most important one: stop identifying with your nagging, critical inner voice
You can take power over your critical inner voice. When you become aware of what it is telling you, you can stop it from running your life. The challenge is to identify it and ‘flush it out’. To do this, when you slip into a bad mood or become upset. Investigate: what caused the shift? What happened and, most importantly, what did you start telling yourself?
The fact that your mood shifted from feeling good or relaxed to feeling down or irritable is probably a sign that you perceive through your critical inner voice.
When you have identified that your critical inner voice is advising you, what is it trying to get you to do?
When you pinpoint the actions it wants you to take, take control over your critical inner voice, decide to take action against it and acting solely in your own interest.
Things to do: every time you become aware your critical inner voice is telling you negative things
answer no, not taking it and shush the voice giving it no importance.
And here we come to the most important part for self-love
Self acceptance and gratefulness for who you are right now.
You set the standards for your self-acceptance. You decide to stop grading yourself, or keeping score with yourself, you can adopt an attitude of forgiveness. In fact, once you stop your lifelong habit of assessing, and reassessing yourselves and compassionately understand your past, you'll find that there's really nothing to forgive. Of course, you can vow to do better in the future, but you can nonetheless accept yourself precisely as you are today, regardless of our shortcomings.
We don't have to actually do anything to self-accept. Only change the way we look at ourselves. Changing our behavior is a matter of personal preference but not a prerequisite for acceptance.
Focus on our positives, practice self-compassion, forgive our self for our faults.
As soon as we can give our self approval and be grateful for who we are at this moment we stop needing other's approval.
Finally, there's no reason at all to not change the sense of your self. And we may need to remind ourselves that our various weaknesses are part of what makes us human. So in the pursuit of unconditional self-acceptance, we might even want to take a certain pride in our imperfections. After all, were we beyond criticism in the first place, we'd never have the opportunity to rise to this uniquely human challenge.
Things to do: every morning before getting out of bed take a minute to think about something you are grateful for, can be something little or the sun shining through your window, the smell of coffee or happy you woke up in time...
Quote by Mizu: What i like to think about past/future is.. that it's like a book that is still being written... no point in thinking about past, the pages are already filled - and you can't change them anymore... and future, is empty pages... no point in thinking "wonder what will be written here", if there's still pages to be filled before it , today
