Now I’m not talking about the love that is done with the shades down, computer screen open and a handful of tissues. I mean the type of love that is unconditional, builds confidence and makes your life a whole lot happier.
Most people have different aspirations in life other than loving themselves. They want boats, women, money and so on but not love. They look outside of themselves searching to fill the empty hole in an attempt to find happiness. If you are looking to get relationship and dating mastery, loving yourself is the first place to start. No amount of pickup lines or techniques will EVER make up for a shaky inner reality filled with self loathing and doubt. It is the foundation for everything to go right in your relationships and in life.
I understand what you are thinking, that this is just some airy fairy self help advice. This is what I thought for the longest time but choosing to love myself has been the greatest gift that I could give.
The biggest problem that I had with people offering this advice was: they didn’t love themselves and didn’t offer a guide on how to do it. So here is my little guide to loving yourself:
1. Write out a list of things you appreciate about yourself
This can be a very difficult step to take. People are so used to wallowing in a pit of despair that they can EASILY fire off a list of complaints they have about themselves.
Ask most people what they like about themselves and they will stare at you with a blank confused look while they THINK about the good stuff mustering up one or two positive qualities.
Don’t get frustrated when the good qualities don’t come easily to mind. It takes time to meditate on what you love about yourself but it will come to you.
This is a crucial step to take, without finding out and actively appreciating yourself, how will anyone else?
2. Make the choice to love yourself
Everything in life is a choice and so is this one
3. Stop beating yourself up and ignore the thoughts
The mind/ego is a duality self loathing machine. It will constantly tell you that you are fatter and dumber than you really are. It does this to keep you halfway between suicide and happiness in order to continue its survival.
YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS. You are not your thoughts any more than you are your muscles or skin. People often identify with how they look and I like to think that I’m more than a bone structure and the skin that covers it. You’ll never hear anyone get upset and say they are losing a part of themselves when their skin sheds and becomes dust.
The mind wont stop chattering away so make the choice to either engage in these thoughts or not. Most of the thoughts that your mind produces will not be based in reality at all.
An example of this would be a perfect ten model who thinks she’s fat. Everyone around her could tell her that she’s not but her ego will repeat this thought over and over. She isn’t actually fat, but she believes it to be true because she is identifying with the mind.
Ignore the thoughts that your mind produces. This can be very difficult. It takes time to master ignoring the negative mind thoughts.
4. Don’t use affirmations except this one
As I mentioned before the mind is a duality machine. If you take an affirmation like “I am great and all women love me” the mind will instantly produce the opposite. It will say “I suck and women hate me.” The first affirmation will make you feel high, feeling good for a little while until the duality kicks in and you crash with returning sadness.
“I love and accept myself completely just the way I am” will not induce the duality the mind makes because it is a universal truth that is self evident.
Next time you are feeling the temptation to buy into the mind when it says you are a loser, say “I love and accept myself completely the way I am” and notice how peaceful you will feel. It might take a couple of times repeating it until the peace sets in.
At first it might seem like you are lying but eventually loving yourself will become automatic.
5. Become honest with yourself
Now that you have taken a look at the good stuff it’s time to look at the “bad stuff.” Recognizing the things you consider bad about yourself isn’t the same as talking yourself down. When you take a trip into your own world don’t make judgments about the “bad stuff.” Don’t tell yourself ” I shouldn’t feel this way” or “I shouldn’t behave this way.” Just look at it the best you can without attaching a label to it.
Honesty will bring awareness into your “issues.” When you are aware of something it no longer has the ability to control you.
6. Forgive yourself
In order to forgive yourself for the “mistakes” you have made in the past you must first learn the lessons needed from them.
Mistakes happen and we make them in order to learn and grow. They are truly a beautiful thing.
7. Treat yourself nicely
-Buy nice clothes
-treat yourself to good foods
-buy good wine
-exercise
-meditate
-don’t work too hard
-don’t worry about life too much
-buy yourself an animal. It will help you to open up and feel more love in your life having an animal get extremely excited even though it just saw you ten seconds ago. (look at the picture at the top)
8. Don’t take crap from people
Quote from my blog
“Whenever we give our power away to others and take crap from them, it closes our hearts and causes us to pull back. It’s painful to be open with someone and have them take advantage of us or treat us not so nicely.”
Truly loving yourself means that you love yourself so much so to not let anyone disrespect you or treat you badly.
9. Push past your fears
Fear is only a product of the ego and the ego hates you. Its not your enemy to loath because its only doing what it knows how to do. Fear is an illusion that the ego uses to keep you nice and controlled. You find out that fear isn’t real after you push past it. The most common response after plowing through a fear is “well, that wasn’t so bad.”
Pushing past your fears and having the courage to do so will help lessen the egos self loathing control over you. It will build more confidence as well as help you love yourself more because loving yourself is your natural state buried underneath the ego.
I have a question… you touched a little on ignoring negative thoughts specifically… Now when you say ignore do you actually mean acknowledge them? Because I just tend to think that by acknowledging them for what they are, we can bypass conscience and unconscious resistance all together… let me know what you think
Hey mate,
That post was written by an old instructor who’s no longer with us so I’ll take it.
I don’t believe you should ignore negative thoughts. Accept the thoughts. Accept that they’re there. Accept that they’ve happened, but focus on living your life on your terms.
Negative thoughts are going to come up. They’re going to happen. But, it’s not the thoughts that determine your quality of life. It’s how you treat those thoughts when they happen that’s important.
If you fight them and try and push them away, you’re just going to end up in a constant battle to get rid of them.
If you allow them to be there but keep living your life on your terms regardless of their existence, then they’re eventually going to vanish.
Leigh
Yeah totally agree with you on this one leigh, I got really depressing thoughts during a trip a while back, I just let them come, I listened, I felt the pain, in the end I was feeling great.
Sometimes it’s just something that you need to let go through your system, like taking a dump.
It’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone equate ‘loving yourself’ with ‘taking a dump’ but I guess it works.
Hey, let’s not take pooping for granted. I know if many people who have trouble with it, so appreciate being able to go normally and finding relief and eliminating all that stuff not needed.
Great article! This is where regrets come in and haunt us. It takes time, but there are legitimate reasons we did certain things in the past. The brain loves to play on us to exist, so you can always say, ok, I got it. Thanks for pointing it out. I won’t make that mistake again but even if I do, so what. I’ll learn from it since we only learn by doing and, contrary to popular belief, life is long not short. It is short only for those who stop at 50 and vegetate later on. That’s no life, for sure.