Spend this Valentine’s Day falling in love with YOU. Our relationships with other people can only be as highly evolved as our relationship with ourselves. It’s like a bank account you’ve got to put love in to be able to take love out. So if you find yourself unattached this Valentine Day or even if you are attached consider taking Self-Love 101 at “YOU University” where YOU are the student and the teacher.
SELF-LOVE 101 - Ten surfire ways to master self-love.
- Acknowledge Yourself - You’re perfect just the way you are right now – not ten pounds from now, not a new job from now, not a different anything from now. Explore, accept, and love the gift that you are just by being you.
- Cast Off Old Tapes – You know the ones. The ones you’ve been hearing since childhood about who you are. Don’t let other people’s opinions define you. Train your mind and spirit to go beyond other people’s limitations.
- Affirmations Work – Find one that encourages acceptance and self-love. Affirmations are like planting seeds. They don’t look like much in the beginning, but if you tend to them they soon grow and blossom. “I love and approve of myself just as I am” is a great one by Louise Hay.
- Send Outdated Beliefs Packing - Your outward experience always reflects your beliefs about yourself. If you want to change the outside; you’ve got to start on the inside.
- L.I.G. Let-It-Go – Forgive yourself for ALL your past transgressions. Like Dr. Phil says “If we knew better, we’d do better.” Wipe your slate clean. Nobody’s perfect. Compassion and forgiveness begins and ends with you.
- Observes Don’t Judge – Judging and criticizing other people also means that we judge and criticize ourselves. That alone is a good reason to give it up. It’s wonderful when you don’t feel the need to label a thing as “good or bad, right or wrong.” When you observe, it just “is.”
- Embrace Change – This version of yourself is not permanent and neither was the one you grew up with. You can change your thoughts about who you are and change who you are.
- Learn & Grow – Look for opportunities to try new things. It makes you and life more interesting. If you’ve always loved a thing but have never tried it, what are you waiting for?
- Breathe – It makes everything better. Relax and take a deep breath. On the inhale say to yourself “I am” and on the exhale say “loving.”
- Practice, Practice, Practice – We think we learn something and then it’s over, “BAM” we know it. But we learn by doing, by repeating a thing, sometimes over and over and over and over.
Applaud your learning and give yourself an "A" just for taking the course. Loving yourself, respecting and appreciating you is the most powerful thing a person can do. When we fall in love with other people they can leave us, but when we fall in love with ourselves, IT'S FOREVER!
