Weekends With Winter

Motivation Monday: Learning To Love Yourself 101

in Inspiration, Uncategorized on

love yourself 3

“Love yourself!” It’s the sound bite heard round the world, the advice given time and again to the broken-hearted, the insecure, the depressed and down trodden. You hear it so much you’d think the concept was as easy to implement as it is to suggest. “Love yourself”, we say, as if it’s as easy as breathing, and much like breathing it IS essential to our survival. In my opinion to have  a life worth living it is this complex sentiment that we are put here to learn, and what a learning process it is.

Loving yourself is more than a theory it is something that much like any skill you must practice and cultivate each and every day. It is a journey, one in which you never quite reach your destination but rather will climb to new heights. In essence there are levels to this sh*t MAYNE (had to go for the Meek Mill reference) and I want to help you climb the ladder to loving yourself success.

The following are tools that once put into action, make loving yourself more easy. They are tools that I’ve realized with practice become second nature. These tools have helped create a person whom I love, who I am proud of and who is so worthy of the love and respect of others. She will not settle for anything less than wonderful, and although she loves talking about herself in the 3rd person her tips have proven to be successful.

Here are my tips…

Do the Things that Make you Feel Proud to Be You

Loving ones self is not some abstract feeling that falls out of the sky, lands on your head, and POOF that’s all she wrote. More often than not its cultivated by doing the things that make you feel good about yourself. It can mean taking care of your body by eating right and exercising for some, or volunteering for a charity or honing your skills in an area of interest for others. One of my favorite ways of showing love to myself has been through blogging. It’s something that I’d wanted to do for quite some time but was much to scared to. I doubted myself and my abilities (I’m not the best at spelling or punctuation ya’ll), I was so afraid of the possible criticism, or being laughed at. But what I’ve  learned along the way is that when I finally started my blog the pride in myself was worth every criticism I’ve encountered. With every click of the publish button I have felt more secure about my abilities and with every criticism I have grown.  At the end of the day, It’s shown me that when I face my fears and do something that makes me happy I am in turn proud of myself and from that place I am building the love that lives within.

 

Surround Yourself with People Who Lift You Higher

One of the biggest lessons I’ve had to learn on the journey to loving myself was this one.  I had to first recognize who in my life was lifting me higher, and to do that I had to learn what qualities people possessed that ended up “lifting me higher”.  What I realized was that I needed to surround myself with people who had the qualities that I respected and admired.  On that list were those who were self-aware and driven but also encouraging and supportive.  When I started to look around at my inner circle I came to the realization that some of the people I was surrounding myself with did not possess these qualities. Keep in mind that the qualities that are important to me may not be important to you and that’s totally alright.  You’ve just got to figure out what kind of relationships make you feel good and seek those out, and if they already exist be grateful and find ways to strengthen them. This saying comes to mind when I think about this concept “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with”. Make sure those people are making deposits into your self-love tank and not withdrawals.

 

Speak to Yourself Like you Would Someone you Love

So often it’s our internal dialogue that causes us the most hurt-“I’m  fat and unattractive I really need to lose weight” ” If only I had listened to my friends and hadn’t gotten involved with that jerk I wouldn’t be hurt now” “He/She would never be interested in someone like me”…  The way we speak to ourselves is often times worse than what anyone else is saying or thinking about us. What’s interesting is that, it’s that inner dialogue that is most effective in building insecurity. So, speak to yourself like you would someone you love and when you make a mistake forgive yourself and acknowledge the lessons learned from the situation, and if the need to hate on yourself  still occurs try some of these exercises:

  • Make a laundry list of the things you love about yourself. List not only your physical attributes list your inner ones too.
  • Ask someone who you know has your back what qualities they love about you (and take complete ownership of their answers)
  •  When you mess up (like you know you will) coach yourself like you would your best friend or loved one

 

“You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy”

This is one of my all time favorite quotes by C. Joybell. It speaks volumes because it reminds me that when things get heavy (as they often do) I have to simply let them go. The things that are heavy are the things that cause you anger, worry and stress. They are the things that no matter what you do, you realize there is nothing that can be done. These things you must let go of. Because ultimately what is weighing you down is stopping you from the ever important task of loving yourself. Besides, how can you have time to do all of the other tasks on this list if you’re constantly working under the strain of the situations,people, places, and emotions that weigh you down? By concentrating on these things you are giving energy to them and we all know that when you give energy to something you only get more of that very thing. This concept could be a blog post on its own and I don’t expect you to master it right away, but at the very least  I want you to pinpoint what  is weighing you down and start the process of  freeing yourself. Baby steps in the beginning but know that when you do is when the real process of loving yourself begins.

Stand for Something or you Will Fall For Anything

It is important to have conviction. To know what your line in the sand is and to not let anyone cross it. Knowing what it is you will and won’t stand for in all areas of your life teaches people how to treat you. In turn, by sticking with your convictions you are showing love to not just yourself but ultimately other’s as well. Truly loving someone should mean you want the best for them and part of being the best person you can be is showing respect for people’s boundaries. You can’t do this if you don’t create some. A lot of times women will say that they’ve given their all to a relationship; they’ve stuck by a man through his cheating, took care of him when he had nothing, or forgave him through abuse. To that I say, that wasn’t showing love for him but rather a lack of love for you.

 

What ways do you love yourself? Are there any idea’s here that you’d like to implement? Let me know in the comments below!

Comments

    • Thank you so much! These were such hard lessons to learn and def one of the hardest posts I’ve done. I so appreciate you sharing!

  6. This is such a great reminder! I feel like I’m constantly reminding others to love themselves, but I never take my own advice. I need to start treating myself with reading breaks and delicious hot chocolate! It’s the little stuff. 🙂

  8. Speak To Yourself Like You Would Someone You Love is really important to me. I find myself always speaking positive and uplifting others, but when it comes to my mistakes I am always so hard on myself..

  11. Thank you for this great post!! I used to really struggle with loving myself but I have make such an improvement within this year 🙂 Posts like these make me feel so much stronger!

    • Thank you so much Lindsay! I’m happy to hear that this may help you if even in a small way. People think loving yourself is easy and just like most things in life you have to learn how to do it right. Thank you for reading 🙂

    • It was one that rang so true when I heard it and I immediately knew it was because I needed to hear it and apply it to my life. Thank you for stopping by and reading!

  13. I definitely needed to accept the things I can not change. I can’t let some things go. I always feel like I can fix it or change it.

    • This is probably the hardest thing on the list for me but I keep reminding myself that my worrying has never solved any issues I’ve had.

  14. What a great post! I think we can all use tips and reminders of what self love looks like and how it feels! Life is a journey, and along the way through the detours it’s great to have a guide! Thank you for providing a guide!

    • Thank you Sheena! I agree about having a guide and if this helps anyone I’ll be a happy girl 🙂

  16. Wow! This post is absolutely amazing – thank you for your wonderful words. I need to pin this to refer to in trying times. Gorgeous! 🙂

    • It’s honestly the most important one from the list in my opinion. Thank you for reading!

    • That would be awesome! I’ve never done a link up post before how do I link it?

  19. I used to get on with myself quite well, in the fact that I was totally comfortable with myself and would always wear fab outfits out and not worry about showing off a bit. Now (in the last few years) I’ve become so much more self conscious and don’t feel that good about myself much at all. Even when I take blog photos I’m like jeez, is that really what I look like?!

    Katie <3

  23. Love the last tip, stand for something or you will fall for anything. This is so true and I find myself guilty of it but I am working on it

  24. This is beautiful 🙂 I really like the ‘Speak to Yourself Like you Would Someone you Love’ – we focus so much on ‘do unto others…’ which is a great rule, but it’s equally important to treat yourself the way you would want others to treat you.

  25. I definitely think surrounding yourself with people who lift you higher is a great way to foster self love. It’s always so easy to fall into the rut of feeling sorry for yourself if you’re always around people who are negative. I’m currently experiencing that with some of my coworkers.. . they are always so negative! I’ve just learned to tune them out and realize that like really isn’t that bad.

  26. I am a HUGE believer in letting things go. I do get upset, and things bother me, but I have a 24 hour rule. Either forgive or move on within 24hours. I refuse to let these things be a part of my mental being for much longer. Life is way too short to have these things continue to fester. Great, Great GREAT article.

    Thrifting Diva
    http://www.thriftingdiva.com

  27. What a positive and uplifting post! Somedays I need these reminders…especially the one about standing up for yourself. As I get older, I am getting better with this one!

  28. Great post and a reminder for us to be kind to ourselves! I try hard not to sweat the small stuff and to let things go. Or it could be that I’m getting older and I only have so much brainpower to focus on the things that are really important to me!

    • Thank you so much for your kind words. It took awhile for me to learn some of these lessons but I’m happy I have and I keep learning them along the way.

  30. I LOVE THIS POST. .Thanks so much for sharing. My favorite is “let things go because they’re heavy.” I’ve had to utilize this so many times in life, and I imagine it will keep happening.

    • Thank you! That has to be my fav as well, it can be applied to so many areas of your life!