love live holistically

What is self love?

Is it to treat yourself good - How? Is it to treat your body good, eat right sleep enough, stress-less, or is it something deeper? 

How do you love yourself unconditionally?

Is it to dispel negative thoughts, forgive yourself, stress-less? 

I think, in-order to love oneself is to do both, we dealt with body love in “be good to yourself” here we will deal with the “something deeper”, that something inside you. Self love is about finding the beauty within you.

Michelangelo said that David was always in the marble, you just needed to see it.

To love yourself, is to love yourself for who you are and forget about what you’re not.

To love yourself, is to believe you should be loved.

To love yourself, is to stop treating yourself as others make you believe you should be treated.                                 

This is not a,  if you loved yourself, you wouldn’t do this or do that blog - we covered that in “be good to yourself”.

This is a self love blog - In which we find out if, why and how we should love ourselves.

 What is your impression of you? Hopefully you read “SELF = YOU” and understand that my question relates to the you without all the labels attached to you. So what do you think about you? I am...........(remember to be honest now). I’ll start - I am caring, forthright, loving and firm. Now your turn. What do you think of you? blog@loveliveholistically.com. Having said that I am forthright, caring, loving and firm. Please note that I mentioned what I am to others- (we will come back to that later). But am I these things to myself? That is what self love is about am I caring - Do I monitor my sleeping, eating patterns to ensure I get enough of each. Cat naps can be called sleep, but do they benefit me in the long run, if I am not getting at least 6-8 hours of sleep a night? Fast food is food but does it benefit me in the long run? I am forthright, but am I honest with myself when I want to buy something that is outside my budget? Or do I go backwards and forwards trying to convince myself I deserve it. Loving, am I loving towards myself? Someone you love gets the best you can offer, the best information, the best of your time.

I spend time with me, just me - No TV, no internet, no newspapers, books or magazines, just me time with me. People who meditate often spend quality time with themself. Advice and information given to a person you love, evokes a feeling of accomplishment. I sometimes take my own advice. Do you? blog@loveliveholistically.com.

I am not always firm with myself. I find that although I have boundaries there are members of my family that I give a lot of rope to, instead of realizing that they have come to the end of the rope. I stretch it so its a little longer. Please note I do not add more rope, it just gets stretched! Being firm with myself would entail not feeling guilty for taking a day off once in a month. Being firm for me, would mean not being an enabler, instead, I should stand my ground and realize that the earth won’t stop spinning if I said NO to others more often. I have insisted on living my passion and have made some radical changes in my life to accommodate the things I love doing. I felt I owed it to myself to follow my passion. That is what I think of me and how I love myself. What four things do you essentially  think are YOU? Dissect each one....Need help? Blog@Loveliveholistically.com and honestly show how you live up to the way you view yourself.  As mentioned earlier, I would come back to the point that one may find it difficult to describe ones loving or caring traits, without using, as examples those they love or care about. Which is great for my next point.

We should be loving and caring to ourselves in the same the way – yes, the same way we love and care about our prized possessions or someone dear to our hearts. Maybe the reason we find this task so difficult, is because we do not place ourselves in the same class or level as our prized possessions or someone we love or care about. Now we have just got deep.....!

As a parent I have seen myself go above and beyond, in order to ensure life is easier for my children. I must be honest, I am not sure I would go to the same lengths for myself. In fact I have, as many parents do, put myself last or left myself out of the ranking all together. Why is that? Because I did not place myself on the same level as my children in the ‘take care of ‘ ranking. If I  ranked myself higher, I would not have left myself empty, tired and washed out in-order to please others , whoever they are.

But this is what we do to show love. I propose we enjoy giving love and don’t have words or thoughts to describe self love. Lets try an experiment. What if we picture the person or possessions we hold dear to our heart and for one day, we treat ourselves the way we would treat this special object or person.

On arrival back home, here in England, she was carefully unwrapped, dusted and put in a prized place in my living room.

I silently saluted my heros. That is how I feel about my favourite inanimate objects.

Back to our experiment, with your prized possession, every-time you walk past it, see it or think of it, add another thought to it regarding yourself. So I may walk pass my busts and think you both were so strong. I will add to that thought, Angela you also had to be strong, bringing up those children on your own. I know I can not compare my strength to the strength of the likes of Fredrick Douglas and Harriet Tubman, but it enables me to remember a good or strong trait about myself.

The next time I pass by I may think, they look good up there. My added thought about myself may be, I looked good in that yellow summer dress or I managed to get all that work done yesterday, or the meal I cooked within 30mins was lovely......In essence what I’m doing is giving a compliment and taking one for myself. This may be difficult at first, but the more you do this, the more you will realise that if you can easily have a positive thought for an inanimate object, you can and should give yourself positive pats on the back too.

Are you beginning to see what you spend your positive thoughts on ? That smile as you see your prized possessions, that pleasant though as you clean it. Bear in mind this is an object, It doesn’t matter how much you paid for it or whether it is an heirloom. It’s the thoughts you share about it that counts. My prized possession is made out of Lignum Vitae and not worth a huge amount. But it is what they stand for, that makes me smile.  Ok so you can and do have pleasant thoughts for an inanimate object and from now on, for yourself too.

Now for those we love dearly. There are no words to describe how we feel about our loved ones. Lets try and hold the way we feel about them in our minds for a minute. It then goes without saying that we would do anything for them and for some of them we ‘DO’ on a daily basis. As mentioned earlier we often go above and beyond to ensure they are well cared for, within our power, reach or financial ability. Your thoughts of your loved ones, is a little easier to mimic and relate to yourself or is it? Do you love yourself as you do your loved ones? Your first thought may be I love them all differently! That’s great, follow that thought everytime you think of a loved one, and then conger up a similar thought about yourself. Too hard ? Let me help you Blog@loveliveholistically.com.

Lets say, you think of a young member of your family. S/he is about 7 years old, this youngster is full of energy. Picture yourself happily rushing around getting ready for a special occasion. Consider another loved one, maybe a teenager that has found the love of music or something that they would prefer to do more than anything else. Consider or think of yourself immersed in an activity that you’d love to  do all day, if you could. These positive thoughts should be like for like. These thoughts are to be loving caring thoughts, thoughts you silently have running through your mind when you think of or encounter your loved ones. Practice make perfect. You are sending out one loving thought for your loved one and taking one for yourself. You now have thoughts of a 20 something, this person lives life to it’s fullest or at best, they know how to.  

As the positive thought of this person enters your head. Find one for you. For example, s/he has managed to get a great job after leaving college, school or university. The one for you could be, I have racked up 20 years of experience. Now one has to be careful not to go off into “I  wish I had,” or  “If I was his or her age, I would do this or do that.”  Only positive thoughts  are allowed to get through. You may have a 30, 40 or 50 something loved one in your life. When you think something loving about them, grab a positive thought for yourself. There may be elderly people in your life, first be grateful that you have the privilege to have these people in your life. Then as you think of a story they told you, or how caring they are. Consider yourself and just how loving you are, you must be, you have shown how loving you are towards inanimate objects, and loved ones.

As mentioned earlier, this exercise may be hard at first, especially if you have never given yourself this type of attention. Not everyone you hold dear will have their life together or happy right now. The exercise is to bring a smile to your face, you know why you love them. So you need to find a great trait about this person in order to think of it and crack a smile. This is not an exercise to put your family members life to rights. Have you noticed how quickly we can find a negative thought about our loved ones, if we think about them long enough?  and then we make a wish of ‘I don’t want to end up like her or him’. Not knowing that by doing this we are inadvertently attaching negative thoughts to ourselves. Think about it, a thought like “I hope I don’t look like that when I get older” has a ‘not well aged you ‘ flashing across your mind and attaching a negative thought to you.  Using the word ‘I’ in any negative sentence attaches it to YOU.

Can you see how much thought or consideration you have to put into this exercise of attaching a positive or loving though to yourself!? Why is that? The reason for this is, you are soooo use to adding or attaching negative thoughts to yourself. But we are about to change that. We are to focus only on the positive when relating ANYTHING to ourselves ANYTHING. These ‘throw away’ comments have an effect on your self esteem, even if they are partly relating to you. Say them often enough you may being to believe them. So no......, ‘ when I was her age I was a tear-a-way too’  Or ‘I really don’t want to end up like him’ Find a pleasant thought and run with that. Let’s get on with the work of self love.

There will be no standing in-front of any mirrors naked, or talking to your reflection. You have love inside you, and instead of giving it all to others, you take a little for yourself .

How long did it take you? Blog@loveliveholistically.com. We tried that exercise earlier, so it shouldn’t have taken you too long this time round. Among Deepak Chopras (tips for loving yourself just as you are (June 2015) he lists what to do to be kind to yourself:- YOU MUST

Among Deepak Chopras (tips for loving yourself just as you are (June 2015) he lists what to do to be kind to yourself:- YOU MUST Let others compliment you. Bask in other people’s approval when it comes your way. Be gentle with yourself over small mistakes. Value who you are and stand up for yourself. Get to know yourself like a friend. Be easy about your personal quirks. Deepak lists ways to keep away from self-judgment.

YOU MUST NOT:-

Brush away compliments.

Reject other people’s appreciation.

Belittle yourself, even with self-deprecating humor.

Dwell on your faults as a topic of conversation.

Rationalize away the times when someone else hurts you.

Accept indifference from people who supposedly love you.

Silently swallow bad treatment when you know you should speak up.

Throughout this ‘trying to love myself’ exercise, you may get prongs of ‘but I should be humble’ ‘I shouldn’t try to exalt myself’ ‘People may think i’m getting too big for my boots’ Women especially have a hard time climbing out of the shadows. Realise that you have been taught these qualities and although you may feel that you had good teachers (parents, friends, family members and even society) . The real you, the you without the labels need to be showed love. The type of love that only you can give you. Having found that love, everyone around you will have no choice but to acknowledge it. Whether they appreciate it or not, is for another blog.

The ‘I should be humble’ and the ‘I shouldn’t exalt myself’ all comes from what you believe other people may think and not from your real self, who watches you give love to inanimate objects and to others, but find it difficult to say ‘I LOVE YOU’ to you. You can do it, you can choose to.

Wayne Dyer in his video ‘what to get what you want’ says if you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb9Z2qzylDYhe goes on to say, whatever is inside YOU will come pouring out, and that it doesn’t matter who squeezes the orange or what time it is squeezed, only orange juice will come out. I can understand his metaphor when you see or hear the venom that comes out of the mouth of some people. I sometime wonder how they haven’t poisoned themself! See my blog Tongue- What damage have you caused. But even these people, have love inside of them and I believe that Wayne Dyers’ statement emphasize the fact that, as human beings we have the ability to choose what comes pouring out of us, after all we are not fruit. Even harden criminals have shown to have a soft spot and choose when to show the love they have inside, by caring for a puppy. Read Paws in Prison Programme. Here prisoners save dogs from being euthanized by training them basic obedience so they can be adopted . Inside us all, there is love and it can and should be shared with or directed at ourselves, in doing this we come closer to showing Self Love.

The 2nd thing to do in your quest to loving yourself, is to be aware of how you speak about yourself. Anything said after ‘I AM’ must be positive, even if you are feeling unwell, you should say when asked how you are feeling? Your answer should be ‘I am hoping to feel better soon’ This will take some doing, it will take practice of being aware of how you speak, think and feel about yourself. What  you say will be a minute by minute task. I can tell you it is certainly worth it. You will feel better about yourself, people around you will instinctively know how you wish to be treated. Feeling or knowing that you are just as important as any person you interact with is very liberating. I say this after being put down, putting myself down, treating myself badly, allowing others to treat me badly and far too weak to do anything about it. When you begin to see yourself on the same level as others, you will begin to start loving yourself.

In this blog you was reminded what Love is, how you gave loving thoughts to inanimate objects and loved ones. You was asked to take a little of those positive loving thoughts for yourself. When asked why you didn’t give yourself the same level of  love or spare positive thoughts for  yourself?  It was suggested that maybe, we didn’t rank ourselves as highly as the objects and people we love. There was also times when thinking ‘nice thoughts’ of our loved ones, we unconsciously attached negative thoughts to ourselves.

Those unconscious or ‘throw away’ comments like “ Oh don’t be silly, it was nothing” as a response to a compliment, attaches negative thoughts to us. The “It was nothing” takes away the effort or expertise used to earn that compliment. Your response should be THANK YOU. Nothing else, maybe a smile, but that’s it. Deepak Chopra warned us not to brush away compliments or reject other people’s appreciation. We are to, let others compliment us and bask in other people’s approval when it comes our way.

As human beings we have the ability to choose when to show love and kindness. Wayne Dyer stated that whatever is in us will come pouring out, like an orange when squeezed, even hardened criminals can decided when to show puppy love!

Being aware of how we treat ourselves, how others treat us, how we talk about ourselves and allow others to speak to us will give us an indication of whether we are really loving ourselves.