With Valentine’s approaching in a couple of days, I can’t help but think of showing yourself some self-love. Working with women, I see every day how tough they are on themselves.
We say things to ourselves that you would never say to anyone else, not even our enemy. It is this internal dialogue that will not stop and is so destructive.
I heard Rachel Hollis recently talking about one of her conferences and she had an exercise called Stand Up For Your Sister. In this exercise, she gave everyone a piece of paper and on it, there were several statements. One of the statements was “I HATE my body.” After everyone had filled out the paper she had them pass it several different times so that no one had their original paper and you wouldn’t know who had yours. She then read the statements and if it was marked true the women would stand up. When she got to the statement, “I HATE my body” she said over 80% of the women stood up.
HATE is such a strong word. I understand someone may not like the way they look or something about themselves but HATE it?
How can we change the things that we don’t like about ourselves? I think we have to cut ourselves some slack. We are much harder on ourselves than we are on anyone else.
As a health coach and coach for FASTer Way to Fat Loss®, I try to help my clients realize that we aim for progress over perfection. It is taking one step at a time to reach our goal of ultimately feeling our best. When we feel our best we can show more grace and love to ourselves and others around us.
Show Yourself Some Self-Love
Feeling our best about ourselves starts with reversing that negative dialogue in our head and showing ourselves self-love. A few months back I wrote a post on “How To Build Your Confidence One Day At A Time” if you missed it you should go back and read it.
Building your confidence is a way to show yourself self-love and helps you to feel better about who you are in your own skin. Are you showing yourself self-love? Start practicing it today. Go buy yourself some flowers or maybe take a long leisurely bath or maybe even get yourself a little gift (check out this gift guide). Show that woman inside you that you are worth the time. Don’t wait for someone else to do these things for you. You are enough.
I remember when I was single, and especially around Valentine’s Day, I would get a bit sad because I was alone. It is okay to feel those emotions but don’t let them take over. If I have learned anything by being married three times, I have learned that one person can not make you feel loved, you have to love yourself first.
