You should go and love yourself

I am enough

YOU SHOULD GO AND LOVE YOURSELF

So as promised guys... 'how I  reached my goal of finding self love'.

My first step was understanding self love. Obviously I had set it as my goal, but I had no idea what it really was and how to truly get there. So I started to write down a plan: 'To understand what self love really is’.

This is how I did just that…

Well, I started with the simplifying it slightly to 'What is love?' (Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more... sorry, but it had to be done!) Anyway, moving on, love is different for everybody right? Sometimes we can't explain it, sometimes we can. Its a an emotion, its an affection and sometimes its physical. 

My next question to myself was why do we love? I used my sister in this example... why do I love my sister? And, you guessed it… I wrote a list

Well:

• She's flesh and blood
• She's funny 
• She's talented
• She has her flaws but they are part of her 
• We always have fun when we are together
• I can tell her anything and she won't judge me
• She always has my back
• She's always there for
• She's my sister and she is amazing
• I love my sister for being her

And many more reasons obvs.

I then asked myself well, how do I show her that I love her?

• I like to spend time with her
• I'm kind to her
• I care about her
• I encourage her
• I laugh with her
• I sometimes treat her
• I'm there for her when she is sad
• I'm there for her when she is happy
• I protect her
• I forgive her
• I love her unconditionally - whether she makes good decisions or bad

So I had figured out what love is, I had figured out why I love someone and also how to love someone... I just needed to take that information and turn it from loving someone else and apply it to loving myself. The next step was taking Action: ‘Use what I had learnt about love and apply it to myself’

I noticed that in the two list that I made about my sister, I had listed things like 'I love my sister for being her' and 'she has her flaws but they are part of her'... so why can I love my sisters flaws but not my own? My sister isn't perfect and yet I still love her... no one that I love is perfect but that doesn't stop me from loving them.

My first step to applying this theory to myself was to write a list (yes more lists) of all my positives and negatives with 'I love my' in-front of them.. It went a little something like this:

• I love my hair
• I love my problematic spine
• I love my long legs
• I love my stretch marks
• I love my untoned stomach 
• I love my curves
• I love me

Obviously the list was a little longer than that but I don't want to bore you with how much I love myself! (If you want to make you're own list like this but you are struggling for ideas... then involve some of your closest friends and family... they'll have loads of suggestions, trust me!)

My next step was to figure out how to show myself that I love me. I literally just copied the list that I made for my sister in 'how do I show her that I love her' and applied it to me. Here's what I got...

• I can be kind to me
• I can care about me
• I can encourage me
• I can laugh with me
• I can cry with me
• I can sometimes treat me
• I can be there for me when I am sad
• I can be there for me when I am happy
• I can protect me
• I can forgive me 
• I can love me unconditionally - whether I make good decisions or bad

In conclusion to these two lists I discovered that 'self love' isn't just about loving all the good bits about me, its about loving EVERYTHING about me. My positives, my negatives, my good choices, my bad choices, my happy times & even my sad. If I make mistakes I have to get back up and forgive myself just as I would with my loved ones. I have to encourage myself to live intentionally, and if there are ways to better myself then do so and I have to protect myself from people that have irrelevant opinions on me and my life. 

I didn't just wake up one morning and think 'I'm going to love myself from now on!' It took a lot of time and a lot of energy to turn my negative thoughts into positives and to starting silencing my inner critique.  After years of  having self doubt, self hate and limiting self beliefs, it was quite hard to start to find the confidence and drive to learn how to love myself again. But using this technique I decided I was ready to change my life around and start living with purpose.

LP x