“Affirmations take our thoughts to a more protective and powerful place. By affirming good, by affirming daily gratitude, you, yourself will find more peace from giving your thoughts a break from the worry cycle.” ― Machel Shull
LEARNING TO LOVE - YOU!
As a mother, I cannot even count how many times in a day that I tell my son I love him and no matter what that count actually is, it is never enough…. It could never be, because there is no end to my love for him.
I wonder how many of us could say the same for the way in which we speak to ourselves… How often do you tell yourself “I love you”? I am going to guess that 99% of you would have answered “not very often, if ever” to that question. And how often do you verbalise positive affirmations to yourself, about you as an individual, life situations etc. - Not very often either huh?
Why is that?
In a society riddled with negativity, I think that developing daily habits that contribute towards a healthy level of self-love is more important now than it has ever been. Media bombards us on a continuous basis - It is truly relentless in fact, and for the most part, we do not walk away feeling better about ourselves.
Take beauty magazines for instance… from cover to cover they are filled with visuals of people with bodies and faces that most of us will never have and clothes that wouldn’t even fit a broomstick. I don’t read them anymore because I find that they leave me feeling empty or somewhat inadequate.
“Affirmations are our mental vitamins, providing the supplementary positive thoughts we need to balance the barrage of negative events and thoughts we experience daily.” ― Tia Walker
The reality of the matter is that in order for each and every one of us to lead a truly “happy” life, we need to learn not only to speak positively to ourselves on a regular basis, but to develop a healthy self-love too.
Living a life where you actively practice self-loving acts is so critical, because the way you see and feel about yourself, influences absolutely everything else in your life. Your job choices, your partner choices, how you handle stressful situations, how you handle your children, EVERYTHING!
“You can be the most beautiful person in the world and everybody sees light and rainbows when they look at you, but if you yourself don't know it, all of that doesn't even matter. Every second that you spend on doubting your worth, every moment that you use to criticize yourself; is a second of your life wasted, is a moment of your life thrown away. It's not like you have forever, so don't waste any of your seconds, don't throw even one of your moments away.” ― C. JoyBell C.
Start each day by telling yourself something positive and if you can muster the courage… do it in front of a mirror. Tell yourself how good you look or perhaps congratulate yourself on a certain achievement – or simply say “I love you.”
This might feel a little awkward or silly in the beginning, but you will become more comfortable with it as the days turn into weeks and the weeks into months…
Be patient with yourself too… Self-love is something that develops over a life time and most of us only start actively practicing this as adults.
In addition to the morning “chat” you have with yourself, try adding to it by surrounding yourself with positive affirmations, whether on your fridge door, in frames on a wall or on your dressing table mirror…
I do this in my shop and my customers absolutely LOVE it. Everywhere you look in my shop there are positive quotes to be read and I get comments every single day about how much they love coming to our establishment. We also have a large bowl in the front of the shop filled with little quote cards for them to take, so that they can take a little bit of the positivity home with them.
You will be amazed how wonderfully impactful this is.
Another way of doing this is online…
We all spend a tremendous amount of time on social media these days, so try and cater your feed experience so that as you scroll down you are confronted with positivity, rather than all the latest doom and gloom of the world. Go and search positive affirmation pages / accounts to follow so that you can start making this an active part of your daily experience.
The brain will believe anything it is told often enough and if you are filling it with positivity all day, every day, this will begin to steer you in a different direction.
In addition to the above - Sometimes, it is also great to practice a more “tangible” approach to self-love and there are endless ways to do this…
- Go and buy yourself a bunch of flowers
- Take yourself out for a coffee and some “me time”.
- Make a list of all your positive attributes and read it regularly.
- Put on one of your best outfits for work.
- Buy yourself something that you have REALLY wanted for a long time.
These are just a few suggestions, but I am guessing that from this you could probably think of quite a few more…
Do not misunderstand the practice of such “tangible” suggestions… they themselves are not self-love… buying yourself flowers does not mean you will miraculously and instantaneously love yourself. Yes, it makes you feel good, but it is only a CONTRIBUTING action to the development of self-love.
Self-love is a growth process… and the longer we repeatedly and regularly practices such acts of “kindness” towards ourselves, the more you will discover that you better accept your weaknesses – therefore judging yourself less harshly.
It is a life long journey, but a very important one which we should be mindful of.
“From that point on, having also added the belief that affirmations really work, not only did my memory continue to improve, but I created affirmations for every area of my life that I wanted to advance I began using affirmations to improve my health, finances, relationships, overall happiness, confidence, as well as any and all beliefs, mindsets and habits that needed an upgrade. Nothing was off limits. There are no limits!” ― Hal Elrod
Until next time…
Much Love from Cape Town, South Africa xxx
