The world is hyper-focused on love in the romantic sense .. but self-love is the true hero and foundation to an amazingly beautiful life.
Love for yourself is key to loving others. Love doesn't begin with your romantic partner, it begins with you. When your relationship is based on love and respect for yourself, your relationship with everything in your life will bloom, including relationships with the people you love. When I talk about self-love I don't mean arrogance, this is a whole other world that you're about to dive into and it's all very worth it. Self-love is an inner experience rather than an outwardly experience.
So let's dive right in :)
Take out a pen and paper and in all honesty write down the answer to these questions:
1. How do you feel about yourself?
2. Do you truly love, respect and honor yourself?
3. Do you speak to yourself with kindness?
4. Are you true to your integrity or do you lie to yourself?
5. Do you set a clear system of boundaries with other people?
6. Are you constantly absorbed with other people's opinion of you?
Writing down your thoughts can be a useful tool in self discovery. Each day we have 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts. 90% of those thoughts we had yesterday.. and the day before.. and the day before that. Do you believe your thoughts matter? Your mind is a powerful thing and your entire life is being created by your thoughts. When you fill your thoughts with love and positivity, your life will start to change. Every thought you think is vibrating at a very personal frequency. Thoughts are powerful enough to attract "real life" situations or manifestations. Happiness doesn't start with a degree, a job or money, it starts with your thoughts and what you tell yourself every day. If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought again.
Once you learn to treat yourself with love, respect and honor, there is no way you will accept anything less from others. When you don't love and respect yourself then you allow other people to treat you without love and respect. With self-love you enjoy your own presence and the thoughts in your head. When you have self-love you no longer live your life to other people's opinions. When you have self love you are aware of the amazingness that you are. When you love yourself you reject the fear in your head and replace it with confidence. When you have self-love you teach others how to treat you and well-being will show itself to you in all areas of your life experience.
Simple Exercise for the next 30 days:
Whenever you catch yourself thinking a negative thought, quickly replace it with a positive thought or something you appreciate instead. These can be thoughts about yourself, about others, about anything. Write this exercise on a post-it note and stick a few around places that you frequent every day and/or as daily reminders on your phone. Daily reminders are key to this exercise.
At the end of the 30 days, journal your thoughts on the exercise.
- What did you notice that changed?
- How many thoughts did you become aware of that you weren't consciously aware of before?
- Were you surprised at how many negative thoughts you had to wrangle?
- Was it easy?
This is the beginning of self-awareness and it's crucial to cultivating self-love. Allow it to grow and illuminate your path through life's complexities. Self-love is about finding the joy in the process and understanding that the true value lies in the experiences along the way.