Self-Love : The Panacea

In the Bible, Jesus is quoted as saying "Love your neighbor as yourself". We never focused on the loving oneself part. Let me ask you this. Can you give a penny when don't even have a dollar or give away food when you barely have anything to feed yourself?

Absolutely not. Yet, we always focus on giving love to others without stopping and thinking about our own selves. If we don't have enough love for ourselves, what we are giving to others is conditional love based on how they make us feel.

There are probably multiple ways to express your love for yourself, but I am going to try and highlight nine ways that you can learn to love yourself.

1. Become aware of the labels you give yourself

It doesn't matter what the entire world thinks of you. But, it ABSOLUTELY matters what you think of yourself. What you think of yourself is what is projected to the outside world.

If you are person who is usually judgmental or critical of people, watch the words you give to yourself in times of frustration, grief, anger. Become aware of those labels. Do you use the same judgmental words you use on others for yourself?

Although, it is easy to go back to old critical ways, Something that could help is to close your eyes at the end of the day before you unwind and sleep is to ask yourself "Have I fallen from grace today? Were there circumstances where I could have taken the high road?" When you do this, you become more of the observer. What is that you observe? What was the trigger that caused you to react? What did you tell yourself when something like that happened. Can you go back and change that little story you noticed as the observer?

Some of these words were given to us by our well meaning parents, teacher and friends while growing up. Those words or labels have been repeated so many times that now we unconsciously accept it and it has become a part of us or we are becoming the labels that have been given. The minute something happens you call yourself "Stupid" or "Idiot". At night, when you are practicing becoming the observer, change those words to a more harmonious word or change up the event in a way that you would have liked it to be.

This would help you to recognize the trigger word or event next time something similar happens in the future.

Also, before you sleep it is always a good idea to end the day by forgiving people you think haven't been at their best when interacting with you. Forgiving is not about anyone else. It is about the inner state of being you will achieve when you have the let the situation or person go.

Wayne Dyer, one of the spiritual teachers I follow would say "What we focus on expands." If you focus on your negatives, the negatives will grow. Give yourself another chance and focus on your greatness. No matter how small we think we are, we all have unlimited potential in us. You just need to believe it first.

2. Become aware of your self-limiting beliefs

Go back to being the observer when a thought of limitation or anything that restricts you crosses your mind. Examine it.. Where does it come from? Is it absolutely a fact or is it a belief you hold true? Remember, belief is just a thought that you have thought multiple times that it feels true for you.

Are you conditioned by your family, teachers, society, culture to believing this? Or have you taken on someone else's belief about yourself as your belief. Some of these beliefs will keep you trapped into limitation and prevent you from being the best version of yourself. Let go of them. If you have to choose a belief, choose something that empowers you , makes you feel limitless and free.

3. Become aware of your habits that don't serve you

As someone who has been overweight more than half of my life, I became aware of my tendencies to stuff myself with junk food when I am upset or depressed. There are other habits we engage in unconsciously like shopping, binge watching television mindlessly, drinking, drugs etc so that we don't stop and look at our state. We like to stay distracted. How do we become aware of these?

One of the ways is by meditation. By being the observer of your thoughts, you will become aware of the unconscious patterns you engage to stop feeling the pain. In order to go beyond pain, you will have to face it..is it simply a story you tell yourself? or is it real like someone you thought you loved a lot broke your heart? I won't tell you that everything will be perfectly fine and you can go back to living your normal. life....but there you have to willing to heal yourself. No one else can do it for you ...Forgiving yourself or others may sound ridiculous at this time, but you can be "willing" to forgive. Journaling has certainly helped me heal myself in tough times. Find what works for you It may be music or dance or art or walks or hikes. Channel your pain or sorrow into something. Out of my pain, this blog was born. It can be certainly rewarding when you look back. When you look back and connect the does, your pain might be the best thing that happened to you and you will be grateful for it. I certainly am!

4. Use affirmations/mirror-work

Affirmations are one of the easiest ways to program your sub-conscious mind. Your subconscious mind is the mind that allows you to call and drive. When you first learned to drive, you had to pay attention and couldn't do anything other than focus on the `road. Once you keep driving repeatedly, the subconscious mind takes over and now you can drive without even have to consciously think of driving.

Some tips on affirmations:

• Always use your affirmations in present tense

• Keep it short so you can repeat it several times like a mantra

• Record your affirmations and play it once every morning and evening before sleeping. You can alternatively write them out in a small journal and read them out.

• You can alternatively print out your affirmations and keep in a place where you can see first thing in the morning and read it.

An example of affirmation would be "I am so happy and grateful that I am living an abundant, joyous life"

Initially, this may feel untrue since your conscious mind doesn't quite believe that. But, would you keep suffering and be unwilling to make changes in your life or step into your power and make that change? The only way to make any change in your life is by believing you can and taking steps to be a super hero version of yourself.

Mirror-work is a very effective technique to program yourself for self-acceptance and self love. Louise Hay, the author of book "You can heal your life" recommends that you look at yourself in the mirror and say to yourself "I approve of you...I love you". Initially, a lot of emotions might come up, but over time you will accept it, and your dominant thought will change to reflect what you are saying out loud. The result will be that it will be easier to look at yourself in the mirror and say "I love you".

5. Setting boundaries

Setting boundaries with people is a very important step to loving and respecting yourself. We have been conditioned from a very young age that every body else's feelings are important and it is essential to be a certain way to please everyone around us. This has often meant that we are inauthentic to ourselves because we are wearing a mask essentially and not true to ourselves.

Setting boundaries with people is an act of self-love. You cannot be someone who keeps on giving off yourself or your desires and sacrifice for everyone else's happiness. If people think you are selfish because you pursue your desires, so be it. Are they not being selfish by asking you to conform to make them happy?

Societies, religions, cultures, institutions and even our own families want conformance. I am not saying you should be a rebel. Strive to be balanced and honor your desires as much as you honor others. It may be as simple as communicating what is acceptable to you and what is not.

Be aware of toxic people in your life and set boundaries in whatever way you can. Again, communication is key to clearly defining your boundaries. Sometimes, you have to let people go from your life for your sanity and that is okay. If they are your family, it will be harder to do that. Be assertive and let people know when they step on your boundaries.

6. Taking time for self care

Pay attention to what energizes you and deliberately carve out some time for that activity.

Go for a long walk, a warm bath and take time for yourself to reflect on what is important, release what is no longer needed and moving forward in a new direction. Easier said than done right? But, what is your option- would you like to feel stuck or do you want to take the steps to change your circumstances. I love dancing and even in my challenging times I would dance with my kids and just have such a fun time. I love being with little children. They have so much joy in them and it is contagious. You will be instantly uplifted by their innocent laughter.

7. Reach out to supportive friends and family during tough times

We all have times in our lives where all the steps above will not help. We just need a shoulder to cry on or just need someone to listen. I encourage you to seek out people whom you trust to listen without making judgments or offering solutions. Sometimes, you are not seeking solutions to your problems. Sometimes, it is just that you need a sounding board to heal from a painful past where tings just happened out of control. Cultivate an inner circle of friends you can always reach out to. If you don't have friends, seek out therapy or counseling. You will know you have healed from your past ,when your view your past from a higher perspective without being attached to those emotions.

8. Be the observer and let go of the need to control

This is something that I have done a lot to heal myself from past trauma and suffering. Take the role of the observer and see the drama played out in the grand stage of our life and see for what it is..just drama. You played a role and others played their part too. You went through it because there were certain lessons you needed to learn or integrate into your life. This is a very healing perspective. Try it. Sometimes, the same situation happens in different times of our life. Be the observer and again watch the pattern. All this requires some real honesty with yourself and time that you need to carve out deliberately for reflection.

9. Have faith in a higher power

Sometimes, it is hard to understand why others may have acted the way they did, but it is good to trust the divine or God or source and understand that in the infinity of things everything is perfect and in divine time the truth will be revealed. Let go of the need to control everything around you and have complete faith in that higher power and know that God will never fail you. Sometimes, the biggest challenge in our life can be a pathway to higher realization.

We all have times in our lives where all the steps above will not help. We just need a shoulder to cry on or just need someone to listen. I encourage you to seek out people whom you trust to listen without making judgments or offering solutions. Sometimes, you are not seeking solutions to your problems. Sometimes, it is just that you need a sounding board to heal from a painful past where tings just happened out of control. Cultivate an inner circle of friends you can always reach out to. If you don't have friends, seek out therapy or counseling. You will know you have healed from your past ,when your view your past from a higher perspective without being attached to those emotions.

Do you have other ideas on promoting love for yourself and healing yourself? Be sure to comment below and let me know.

Much love and gratitude.