Love Yourself on Valentine’s Day

As the saying goes “you can only love someone as much as you love yourself”, and I’ve learned the hard way how true this really is. Sadly there are too many people that don’t love themselves much, and often it is because of their internal self-criticism and belief they should be something other than who they are.

Sadly we live in a society where the emphasis is on an ultra thin body image, perfectionism and trying to measure up to an idea of what we think others want us to be. What about what we want for ourselves? What about appreciating our unique gifts, abilities and bodies? I know that sounds all very well and good, and I also know how hard it is to put into practice. I’ve been there, and lived a life of self hatred and shame up until thirteen years ago.

What is different is my choice not to judge myself and to revisit my beliefs that were causing me to be so self-critical. I discovered I really can love myself, and then to my surprise I found I no longer judged others and could have compassion and love more fully from my heart once that happened.

To make the transition, I started listening to my internal voice, which I found was saying “look what you just did you idiot”, “how could you be so stupid”, “I am unlovable”, “I will never be good enough”, “I can’t do this so what is the use”. As you can see, these are extreme and harsh things to be saying to oneself, and they are hardly true. This was my own distorted view of things based on my beliefs, and it was affecting how I felt about myself, how I viewed daily events, and how much I let others into my life.

Do you know if you are saying similar kinds of things to yourself? The only way to find out is to decide to pay attention and listen. You may be as shocked as I was when I first started to really hear what this inner voice was saying to me. I realized just how outrageous, unfair and debilitating this voice was, and that it was exaggerating what was really happening. It was also reinforcing beliefs that I had grown up with that were not ones I would have chosen had I been making the decisions.

Beliefs are the things you believe true about yourself and the world around you. They are your understanding of how things are or supposed to be, which get formed from repeatedly hearing and getting the same messages. Most beliefs come from our parents, friends and family, childhood experiences and the media. Once we become an adult, we take these beliefs on as sacred and unchangeable, and they become the driver of our thoughts, decisions and behaviors. But you can change your beliefs.

Beliefs are just that, beliefs. You can choose to believe you are unlovable, or you can choose to believe the opposite. You can believe that only thin women are beautiful, or you can believe women of any size can be just as lovely. You can believe that your favorite foods are bad and therefore you are guilty and bad whenever you eat them, or you can believe that it is fine to have your favorite food in moderation. Then if you happen to overeat that food, you can observe it without judgment and understand with compassion what triggered it – knowing there isn’t something wrong with you.

Judgment of yourself affects your self esteem and can lead to feelings that are just too hard to face, and that can lead to emotional eating, stress and depression. Judgment of others leads to the same thing. Think about it. If you don’t care what others think and they choose to judge you, who is affected? Them, not you. So the moral is to be aware of your own judgment and notice where it is coming from and if the associated beliefs are negative or limiting you.

The easiest way to change your belief is to be aware of your self talk, notice the extent it is critical or untrue, and then to create new beliefs and affirmations, which affirm your new belief. Affirmations are statements you say or read repeatedly over a period of days or weeks. “I am adorable and lovable” or “I can eat my favorite foods in moderation” are examples of affirmations. You may not initially believe them to be true, but the more you say them the more you reprogram your belief system and the more they will become your truth.

This Valentine’s Day, pay attention to what you are telling yourself and reprogram the messages.

I am re-posting this blog, because people always benefit from it.


Alice Greene
Healthy Lifestyle Success Coach

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