In this episode, I want to tell you about loving yourself and what it means.
Loving yourself is the master key to living a good life and supporting yourself through life. It is about forgiving yourself, supporting yourself, and being there for yourself.
Along with forgiveness work, doing affirmations for self-love and self-appreciation are foundational for creating a life you love and for being able to create all sorts of wonderful experiences in your life.
If you're not getting along with yourself all that well right now, know that you can deeply change the relationship you have with yourself.
Your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship in your life. You are going to be with you until your very last breath. You deserve to have a good relationship with yourself and it is worth your time to build it.
Loving yourself changes your consciousness and attracts infinite good into your life. Loving yourself expresses itself in endless ways, and it can come down to your unique path.
Loving yourself means that you listen to and honor your inner wisdom. You support and encourage yourself at every step, and you have compassion for yourself.
Loving yourself also means that you take responsibility for your life and your experiences, but this isn't the same as blaming yourself, although we can be flexible about semantics if you like.
Responsibility and blame can be lumped into the same idea if we want, but we might also suggest that the difference is that responsibility seeks solution-oriented thinking, whereas blame can keep someone stuck. I will have more to say about responsibility and blame in a later episode.
Loving yourself means you don't scare yourself or corner yourself into a negative and fearful state of mind. When you understand the power of your thoughts you will choose to think supportive thoughts and you will trust yourself to find the right solutions for you.
This does not mean ignoring real dangers or urgent situations that you need to respond to, although many people who are allergic to positive thinking like to put words in our mouth and dismiss this practice as an irresponsible approach to life.
Loving yourself means that you trust yourself to respond and to give yourself what you need in order to be effective in life. This is very different from someone who brings themselves down, believes they are useless, or believes they never gets anything right.
Loving yourself actually helps you think straight. And I believe it is much more powerful than this. I think self-love and self-appreciation make you smart.
Perhaps what I'm saying upsets you or even makes you angry because you are wrestling with yourself or with some things in your life. Or perhaps, you are not able to conceive of how you are a wonderful person who deserves her own love and appreciation above everything else in life.
I understand, and that is totally fine. As with all affirmation work, when we first get started we come face to face with blockages, possibly big ones, and we have no conception of what it means to dissolve them, or that it is even possible.
We want to change but we do not know what to change into, what to become, or how to change. The whole concept seems elusive.
But remember that you do affirmations precisely to shift your consciousness. You work on your mind by flooding it with a thought that you want to see manifest for yourself. Your actions will follow and they will be in alignment with your higher self, which is now supported with these constructive affirmations. Your actions become a natural extension of you.
We talked about this in the episode on Forgiveness. It is a good idea to listen to these first few episodes in their order because they build on key concepts for the affirmations practice.
WHAT LOVING YOURSELF IS NOT
Before we get into some detail about what it means to love yourself, let’s talk a little about what it is not.
The obvious one - and I hope it is obvious - is that self-love is not narcissism.
Narcissism is many things and there are several types of narcissists. You can spend time learning about how narcissists behave if it helps you understand someone in your life. But according to psychologists, narcissists themselves do not recognize themselves as narcissistic and do not seek help.
Unfortunately, narcissism has been on a steep rise in some societies to the point that it has become a trending topic with lots of attention and lots of content produced about it. There could be many reasons for why it is becoming more common, but regardless, it exists and it is around.
As I’m sure you realize, narcissism has nothing to do with self love and much more to do with insecurity. People who are insecure often need to manipulate others to try and get what they want.
Narcissists and others might also place responsibility for their peace of mind on others, and this is diametrically opposed to what we do with affirmations, where we are seeking to take charge of our thinking so we can produce the experiences we say we want in life.
Selfishness and manipulation are not self-love. Self-love and self-appreciation create compassion and honesty. And in truth, they can go much farther than this, and dissolve toxic relationships out of your life. Self-love also creates protection.
In a similar vein as narcissism, being self-entitled and demanding of others is not loving yourself. Yes, when we love ourselves we ask for what we need, but this is very different from expecting others to do our job, to be the source of happiness and our peace of mind, or be responsible for our place in heaven.
When you practice affirmations, you are empowered to create your experiences with the power of your thoughts and the actions that flow out of your healthy mindset. And you know that no one is responsible for your inner peace. Another person has power over you only when you give them permission. That is what we call giving our power away.
Unfortunately, many societies support narcissism and self-entitlement by regulating all sorts of behaviors so that some portions of society feel better about themselves.
Of course, society needs to be in good order and safe, and of course we need to be considerate of others, but some reach a point of irrationality, where there is much oppression, and where people no longer have even a common basis for communicating about these issues anymore.
But that is precisely one reason why we might want to practice affirmations. Our affirmations can help us change into someone who does not experience these societal issues, and who might respond to them very differently.
Your affirmations can move you through life in amazing ways. They certainly have for me and others, and I want to share these ideas with you so you too can create a happy and healthy life.
And on top of this, it is not only through society or politics that people become disempowered or learn to give their power away, but our life experiences all the way back to our childhood experiences would have contributed to this too.
Your childhood experience is critical for your self-understanding, and often there is forgiveness work to be done so you can clear up unhelpful patterns. We'll talk more about this in a bit.
But regardless of what happened when you were a child, or what happened later on in your life, and no matter what society is doing now, you can always take back your power and choose to think thoughts that support you.
What happens in your life as a result of your affirmations is unique to you, and I encourage you to beware of those who guarantee specific outcomes in your life. Affirm and find out for yourself!
A big part of doing affirmations is to take back your power from people, places, and things around you, and realize that on a deeper level you have contributed in a big part to your experiences.
You don’t have to believe in any of this. And as I’ve said many times already in just a few episodes, I am not interested in converting anyone to anything. The results of your affirmations are yours to discover. You can choose to practice them, you can choose not to.
It is up to you. Try and find out for yourself, firsthand.
When you realize that your thoughts create your experiences, you realize in a deeply intimate and insightful way that no one can think for you. You will no longer expect others to make you happy or miserable. Instead, you will source the thought pattern within you and practice affirmations to support yourself and replace the negative pattern with a positive one. You will also become selective about what you pay attention to.
Of course, I appreciate that there are many toxic environments and that many situations in the world are challenging.
But that is precisely when I would tell you: If there is nothing else you can do, you can do affirmations. You can think a different thought. You are free to think whatever you like, why not choose thoughts that support you? And see if your new thoughts might move you to a better place. You have nothing to lose and could have much to gain.
Like I said in the episode on The Willingness To Change, it is up to you to embrace your affirmations and affirm your good. Your willingness to change is entirely in your hands, and no one can do your affirmations for you. No one lives in your head except you, you are the only thinker in your mind. Just tune in and find out!
If others take up rent in your consciousness in unhealthy ways, start doing affirmations to take your power back. Affirm that you are the power and authority in your mind and in your world.
As Louise Hay affirms, “No person, place, or thing has any power over me.”
My affirmations have always saved me from challenging situations, and I've always looked back in amazement at how perfect my changes were, and how perfect the timing was. I manifested almost all of my good with affirmations and I continue to grow and change with new ideas.
I know that when we start affirming we can feel resistant to the process because it seems ridiculous to state something that appears to be so untrue at the moment. But this is how we practice affirmations. We must first claim our good in order to receive it.
This is probably because of the way the law of attraction works. But remember my mantra, explanations for why affirmations work do not make a difference to the fact that they work. So don't waste time analyzing metaphysics, and instead begin affirming your good. In all cases, no one can genuinely speak for the metaphysics of how affirmations work when they do not have firsthand experience with them.
WHAT LOVING YOURSELF IS
So now that we’ve talked a little about what self-love is not, and about a few tangential points, let’s turn to what loving ourself really means.
Defining self-love can be tricky because it is very easy for the definition to become a list of all of its positive effects. To narrow this down a little, I suggest self-love is unconditional self-acceptance.
You can imagine what this might imply for forgiveness, issues with our health, financial failures, collapsed relationships, regrets that make us want to kick ourselves or wish we never existed, and all the other problems or even disasters we might deal with in life.
Genuinely loving ourself can be a very big stride in consciousness, and it is no surprise that the affirmations practice for self-love can be very challenging at first.
We will talk about affirmations for self-love in a bit. Let’s turn to how loving ourself can be expressed, which is also what it can do for us.
For one, honoring our health and our body is a key part of self-love. Your body is working very hard for you all the time. Appreciating your body as it is right now, loving it unconditionally despite any challenges, and being grateful for all that is working in it, is a wonderful way to love yourself.
Loving your body can open the floodgates of healing. Having compassion for your body, your organs, your cells, and all of the miraculous work that they’re doing for you, is a deeply loving thing to do. You cannot heal when you hate or reject your body in any way.
If you have gotten my Affirmations Guides and have looked at the one on health, you might have taken note that I place health on a different level. That’s because we live in our body, and without it we cannot enjoy this beautiful life or anything in it.
I get my sign for the specialness of health from the fact that when there is a health scare, everything else goes on hold. We become desperate and we might suddenly believe in a higher power, begging to get our health back. We often say, “take everything away but give me back my health”.
Loving yourself means loving your body and giving it what it needs, and taking away what is hurting it, just like you would when caring for a child.
Most of my affirmations journey has focused on health, and only in recent years I have turned to other areas for more in-depth work on them.
When I was in challenging times or going through difficult transitions, I would always focus more on my health. I would spend more time on learning about food and exercise, and it has always helped me stay centered. That’s because we have direct control over our body. Unlike jobs and relationships which involve external forces, our body, like our mind, is more readily under our control.
Of course this doesn’t mean that our affirmations do not manifest as well with jobs and relationships, they do. The idea is that going within and doing what you can do helps you stay focused.
Another way we love ourself is by releasing criticism. Criticism of yourself and criticism of others, and criticism of this or that, and having to have a thought about every other thing in the world, takes up a lot of our mind’s attention.
It doesn’t only create or reinforce negative patterns, but it also takes away attention we could have directed on happier or more constructive thinking. In other words, it’s not only pretty rotten, but it is also a waste of time.
Yes, of course we have preferences. And yes there are big problems in the world from politics to the environment that we might like to think about. But this is different from the nit-picking mind that is frequently or constantly chattering criticism.
A very valuable exercise to do is to examine what you think about in a day. This might be tricky because the mind is fast and well habituated, so you might like to try keeping pen and paper on hand to take notes. This won’t only help you articulate your thoughts out of your mind, but it will also serve as a reminder to actually do it.
So what does your mind think about in a day? How much of your thinking is criticism? How much of it is useless? Does this or that issue really need to take up some of your attention on any given day? Just a question. Answer it for yourself.
You want to make sure that the balance of your thoughts and attention are focused on supportive and loving thoughts. That’s what doing affirmations achieves.
Loving yourself means you think thoughts that make you feel good, that help you navigate through life with focus and intelligence. If you can think anything you like, why would you choose unhappy and scary thoughts? Your mind is precisely where you have complete freedom.
People think that thinking happy thoughts all the time is unrealistic. Of course, we’re not thinking happy thoughts all the time, although I invite you to see for yourself how happy and peaceful it is possible to be when you’re in affirmations mode.
Also, notice that anything you need to quote-unquote “be realistic” about is probably something that is happening somewhere out there in the world, and that you probably do not have much control over, although you have total control over what and how much attention you give to it.
Facts are real, but how you respond to them is up to you. Your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, and how you want to live is entirely subjective. It is up to you to think lovingly of yourself.
People who want to control your thinking and your life are people who have given their power away to you, because they believe that their happiness lies in what you do. Of course, this causes all sorts of dysfunction in different societies, and if you’re part of such a dynamic, then I invite you to do affirmations precisely because the thoughts you think are within your control. Discover for yourself if and how your affirmations can help improve your place in the world.
Another way you love yourself is by affirming your safety and keeping yourself safe, by creating healthy boundaries with the world, and living in a way that honors your existence. It means you have clarity about what you will or will not get involved with, and have a sense of priority and direction. It starts with your mindset and expresses in a variety of different ways.
When it comes to other people, loving yourself means being compassionate toward others but also having clarity about what place they have in your life and what kind of attention you give to them. You don't have to have the same relationship with every person, but you are aware of the quality of your connection with them and what that means you have or do with them.
Another important way you love yourself is by trusting yourself. Trusting to be your own good friend. Trusting yourself to support and encourage yourself. And trusting yourself to find what you need and to create solutions for yourself.
I appreciate that from where you are right now it might seem impossible to love yourself. But that's why you do affirmations, to shift your mindset and to create positive thoughts and feelings that help you support yourself. When you love yourself, your good flows. Try it for yourself.
It is the reason affirmations are so powerful, because they change you from the inside, so whatever you do comes out naturally from this essence. They work from the inside out, not outside in.
You don’t have a manual for how to behave in every single situation in the world. What happens is that when you integrate your affirmation and it becomes part of your essence, it expresses naturally out of you across the different areas of your life, and in different situations.
LOVING YOUR INNER CHILD
Another very important way we love ourself is by loving our inner child.
The inner child is a sweet idea, or a nice theory, that represents you when you were a child and those parts of you that carry your experiences and their imprints from that time into today. The inner child may or may not be an actual psychic element, and in all cases, any such talk would need to have an agreed framework to start with.
These are interesting conversations but I am not focused on them, at least not for the purpose of the affirmations practice. As you’ve heard me say many times before, dwelling on the why’s and how’s of affirmations are just delay tactics and distractions from doing the actual work of repeating affirmations.
The idea of the inner child comes in handy for tuning into our early life, and the kinds of experiences we had then. It inspires us to see a part of ourself as a child, which drives compassion and kinder actions toward ourself.
Looking back at our early childhood can be painful for many of us, because there are often difficult situations that caused fears, pain, confusion, and other experiences that have imprinted us for the longer term.
But examining our early life is critical for taking back our power. It opens us up to deep insights about why part of us is the way it is today, and highlights patterns that we may have not realized drive some or much of our behavior today.
When you look at your early life through the eyes of your inner child, you will love that little one who made it through all these ups and downs into today.
This isn't only a painful process because of the issues that come up, but also because of the tenderness and compassion that you develop for yourself. It can melt your heart and make you feel vulnerable. You are learning to love and appreciate yourself in genuine and deep ways.
You will be able to acknowledge that you've done your best and you will feel grateful for yourself. You will be more willing to let go of the past and forgive yourself. You will refuse to scare yourself, berate yourself, or demean yourself in any way.
Connecting with your inner child and childhood experiences can offer a treasure trove of insights. I wish for you not to miss out on this incredible journey.
Sure enough, this work almost always brings up our parents and our relationship with them. Forgiving our parents and understanding the patterns that underlies our relationship with them as well as the relationship they had together, is critical work for our personal development.
This can be a very loaded topic and there is a lot to go through here, so I will dedicate it to another episode.
AFFIRMATIONS FOR LOVING YOURSELF
So what are some affirmations you can use to love yourself?
The obvious one is:
I love myself.
You can also affirm this one by Louise Hay:
I love myself exactly as I am right here and right now.
Or another version of it:
I love myself unconditionally, right here and right now.
And here are some affirmations for loving your inner child:
I love my inner child.
I have compassion for my inner child.
I am willing to listen to my inner child.
I give my inner child what it needs.
Self-love and forgiveness often come hand in hand. Here are some affirmations for releasing the past and loving yourself now:
I release the past and I love myself now.
I am willing to heal my inner child.
I forgive others, I forgive myself, and I love myself unconditionally.
I release all blame and I love myself now.
And of course you create your own affirmations. There are guidelines for this in my Workbook and in previous episodes.
But the most powerful affirmation for loving yourself is to say "I love you" to yourself in the mirror, looking into your eyes.
I know this can be very difficult when getting started. A lot of emotion can come up. People have broken mirrors, yell out loud, and caused havoc around them when working through this affirmation in front of the mirror. It can bring up a lot of resistance, anger, and even rage. But this only highlights even more how critical it is to do.
Think about it. Why would anyone go crazy over saying “I love you” to themselves in the mirror? It must be unlocking something big. I wish for you to start practicing this affirmation with the mirror and stick with it so you discover what’s on the other side of it.
Mirror work is very powerful because it really cuts to the heart of you. It is the most direct way to get to your inner being and that can feel overwhelming at first.
I encourage you to practice this affirmation with a mirror. And I encourage you to practice all your affirmations in front of the mirror too.
The willingness to change, forgiveness, and self-love all work together. You are unlocking very powerful energies from within and it will certainly change you and your awareness of yourself if you stick with your practice long enough. Tune into previous episodes to deepen the picture for yourself and bring it all together.
Loving yourself can create miracles, and I wish for you to experience what the sweetness of life can really be.
Okay, friend. We covered a lot today, so let us close this episode here. Take it away, and look at that mirror!