Renewing Self-Love!

A Practice of Self-Love through personal challenge!

How do we define such an overarching concept: Self-Love? Take a few moments for yourself to pause and reflect and then consider how much you feel you really do Love yourself? Although most people would probably say that they do, the reality is that their behavior does not necessarily prove congruent with what they may say. For if we truly Love ourselves then we need to be true to our word and honor our core essence! What we vow to ourselves is the heartbeat of our Soul! Renewing Self-Love reminds us that we're all unique in a myriad of unique ways!! To value this uniqueness is to consciously nourish our mind/body/spirit as much as possible. In some instances, we know what we should do and although our intentions may be good, it’s those subconscious patterns that insiduously interfere with our primary intentions causing us to fall short. With that said, we energetically lose bits and pieces of ourselves over the years when we feel consistently sabotaged or defeated. We become accustomed to sabotaging our Inner Essence/ our Source spark when subliminal fear and anxiety invade our pure energy system!! Depression may occur when this leads to a complete immobilization. This is the reason why it’s essential to evolve and promote Self-awareness to directly reduce fear and anxiety so we may make our very best decisions, particularly for higly sensitive people (HSP) who feel more deeply.

So you may want to ask yourself!! Do I really practice Self-Love? What do I do to practice this on a daily basis? When do I love myself less and what actually causes this? What can I do when this happens? To renew one's Self-Love means remembering that Healthy boundaries are always a must!

Are you really aware of your habits and energy expenditure throughout the course of an entire day? A close examination may reveal greater loss of energy than you may have realized. One way to make improvements with your habitual behavior is to randomly pick moments during the day for closer examination on how you can shift your mindset to maximize best use of your time and energy. When you have to wait on line or wait in traffic what happens in your energetic being? Are you relaxed, annoyed or aggravated? How can you modify this reaction in the moment? It's essential to learn what works for you! You may wish to create a positive mantra and use it as an anchor when feeling tested! Creatively Reciting your Mantra by mantra can facilitate change one moment at a time!

The question is where do those old habits begin? They begin as early imprints within our Family of Origin which become our Inner Dialogue as a direct result of this Family of Origin culture. In turn, they then influence an inherent aspect of our Self-appraisal. Specifically, what do you think about in relation to how those ingrained thoughts have made you feel? Taking a Meta position means thinking about your thinking!! If what you’re thinking about makes you feel bad and brings your personal vibration down, then perhaps you may want to track your thinking process both more closely and more regularly. I’ve been working on this process myself for quite some time now and it’s not always as simple as it sounds. Sometimes the feelings rise up so strongly that they dominate our thought form before we even know it’s happening. In this predicament, sometimes the best thing to do is to embrace the feeling and allow it to naturally subside so the trigger thought will lose power. We can treat these feelings as informants and thank them for visiting in order to bring greater Self-Awareness to our Sensory field. This mindfulness practice is always helpful in gaining greater control over our own cognitive processes.

Qualitatively different levels of thought create associative feelings.

For example, let’s look at the following and use a Scale of 1-100% to assess negative/fear based feelings with 100 representing total fear.

I am hurrying to gett ready for work. (10)
I’m running late for work. (20)
I forgot to bring my proposals to work. (30)
I didn’t set up my business meeting on time. (40)
I failed to accurately present my proposal. (50)
I am put on probation at work. (60)
I am called in by the supervisor for evaluation (70)
I am let go at work. (90)
I am without a job (95)

The above example shows how Fear-based feelings arise when circumstances challenge us to rise above our comfort zone in order to increase specific output or an increase in productivity! When we find a way to transform fear with alternative feelings then we've figured out how to facilitate our growth process! We mobilize our energy on behalf of this realization. A simple reframe can make a world of difference! There's a direct correlation with how we frame a situation with how we’ll perceive it, which in turn creates a network of related feelings; So, this Cognitive -Emotive- Behavioral framework reflects valuable information and offers great potential to instill successive modification and change! What we do in a situation is entirely up to us! Life seems to be speeding up on so many levels so we need to adapt by shifting our energy patterns in ways that benefit all of us! Each of us affects one anothers' energy so we must take responsibility to do so with integrity!

Renewing Self-Love means knowing your LifeStyle Challenges!
Instead of criticizing inherent weaknesses (representing part of who we are) we can choose to embrace and love them to shift them as we grow into our full birthright of Self-Love. We can learn to thank those weaknesses for being part of us at a time when we didn’t know how to deal with them constructively. We can choose to integrate them into our higher self and allow them to morph into progressive positive traits. Our lifestyle is a reflection of who we are and what we want, therefore by loving ourselves in spite of our weaknesses we can nourish our mind/body/soul to live with less stress and/or negativity.

Let’s face it, at one time or another we’ve all been challenged with how to Love ourselves! In closing this article, some of the following tips are helpful ways to renew Self-Love: maintain Healthy boundaries, practice Self-Reflection, know your Family of Origin culture,Recognize Lifestyle challenges, Create Helpful Mantras and Cultivate positive Self Regard! A renewed Self- Love improves Mental Health as well as Self- Realization and Self-Determination!

Isn't it time to utilize all your energy in new and exciting ways! Remember there's no better time to renew your Self-Love practice than today!