Love yourself

Loving yourself is a good starting point. Go to the mirror look at yourself in the eyes and say ‘I love you’.

Most people can’t do it. Or if they do, it is with a laugh and a good dollop of disbelief. Self love is so important. Not in the arrogant self obsessed sense but in the honest self appreciation of who you are, the fact that you exist and, the confidence in who you are and, who you will become.

For many the idea of self belief gets lost in feelings of guilt and regret. Negative self concepts are learned and can be reprocessed and replaced with feelings of self esteem. Just as we benefit from letting go of the attachments that we have to what other people have done, we also need to let go of our attachments to what we have done. This involves self forgiveness.

Self forgiveness and self love go together. There cannot be one without the other. But there is one even more important aspect of self love. It is the understanding that to allow another person to love you, you must first love yourself. If you see yourself as not good enough and someone tells you how wonderful you are, your inner voice is likely to tell you that they are either lying or mad.

When you appreciate yourself and then other people appreciate you, you are able to accept it. You see loving is not just as simple as being loved. The most important component is allowing yourself to be loved by another and you can only do that if you first love yourself.

That takes us back to the mirror. If you work with the image that you see looking back at you and learn to love what you see, and all the experiences that you have about yourself, then you will be able to allow another person to love you as well.

So in the morning give it a go, go to the mirror look yourself in the eyes, smile and say ‘i love you’.

Be happy living in your present

Sean x

photo credit