5 Ways to Love Yourself More

“If you don’t love yourself in the right way, you can’t love your neighbor. You can’t be as good as you are supposed to be.”-Joel Osteen

• I want you to imagine how you would like someone to love you… For sure, you’d want them to accept you whole-heartedly. You’d want them to affirm you, to be proud of your accomplishments, and to push you to continue to grow and be a better person. You’d want them to forgive you and give you another chance. You’d want them to tell you how beautiful a person you are. And definitely, you don’t want them to drag you down with their negativities. Wouldn’t it be nice if there is someone who could do that? What if I tell you there is- and has always been there. Yes, you guess it- I am referring to YOU.

I could give you 3 reasons why we must love ourselves.

• Because God loves us as His sons and daughters, and we are beautiful in our own unique way.
• Because we are able to love more, and share the best of our selves when we are at our best .
• Because we only have one Self- so why not treat it the best we can, right?

Here are 5 Ways that we could love ourselves:

1. Greet yourself with happiness & affection.
When you wake up each day and look in the mirror, smile at the person who’s looking straight back at you. Tell him or her “Gosh, you’re so gorgeous today! You’re going to have a wonderful day and you’ll do great!”
When you put your mindset in a positive state at the start of your day, you’re attracting positive energies and you will most likely feel nicer and experience a good day.

2. Be compassionate with your self.
Don’t be too harsh or critical to your self. If you fail on a certain task, it’s okay (unless somebody else dies because of it, which I highly doubt!). Treat each mistake as lesson to be learned. If right now, all you can see are the negatives in you- switch your lens and review the things that you did right and the things you did that ýmade other people happy.

When I’m starting to hate myself for feeling like I am not being a good mom because I stay late in the office, I do a flashback and recall the other good things that I did or do- like teaching and guiding Gaby in her assignments, spending some time playing and just having fun with her before I put her to sleep in the afternoon, cooking her new meals, etc… This is not a way to justify a certain action but rather, it’s being mindful of our imperfect human condition and having that understanding with ourselves.

According to science research, “Self-compassionate people are better able to accept who they are regardless of the degree of praise they receive from others. In addition, people who are high in self-compassion are no more likely to be narcissistic than people low in self-compassion.”

3. Nurture your self & your need.
Nurturing ourselves means taking care of ourselves by attending to our needs, in order to be healthy in the different aspects of our well-being.
For instance, if your body is shouting for help physically- then make the effort to exercise, get 8 hours sleep & drink plenty of water. If your mind keeps bothering you because it needs upgrading- then learn new skills or improve what you already know. Enroll or have someone teach you to do things that you are passionate about. If your soul is crying for help- seek to have a deeper relationship with God, meditate, love and serve other people, show more kindness to others.

4. Set your boundaries.
Don’t let emotional vampires take advantage of you and drag you down in their spiraling hole of negativities. As much as possible, avoid surrounding yourself with people who constantly whine, people who are best in blaming others or situations, and people who cannot take accountability. Be with the ones with lighter dispositions and those who you would like yourself to be associated with. As the old saying goes, “birds of the same feathers flock together.”

Learn to say No. It is not your job to say yes to every favor asked of you. Know that not because everybody else do it does it mean that you have to. Just remember that whenever you say Yes to others, you are not saying No to yourself.

5. Invest yourself in happy relationships.
Are your relationships giving you ùpositive influence? They should be providing you a sense of self-worth, self-fulfillment, and self-assurance. Involve yourself in happy relationships that allow you to be you without being judged. Choose to be in relationships where you and the others in it are growing in love!

Make it your business to love your Self first. I agree with the person who  said that “you are so worth your time and attention“. Besides, it will be easier for you to love others and for others to love you when you do love your own Self. 🙂

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