‘I am my own biggest critic. Before anyone else has criticized me, I have already criticized myself. But for the rest of my life, I am going to be with me and I don’t want to spend my life with someone who is always critical. So I am going to stop being my own critic. It’s high time that I accept all the great things about me’- C. JoyBell C.
Do you remember the very first time you realised you were falling in love with someone? That wonderful, terrifying, whirlwind in your tummy and your mind; that moment you realise you can’t think of anyone or anything else? Oh My!
Do you remember the very first time you realised that someone was falling in love with you too? That affirmation, that bittersweet notion that someone truly wants everything you are? The Bliss!
The honeymoon ensues as your two lives begin to entwine and over time those lives become the one you share. Eventually this becomes more who you are than who you were before and feels like home. Love, when healthy, grows into a most beautiful harmony of acceptance and effort that is the only thing in the world that feels like that. It is a many splendoured thing, as they say!
Here’s the kicker – have you ever felt this way…about your ‘SELF’?
So many of the ‘self’ words are perceived to have a different meaning to the word they attach to it. Self-love is so much more than a pink-fluffy-hot-water-bottle-feeling. So much of our language has just been placed in reverse order and marketed as something new. SELF-LOVE…LOVE-SELF. Aha!
How do you love someone you are not in love with though? Why would you love someone that your thoughts tell you is unattractive, incapable, not worth it, unlovable? You would have to be mad!
The people you fall in love with you are attracted to; you are interested in them, intrigued and stimulated by them, and they are someone you can share with, who meets you on your level. They are someone that makes you feel decent about your ‘self’. Right?
Imagine if YOU were everything you are attracted to. Imagine you are interested in yourself; that you are intrigued by your own actions, inactions, beliefs, tendencies etc. Imagine these things stimulate you to learn more about them. Who is more on your level than you? Who can you more easily share your life with than yourself? Imagine you could be this person. Imagine your perfect match just showed up out of thin air!
Quick grab a mirror, THERE HE or SHE IS!
‘The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely’ – C.G.Jung
Does he or she look right?
Are you attracted?
No? Then what DO you find attractive?
Do you physically appreciate styled outfits, shaved legs, and clean hair?
What do you find attractive emotionally and mentally?
What if you allowed yourself to have and exhibit all of these traits?
When you are in love, you can’t stay away. You want to be with that person as much as you can. You want to treat them the way they deserve, spoil them, tell them and show them in all the ways you know how. You want them to know how much they mean to you. Imagine if YOU could be that person you want to be with!
The only way to foster self-love is to begin a love affair with your ‘self’. Treat your ‘self’ the same way you would anyone else you were in love with. It takes time, it takes practice and it takes faking it until you are making it. However… if you just begin, and commit to continue, you will wake up one day not so far away and realise your previous lack of self-love was directly caused by you not loving your ‘self’. Not by anyone else but YOU.
Loving YOU has nothing to do with the way anyone else feels or has EVER felt about you. Do not let your ‘self’ love be defined by someone who is not your ‘SELF’. That belongs in the ‘doesn’t matter basket’, along with everything everybody else has ever thought of you. What do YOU think about you? That’s the basket that matters.
Loving your ‘self’, as with truly loving any other involves compromise, acceptance, effort, belief and forgiveness. In loving your ‘self’ you will look and find the compromise where you can contentedly allow yourself to settle within. You will ascertain the ability to square parts of yourself; your past, your behavior – with yourself, and accept them. Accepting them means that you understand that these things about your ‘self’ you don’t like so much, WILL COME UP; they will happen. This is where you learn forgiveness for yourself and to push yourself for more. To love an imperfect being takes effort. If you aren’t willing to put the effort in, the love will die. ‘Self’ or otherwise.
To be willing to make any kind of effort you must believe it is of benefit to you in your specific life, day to day. You have to believe it has worth or you will never be motivated to give it a try for yourself. You have to believe you deserve to fall in love. You have to believe you can love yourself.
Do you?
‘YOU, yourself, just as much as anyone in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection’ – Buddha