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"Love yourself first and everything falls into line."
Lucille Ball quotes (American radio and motion-picture actress and comedy star, 1911-1989)
When you make a decision to love yourself, you are really saying that you want to come alive. You accept that you are responsible for the outcomes that you experience in your life and would like yourself to shine from living a fulfilling life.
So if you've decided on loving yourself but are as equally stumped on how to love yourself, as I was back then, here are 17 ways which I believe can be helpful:
1. Fall in love with yourself. Think about what makes you You. Just like a flower that needs watering to grow, learn to nurture yourself in every way. Love yourself for all the good that you see and accept your flaws and the fact that you are imperfect. This does not meant that you do not learn to change from your shortcomings; instead, you are being gentle and kind to yourself for all your flaws. Look in the mirror and fall in love with the reflection that is You.
"To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance."
Oscar Wilde quotes (Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic, 1854-1900)
2. Eliminate Self Criticism. Do you often berate yourself over the tiniest thing? Is there a little voice inside your head that often tells you that you are no good because you are stupid or make mistakes. If you find that you criticise yourself often, make an effort to stop the self criticism.
"I CAN is 100 times more important than IQ." — unknown
3. Be Kind And Positive. When you start to think kindly and positively about yourself, the love you have for yourself just grows. Make it a habit to praise yourself everyday, while in the front of the mirror. Because of such thoughts, you naturally undertake empowering actions that support your development.
4. Acknowledge Your Effort. It's not always about winning or having success in everything that you do. Many times, it is the effort that counts! Acknowledge that you've done your best, even if you have failed to produce tangible results.
5. Let Go Of Worry. Loving yourself requires you to let go of your worry. It is a horrible way to live a life filled with constant worrying. I can attest to that! Worry does not help in any way. It cannot, on its own, make things happen. Only wise actions can! So instead of worrying, spend time thinking about what you can do to help in the situation. If the situation is beyond your control, then ask the Universe for your desired outcome and let things work out on their own. Things will come to be, if they are meant to be.
"There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will." — Epictetus quotes (Greek philosopher associated with the Stoics, AD 55-c.135)
6. Trust Yourself. Have confidence in your abilities. Know that you have the ability to make important changes for yourself, for as long as you put your heart to it. You can also support yourself by visualizing desired outcomes.
"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do."
Benjamin Spock quotes (American Pediatrician and Author, 1903-1998)
7. Forgive Yourself. If you have made mistakes in the past that had caused you to feel less worthy, then you need to forgive yourself. All of us make mistakes; so there really is no need to beat yourself up over them. Or if you've been carrying around a baggage of emotional hurt because of a childhood trauma, learn to forgive yourself that it is not your fault.
"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you."
Lewis B. Smedes quotes
8. Be Truthful To Yourself. Loving yourself requires you to be truthful about your own feelings. If you are happy, acknowledge the joy. If you are sad, acknowledge the sorrow. When you are truthful about your feelings, you do not try to lie to yourself or seek to bury your negative emotions. Instead, acknowledging what you feel provides a good guide to what your thoughts are. And as we all know, thoughts can be changed, so that healing and self growth can take place.
9. Grow Spiritually. When you spend time growing spiritually, loving yourself is an automatic thing. You become more peaceful, connected, kind, loving and compassionate. You nurture a mind that grows more beautiful by the day. How to not love yourself in the process?
10. Make Positive Affirmations Everyday. Post affirmations that can help raise your self esteem everyday. For instance, say this to yourself "I love and accept myself completely and unconditionally." Read your affirmations out loud several times a day.
11. Express Gratitude. Express gratitude for the person that you are. For instance, cultivate an appreciation for your strengths and gifts. Also, feel a sense of gratitude that you are alive and well, and fully capable of making a difference in your life.
12. Nurture Your Dreams. Why deny yourself your dreams? When you nurture your dreams, you would love the life that you are leading. Every moment that you live is a joy because you are expressing yourself fully.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. —Mark Twain
13. Boost Your Self Confidence. Make a deliberate attempt to look for opportunities that can help improve your sense of Self. For instance, if you are particularly good at doing something, set aside more time to indulge and improve your skills on it. Knowing that you have particular gifts can boost your self esteem.
14. Relax. You need to give yourself space to take breaks every now and then. If you spend your time working, without paying attention to your health, it also means that you do not love yourself well enough to take care of your own body. Fill your time with silence, soothing music and visions of beauty; anything that nourishes your Soul.
15. Have Fun. Inject some fun into your life. Life is meant to be an enjoyable. Don't take life or yourself too seriously. If you can think of life in this manner, you automatically relax and quit worrying over things that do not matter.
16. Look After Your Body. It is important that you strengthen yourself with proper nutrition and regular exercise. Your body is a temple and you should treat it with respect, love and care. It has been found that the lack of self love is often the root causes of conditions like eating disorders, obesity or even terminal diseases.
"Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live."
Jim Rohn quotes (American Speaker and Author. He is famous for motivational audio programs for Business and Life. )
17. Learn To See Beauty. When you learn to see beauty in every thing, you will also see beauty in yourself. Hence, stop to smell the flowers. Notice everything. Feel everything. The pink blush of the flowers in your garden, the greeness of the plains, the whisper of the gentle wind, or the myraid hues of an evening sky.
Here is a good affirmation to read and reflect on…..
"I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it — I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes.
Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know — but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me.
However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me.
I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay."
Denis2005 Virginia Satir quotes (American Phychologist and Educator, 1916-1988)
How to Love Yourself?
Try them! They really work.
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2. Don't scare yourself: Stop terrorizing yourself with your thoughts. It's a dreadful way to live. Find a mental image that gives you pleasure (mine is yellow roses), and immediately switch your scary thought to a pleasure thought.
3. Be gentle and kind and patient: Be gentle with yourself. Be kind to yourself. Be patient
with yourself as you learn the new ways of thinking. Treat yourself as you would someone you
really loved.
4. Be kind to your mind: Self-hatred is only hating your own thoughts. Don't hate yourself for having the thoughts. Gently change the thoughts.
5. Praise yourself: Criticism breaks the inner spirit. Praise builds it up. Praise yourself as much as you can. Tell yourself how well you are doing with every little thing.
6. Support yourself: Find ways to support yourself. Reach out to friends, and allow them to help you. It is being strong to ask for help when you need it.
7. Be loving to your negatives: Acknowledge that you created them to fulfill a need. Now you are finding new, positive ways to fulfill those needs. So. lovingly release the old negative patterns.
8. Take care of your body: Learn about nutrition. What kind of fuel does your body need to have optimum energy and vitality? Learn about exercise. What kind of exercise can you enjoy? Cherish and revere the temple you live in.
9. Mirror work: Look into your own eyes often. Express this growing sense of love you have for yourself. Forgive yourself looking into the mirror. Talk to your parents looking into the mirror. Forgive them, too. At least once a day, say: "I love you, I really love you!"
10. LOVE YOURSELF - DO IT NOW! Don't wait until you get well or lose the weight, or get the new job, or find the new relationship. Begin NOW - do the best you can.
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HEALTH:
1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants..
4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy
5. Make time to pray.
6. Play more games
7. Read more books than you did in 2009 .
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk daily. And while you walk, smile.
PERSONALITY:
11. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don't have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don't over do. Keep your limits.
14. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need..
18. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner with His/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree...
SOCIETY:
25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything..
28. Spend time w/ people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
LIFE:
32. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. GOD heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change..
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come..
38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it.
39. Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy.
Last but not the least:
40. Please share this with everyone you care about, I just did.
HELLO DOLLY: I am falling in love with a married man...
I've been messing around with this married guy for sometime now. I feel so bad but I think I'm falling in love with him. I don't want to tell him because I'm afraid I'll scare him away.
He's always so nice to me and it's not just because of sex because it doesn't happen all that often. He has five boys with his wife -- I have 2 girls. I know I'm not going to get anywhere with this.
I just don't know what I should do and I don't see why he keeps coming back. A lot of local people go to this bar and when I'm there I always catch him looking at me or if I don't talk to him he makes it to where I know he's there. Is there any easy way to stop this, or to make it easier?
--MESS WITH A MARRIED MAN
Dear MESS WITH A MARRIED MAN:
We assume that what you really want in life is happy and lasting love. What blocks most people from ending up in a happy longterm relationship is failing to see the big picture. Instead, they only look at today, and, perhaps tomorrow.
The big picture includes who you choose, why you choose them, and the circumstances under which you get together. It includes how you feel today, tomorrow, next month, a year from now -- even ten years from now.
If you cannot see where you are going in the future, heaven help you. You head off for the supermarket and end up at the city dump.
So step back from whatever immediate feelings you have about this guy today, and look at where you are going. The choices you make today determine where you end up later.
If you choose to get involved with a married man, you are saying: "it is perfectly okay that a husband cheats on his wife."
You are sanctioning this behavior, to him, the world -- and yourself. Doing this now will affect the big picture you end up in for your future.
You are probably not seeing the future part of this picture, so let's try to open up your eyes. This big picture starts with you in the future, falling deeper in love with this guy. It shows you, further in that future, wanting something more with this guy than being his bar fling away from home.
What happens next? Once you want more, maybe he dumps you, and you get real hurt and become more cynical about love. But what if he decides to leave his family, and you end up his next wife? Keep your eye on the big picture. Remember, you already drew this picture to say it is okay that a husband cheats on his wife. You are telling this guy that very thing right now, by your actions. Guess what happens next, when he goes back out to the bar and leaves you home?
The choice is yours. You play the starring role in your life. We suggest you make sure it's a picture you truly want to star in.
So, you ask, is there a easy way to stop this? Yes. Next time you talk to him, tell him to take all his sexual interest in you and put it back home with his wife, where it belongs. Tell him you realized you have made a big mistake by being flattered by his interest in you. Say you woke up and saw the big picture, and did not like what you were doing to your own life.
Then simply stop interacting with him. Or stop going to the bar. You choose.
You are in charge of things, really. It's your life. It's your movie. You are the star. You are the director. You call the shots.
Make it a picture you want to star in. By calling a stop to this, you will be changing your own big picture. It will say that you are a woman who is only interested in a real relationship with a man who is fully free and available to take love to its full limits and totally commit to one woman.
HELLO DOLLY:
Should I tell my fiance I kissed someone else?
I have beeen dating my fiance for 5 1/2 years. During the first 6 months we dated I kissed 4 guys... we just kissed and each time I was pretty drunk (I know that is no excuse) and never told him now that we are engaged I can't help feeling awful and guilty now and then. I can't decide if I should tell him. I think telling him will hurt him so much and I will only be doing it to make myself feel better. What should I do ?
---TO TELL OR NOT TO TELL
Hello TO TELL OR NOT TO TELL:
The real question is to whether or not to let fear hold you back from being authentic.
Many might advise to bury this information and never let it see the light of day. They would ask, "why should you upset him, and make him lose trust in you, just so you can feel less guilty?" Somehow, this model of communication may work to prevent his upset, but it will most likely also create a split in the relationship where you have to keep up a wall. Ultimately, how is that in your best interest -- or his?
Your gut is already prompting you to tell. Because you feel guilt and awful, that is already a potential secret wall that will build up between you and the one person in the world with whom you want to be a true closest friend. Being an authentic partner and holding back secrets does not seem to go well together.
Fear holds you back. You do risk upset feelings as a consequence. You do risk a ripple in trust. And that will all be the result of telling the truth, so that nothing hidden stands in the way of the two of you being joined in complete union, as it were.
Withheld information, withheld feelings, withheld anything is like a wall that will only separate the two of you. You can build authentic trust only if you show up in all your authentic honesty. Authentic trust and union does not come from withholding or fear. Sure, you will have to deal with upset feelings. And that is also authentic. But at least it is real and you CAN deal with it -- or learn the right tools to deal with it.
The alternative is that slowly building wall -- and that for sure will end up being a problem that won't go away. You cannot pretend your way into a great relationship. You can only face your fears, be authentic, respond to feelings that are real, and learn and grow.
Hello Dolly: I'm a 15-year-old girl whose parents treat me like an 8-year-old. They not only refuse to let me see any movie that isn't G-rated, but they still cut my meat for me! Once a week we go to the park, and they still push me on the swings.
I don't want to tell them it's embarrassing because I'm afraid I'll hurt their feelings. Please tell me how to convey to my parents that I'm not a child anymore.
-- OLD ENOUGH IN GEORGIA
HELLO OLD ENOUGH: Your parents mean well, but children who are overprotected to the extent you have been often become stunted in their development. Teens do not learn social skills and how to make appropriate choices when they are "supervised" to the extent you are.
Tell your parents that you love them, but in three years you will be 18 and an adult. Explain that you know they love you, but if you are not allowed some freedom now, then you will be behind your peers because of your inexperience when you have reached an age when you'll be expected to make wise choices. Remind them that even children half your age are sufficiently coordinated that they can cut the food on their plates, and you would appreciate their allowing you to get some practice.
If this doesn't help them let go, then ask another adult to help you deliver the message.
Hello Dolly:
I am a short, 5-foot-5-inch high school sophomore. I am small-boned and my voice is high-pitched. I'm terrible at sports, and physical education class is a nightmare. I have become friends with another guy, "MAX," who is much like me, and it helps to have someone who has similar problems.
Because Max and I hang out together, some of the macho guys have started a rumor that we're gay, and now everyone in the school thinks it's true. Our PE teacher has even made comments to this effect, which compounds the problem.
Max and I are shunned and have even been physically attacked because of this. We are not gay. We are just good friends who share common problems. We are interested in girls, but they aren't interested in us. When I try to say I'm not gay, they say, "Then who is your girlfriend?" When I tell them I don't have one, they laugh at me.
Max and I are both "A" students. We keep telling ourselves that we will succeed where some of the macho guys who are obvious losers will not, and we'll have the last laugh. However, this is still a terrible situation for us, and we can't stand the thought of another two years like this.
Please help.
-- SOPHOMORE IN SACRAMENTO
Hello SOPHOMORE IN SACRAMENTO:
If you and your friend haven't already told your parents what's going on, do so immediately. Then you and your parents should pay a visit to the school principal to report that you have been attacked by other students and misidentified as gay not only by your peers, but also by a member of the staff.
Hello Dolly,
I am a 27-year-old stay-at-home mom with three kids. Two are my fiance "Sean's"; the littlest is ours together. Sean and I have been together almost seven years.
I need help. I am a very depressed person and have been for many years. I shop excessively and spend way too much -- sometimes all of our money -- and I don't know how to stop. Shopping makes me feel happy, and when I'm depressed (which is often), I go out shopping for stuff I don't even need. I have even started shopping online for stuff. I feel horrible about this. Sean and I have tried separate bank accounts, but when I'd run low I would just tap right into his. Please help me. I don't know what to do.
--Spend-a-Holic in Snellville, Ga
Dear Spend-a-Holic:
It is time to stop and take inventory of what you have and what you don't. You are substituting "things" for something important that's missing in your life. (Could it be a wedding ring?) Trying to self-medicate long-term depression by going on a spending spree is putting a Band-Aid on an infected wound.
Please contact your physician for a referral to a doctor who can give you medication to lift the depression, as well as counseling for your underlying problem. It's the only way to fix what's ailing you
GSD Deaf Retreat: Class of 1970-1975
Savannah, GA
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