In general we love our families. We love our friends. We love our pets. We love our home. We love our cars. Sometimes, not often, we even love our jobs.
Why is it we love everything outside ourselves but when it comes right down to loving or even liking ourselves, we fall short. We mercilessly criticize ourselves and judge ourselves too. We are stupid, too fat, too short, ugly, not good enough, not deserving, out of shape, lazy, too old, too slow, poor, and unhealthy, the list goes on and on and on.
We are so hard on ourselves. We can’t even laugh at ourselves. We take what we say and feel, so seriously.
We listen to our ego minds and its constant negative nattering. The sad part is we have come to believe in what it says.
How do we know it’s our ego mind? If it’s a negative statement it’s our ego mind.
How do we up the love for ourselves? How do we learn the language of self love, self respect and self trust? How do become worthy of our own love?
We must learn to like ourselves, even love ourselves. We must learn a new language of self talk.
How do we do that when we’ve spent years and years criticizing and judging ourselves? First thing we do is to take baby steps in the other direction. The direction which takes us to finally valuing ourselves and acknowledging how great we really are!!
The first baby step and the most powerful one, is to stand in front of a mirror, looking directly into your eyes, and saying out loud, I (your first name) like myself. If you can do this once, then do it 10 times a day. If this is too hard to do for whatever reason, please go to baby step 2.
What makes this such a powerful exercise is that everything unlike the statement I Dave like myself, will and MUST come up. What this means is all the negativity associated with liking myself needs to be expressed, not believed in and released. This is a critical part of the “mirror work”.
For example I say out loud, I Dave like myself in front of a mirror, and my first thought is no you don’t, you hate yourself! I simply say out loud or to myself, thank you for sharing, and continue on.
I have allowed my ego mind to express itself, chosen not to believe in that thought by moving on in the process and released that thought by saying thank you for sharing.
You don’t have to believe every thought you think. You do have choice and choice leads to personal power, the ability to create life and not just react to it!!
Even doing this just once before it gets too uncomfortable or too painful or emotional, will be a HUGE HUGE win for you. It is a testament, a positive affirmation if you will, of finally, finally learning to like yourself, to value yourself and to put yourself first in your life!!
By learning to like yourself, you are upping the love.
Baby step 2, is doing self esteem affirmations. Take the most negative thought you have about yourself and the most repeating one, and flip it around to a positive, in the present moment, statement.
For example if I hate myself is my most negative thought, then I write, I Dave like myself. Also write your ego minds response immediately to the right of the positive self esteem affirmation. Your ego minds response is the first thought you have (usually negative) after writing the affirmation. Do this 30 times a day.
Now after a week or so, you notice an ego minds response that repeats itself the most, take that negative statement, and flip it around to a positive affirmation, and write it out 30 times a day with the corresponding ego minds response.
Keep going until your ego minds response is mostly neutral or positive. This is how you will know you are changing your negative mindset into a positive one – really upping the love for yourself.
What you are doing is releasing all the negativity and resistance you have built up inside to liking yourself. Be patient with the process. This may take several weeks to a few months.
There’s no more important exercise to do than upping the love for yourself. Take your time with this exercise. Really get into it!
You are worthy of your own love!!
Hi, my name is Dave Abbott. I have done 15 years of personal growth work to heal my past, raise my self esteem and learn to be worthy of my own love! I have participated in numerous workshops and training's culminating in my involvement in IPEP - the intense personal evolution program. A 6 month program based on rebirthing, doing affirmations, various processes and following the Course In Miracles. I am committed to supporting you in knowing yourself and in doing what you love!