Many people eat the way I used to eat. They’re compulsive bingers, not because they’re hungry.. its because they’re emotionally hungry. Some suffer from being overweight and have spent so much time to try to “fix” their eating routines. But it’s hard, I know. I know some feel their lives are complete chaos, due to food.
Do you love yourself enough to learn to make better choices? Do you truly feel worth it to do so? I have decided to write this blog to help you learn to love yourself and live the happy life you deserve.
Silly question, but what does it mean to love yourself? Don’t get me wrong, I’m still trying to find that exact answer. But I think sometimes it means to have self-respect, self-confidence, keeping your body healthy, and believing in yourself. KNOWING you can do whatever you put your mind too. If you don’t love yourself, I believe that life will always be hard to live, agree?
What do I think self love is? I believe that self love keeps us from getting sick. As a working definition, self love is any action we take for our physical, mental, and spiritual enhancement.
I’ve been reading a book, “Just 10lbs” and this is where I got the idea for this blog entry. In this book, the author – Brad Lamm – stated different examples of some self love. So I will pass on some examples of self love to you, my readers. Can you relate to any of these?
- I eat body honouring foods.
- I take care of my body and my health by healthy choices and fitness.
- I don’t ignore my needs at the expense of others.
- I’ve shed the need for approval or recognition. I am not who others think I should be.
- I focus on body’s assets, rather than it’s liabilities.
- I avoid self-criticism.
- I concentrate on where I am now and where I want to go.
- I reward and praise myself after any and all achievements.
- I focus on my strengths, not my weaknesses.
- I love my body and everything it does for me.
- I value the spiritual side of life.
- I don’t procrastinate, I know that accomplishment is the result of activity.
- I believe I deserve to have what I want.
- I view myself as a winner who sees every circumstance, good or bad, as an opportunity.
- I experience joyful days.
Now, if you’re like me and read through these statements you may have felt a bit overwhelmed. There are some of these that I know I need to work on, in fact, many of them. The way I look at it, if you’re enacting even a couple of these points, you’re doing great. The more you can add over time.. the better, right?
I can tell you this, this journey on the way to self love definitely follows a crazed, twisted, bumpy road. Please don’t sit there and be thinking that you can’t do this, or you don’t have enough time to take care of yourself. I promise you, it will not take long. That’s the beauty of it, it’s simple. Once you apply positivity, you’ll gain insight into yourself and you’ll suddenly understand why you’ve been acting and reacting the way you have.
I believe that no matter how crappy you feel currently about yourself, please..start acting like you love yourself. Sometimes you have to fake it before it actually becomes the real deal. Sounds silly I know.. but it works. What do I mean by faking it and acting? Well you will be taking on the mind set of what you wish to become and allow and encourage your behaviours to follow. If you practice long enough, your acting is no longer acting, it’s true love.
Now what’s the next step? Well. I suggest practice loving yourself with simple actions. Pamper yourself with little things every day. For example: snuggle up with a cup of tea and curl up with a favourite book. Dance around to your favourite music, have a nice hot bubble bath. Pick up a flower at the local florist, one that you love. This way, every time you look at it, it makes you smile.
Before you can actually succeed with this, you need to decide for yourself that you ARE INDEED worth loving. Pretty much, this is a “just do it” kind of thing really. This isn’t something you can do merely just to please your parents, your spouse, your boyfriend, your best friend or ANY ONE other than YOURSELF!! If it’s not for you, it won’t happen.
Do it with me, right now, declare today “From now on, no matter how tough life may be or how imperfect I may feel, I am going to honestly love myself.” Did you do it? I did. So from now on, we’re working on loving ourselves.
We need to start practicing listening to our inner voices to ensure we discover the ways and means of achieving self love. All too often we are our own harshest critics and truthfully we are more judgemental towards ourselves than anyone in our lives. These thoughts will definitely stand in the way of achieving what we want the most in our lives. This includes a healthy body and healthy mind. Negative thoughts are unproductive and hinders success. It can make us feel hopeless. However, if you’re continually thinking positively, it produces the opposite: HOPEFULness. Change starts within, and what better place to address negativity than in our head and hearts?
We need to start asking ourselves loving questions such as “Why not me? What’s good about this situation that I’m probably overlooking? What actions can I take right now to improve my weight? Even though I’ve got some weight to lose, what am I thankful for in my life right now?” We do not want to focus on the unloving questions. A couple of these are “Why can’t I ever lose weight? How did I screw up so badly? What can’t I stop this terrible habit?”
Questions are at the core of how we listen, behave and relate. Everything we think and do is generated by questions. Questions can push us into new territories, help us reach greater goals, and trigger positive life change. Questions are truly magical, but we must know how to ask the right questions.
So lets start thinking positively about ourselves instead of negatively okay? I can go on and on about this topic, but I don’t want to bore you. Lets just think about this entry as a first step to self love..a first step to Loving yourself healthy.
Until next time, thank you 🙂
The Life of a Motivational Coach 