Love yourself

1) Become Your Own BFF: Get on over on your own side and stay there! Hush up that inner critic! Objective observation, clear-eyed evaluation, solution-oriented analysis, relevant feedback, constructive advice delivered diplomatically and at appropriate time, volume, and intensity without agenda other than to help: all good. Judgement and criticism: toxic! Build yourself up, don’t beat yourself up!

2) Accept Yourself, Negatives and All: You are a Child of the Universe, a work in progress, you don’t have to be perfect to be perfectly okay. Be gentle, kind, and patient with yourself.

3) Take Care of Yourself: Embrace wholesome discipline, hold yourself accountable. At times this can mean practicing Tough Love with yourself, by releasing bad habits and replacing with habits that serve you such as healthy eating, vigorous exercise, and keeping a reasonable amount of energizing challenge and invigorating growth in your life. You ask how does this reconcile with accepting yourself? Accepting where you are in your path does not mean you accept that you will never progress forward; it simply means internalizing the truth that beating yourself up is not a long term effective means of motivation. It may get you a short spurt of energy but it is generally comes with a long term cost that exceeds any short term benefit. The secret of your future is buried in your daily routine.

4) Surround Yourself with Support and Positivity: It has been said that you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. Pick companions for your journey through life that will pull you forward, inspire you, and accept nothing less from you than your best.

5) Be Kind to Your Mind: Find a source of inspiration, of intellectual stimulation, and return to it regularly, as often as you bathe or brush your teeth. Your mental health is as vital as your physical, they are intricately intertwined.

Closing Quotes;

“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” – Louise L. Hay

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.” – Mark Twain

“The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself.” – Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth & Being Free

As always, I share what I most want/need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier