The 3 Most Important Lessons of All: (1) Love Yourself

Are you sometimes discouraged about where you are in your life? Are you bored, restless, stressed, or unhappy?

Are you overwhelmed by the constant change that is happening around you? Do you want what other people have?

Do you envy those around you that have more than you? Do you wish that you could finally just simply be happy and experience joy like others around you seem to be enjoying?

It may be easy to look around you and blame other people in your life, to blame your past or your relationship, to blame your children, your job, or your circumstances. Maybe you are even beating yourself up for past mistakes or for now being better at pursuing what you want.

It is easy to look at your life and feel sorry for yourself and feel angry, sad, lonely, hurt or anxious. You may feel guilt, resentment, regret, or deep emotional pain. You may hate or dislike your past, your life, your family, your friends, your job, your relationship, your behaviors, your bad habits, and you may even think that you hate yourself.

The truth is that you can have the life that you want. You can be the person that you want to be. You can achieve personal freedom and acceptance within yourself no matter where you are in your life.

You can stop the negative self-talk, the deep emotional pain that plagues you, and learn to let go of the way you are now living so that you can open up and live the way that you want to live.

The first step in seeking a more purposeful and fulfilled life, emotionally and spiritually, is to simply love yourself. You have to stop being hard on yourself. Stop talking down to yourself and belittling yourself. You can love yourself and your imperfections.

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It is important to love yourself today, even as you have imperfections. Learn to love your weight, your height, your quirks, your past, your successes and your failures.

Know that loving, learning, and growing is a part of being human. These are things that you will continue to do as long as you are here on this earth. You can learn to embrace them and face them with excitement rather than dread and resent everything that makes you the person that you are.

If you feel like you’re not as good as you can be, you can always seek personal growth. Maybe you want to set a goal to work toward weight loss or better health. Showing yourself that you care about your body’s health is a great way to love yourself. Maybe you want to set a goal to be a more giving person.

Maybe you want to set a goal to be less judgmental toward others in your life, or to mend relationships that you have lost. Setting goals and changing are all a part of a healthy lifestyle. You can love yourself as you are and still work towards these goals toward personal growth.

Positive affirmations are a great way to zap negative self-talk at the core. There are apps that you can download for your phone or computer if you need help. Or, you can simply stand in a mirror and say to yourself “I love me. I love who I am. I love who I was. I love who I will become. I am a great and valuable human being. I have a lot to contribute on this earth.” Really look at yourself and really truly believe what you are saying to yourself.

In an exercise to help you learn how to love yourself, you can make a list of things that you really (I mean really) love about yourself. Are you funny? Do other people light up around you? Are you a good Samaritan? Do you contribute in some way to the world?

Look at the big picture. Look at what you contribute to the world. If you work in a factory, you contribute to making things that other people use and need? You contribute to your boss and to the other employees by enabling them to make money to feed their own families. You contribute to your landlord if you pay him rent so that he can buy food and shelter for his own family. Is someone in your life fond of you? It’s true that most people have a secret admirer that they don’t even know about!

Everyone has physical things that they don’t like about themselves. But what physical things do you love about yourself? Do you have nice eyes? Do you have a strong back? Do you have fast legs? Do you have nice fingernails, hands, or is your hair shiny and long? Maybe you have gentle eyes or a kind smile, or maybe even a contagious laugh, and it lights up someone else’s day.

Everyone has a few physical features other people generally like about them. Find your nicest features and write them down on your list. If you can’t think of any, have someone else help you think of a few! I bet they will list more things that you don’t know about!

What about your personality? Do you have special talents? Do you have special hobbies that you like to do, even if you aren’t good at them? Are you a fun and adventurous person to be around? Can you make things that other people find useful?

Are you intelligent and solve problems that other people have trouble solving? Are you good at English? Are you a writer, singer, dancer, artist? These things are all things that make you happy inside and bring out your creative side. You can love yourself by feeding your soul with neat and engaging things that make you smile.

Every single person on this earth is unique and has a special contribution they make in the world. That girl at McDonald’s that made you coffee today – would you have your coffee without her? Maybe, but maybe not.

The man greeting people at Walmart may not make a lot of money, but I bet he made a few people’s day today just by smiling and holding the door open. Every little contribution affects someone else, even in the most insignificant way. You are helping people without even knowing it! That’s another reason to love yourself!

You can also show yourself love by surrounding yourself with positive, inspiring, and forward-thinking people. If you keep negative people around you, it is inevitable that they will end up making you feel negative and critical toward yourself and others.

Filling your world with positive things and finding relaxation time in order to reflect on all of the positive things and people in your life will help you to keep a positive state of mind and find a center of balance.

Getting enough rest is another way to feel healthy and show yourself love. You will feel less tired and frustrated, and you will be less irritable around others. You will smile more and have much better ability to cope with difficult things or boring tasks that come your way. You will procrastinate less and accomplish more. Maybe you can do some of the things that you have had on your list because you will feel more refreshed and energized.

Another way to love yourself is to get help for any addictions, struggles, or negative habits that you have. Culminate some new and positive habits in their place. Many times addictions and bad habits can control your life.

Bad habits can make you feel defensive and disconnected from others around you. If you are addicted to food and use it to soothe or reward yourself, you will struggle with your weight and will put your body at risk for chronic or fatal illnesses.

Being addicted to drugs, gambling, porn or sex draws your attention away from positive outlets and causes you to spend less time with people around you who love you. Getting appropriate help to learn how to deal with these types of issues is another way that you can love yourself.

Whatever you do, find a way to love yourself. Heck, find a million ways to love yourself. It is extremely important for your health, wellbeing, and relationships. People will open up and you will see them react in a positive light toward you when you begin to treat yourself better.

If you give yourself permission to abuse yourself, you show others that you are a doormat. Move toward positive change and grow as a person by learning how to treat yourself well, and then others will follow and treat you like you want to be treated also.