I am sure that you want to have a healthy
relationship with a significant other. As a matter of fact, you probably want
to be loved by someone special and to share love with that special someone.
However, until you learn to love you, you will have difficulty sharing and
receiving love with and from others. In other words, you will be emotionally
crippled, rendering you incapable of freely loving others. As the Isley
Brothers once sang, “Love the One You’re with.” That person is YOU!
Becoming engaged in a healthy relationship doesn’t start
with others; it starts with you. You must take the opportunity to freely love yourself
unconditionally. In all actuality, you will have difficulty having, engaging
in, maintaining, and enjoying healthy relationships until you can live in and
enjoy the freedom of self-love. If you don’t love you, how in the world do you
expect someone else to love you?!
Isn’t it amazing how much you want to give and share love
with others? And you wonder why it seems as if whenever you find that special
someone to love, the relationship doesn’t work out. Although you pour your
heart, your soul, and your very being into the relationship, it seems to always
end in failure. You’ll often find that the failure of your efforts to have,
hold, and maintain a healthy and loving relationship is basically because of your
seeming inability to love you first. As a matter of fact, there are many of you
who not only don’t love yourself; you don’t even like yourself! You can’t stand
to see yourself in the mirror and you even despise being with you!
Until you learn to unselfishly (and sometimes selfishly) like
yourself and love yourself, you will continue to have difficulty liking,
loving, and accepting others. And if you don’t see your inner beauty when you
look in the mirror, or you don’t want to be with you, how do you expect others
will see and accept your beauty or want to be with you?
If you don’t hold yourself in high esteem, because of your
low self-esteem, others will not hold you in esteem. You must come to see your
own value, self-worth, and benefit to self and others. This doesn’t mean that you
have to be vain, cocky, arrogant, or egotistical. However, it does mean that
you are confident in the person you are, loving every pound; no matter how many
pounds you carry. It means that you see yourself as a one-of-a-kind wonder
created by God. You are no fake and you don’t have to perpetrate a fraud. As a
matter of fact, you are the REAL deal!!! It means that you can proudly claim, ‘I
AM SOMEBODY ‘CAUSE GOD DOESN’T MAKE JUNK!’
In
order for you to move from self-hatred to self-love, you must first gain
awareness as to how you really feel about yourself, as well as why you feel the
way you do about you. Often, when you don’t love you, you put yourself in
danger. You don’t believe you deserve the best; you sabotage opportunities and
healthy relationships; and you engage in unhealthy situations and unhealthy
relationships. As a matter of fact, you put everyone else above you; everyone
matters but you!
Although
you are constantly seeking a sense of belongingness from others, you won’t be
able to feel as if you truly belong to and with others, until you accept yourself
and gain an affinity toward yourself. You will find yourself growing through the
process of self-awareness, by discovering and admitting how you feel about
yourself.
Your
self-awareness will then allow you to gain insight into your feelings toward
yourself, as well as who you are, what you desire, and what makes you tick.
Gaining insight will broaden your self-knowledge and show that you are no
longer willing to avoid getting closer to you. As a matter of fact, it forces
you to spend quality time with you. The better you know you, the greater your
fondness and love for you.
Once
you have gained an awareness and insight about who you are, how you feel about
you, and why you feel the way you do about you, it is time for you to move to
greater levels of understanding bout you. You must begin to look in your
various life drawers in order to recognize, face, and confront issues that have
plagued you and prohibited you from loving you. It’s time for you to stop
compartmentalizing issues, situations, and circumstances in your life, and deal
with them.
As you continue along
your journey of achieving self-love, you must rid yourself of the mess and the
stress that has plagued your life. In order to do this, you must forgive
yourself. You won’t be the first nor the last person who has fallen, faltered, or
failed. You must stop blaming yourself, disliking yourself, and on many
occasions, hating yourself. For what you did or didn’t do in life. This stuff
is in your PAST and you have PASSED the unpleasant times in your
life. Get over it and move on!!!
Until you learn to truly forgive
yourself, letting go of the falls, falters, and failures of your life, you will
continue to have difficulty allowing others
to love you and accept you, just as you are! Once you forgive yourself, you will
then forfeit your negative behaviors of self-sabotaging and begin to believe
that you not only deserve love, you deserve the best!
You
must stop looking on the outside to fix your inside. Stop allowing society to
provide the love measurement gauge, which you use in order to determine your
love for you. Recognize that not
everyone wants you to experience happiness…self-love is the first step to
happiness. Therefore, you must begin to
clean your life house of people, situations, and circumstances that no longer
fit in your life. That man or that woman is either an asset or a liability in
your life. If your mate, your friends, and family members aren’t rallying with
you to love you, they are rallying against you to love them. God is the only
one in the center of your life circle with you. You must begin to place people
on the right levels of your life circle.
You
are now well on your way to loving yourself or to increasing the love you have
for yourself, unselfishly,
unconditionally, without shame, guilt, or regrets. It is time for you to love you the way
God loves you…UNCONDITIONALLY!
Take Out Your Pen & Paper
1.
List the negative feelings you are now
aware of, that have kept you from loving you. Now that you are aware of the negative feelings you have
toward you, you can change them by stating aloud on a daily basis, the opposite
of the negative feeling. ‘Angry-Calm’; “Sad-Happy’; ‘Ugly-Beautiful’ Instead of
saying ‘I am angry,’ say ‘I AM CALM!’ ‘I AM BEAUTIFUL!’ ‘I AM WORTHY!’ ‘I AM
VALUABLE!’ USE THE POWER OF ‘I AM!’ The statement you use after ‘I AM,’ will
dictate how and whom you are, as well as how you feel about you. ‘I AM
SOMEBODY111’
2. List
the top five negative characteristics you have used to keep you from loving
you. Develop an action
plan to help you to overcome these negative characteristics and strengthen the
positive characteristics.
3. List
the top five reasons why you don’t like/love you. For each reason, write what you can do
and what you are willing to do to overcome these hindrances and obstacles.
4.
List the top three to five past negative experiences
for which you have not forgiven yourself. Place a large ‘X’ over each experience to mark them
inactive. Shred the list and dispose of it in an outside trashcan, without
looking back! LET THEM GO!!
5.
List the negative liabilities in your
life that help contribute to your negative feelings about you (people,
situations & circumstances).
Decide if any of these liabilities can become assets (or do you want them to
become assets), with modification or change. If not, GET RID OF THEM!!
6.
Start thinking and positively about
yourself and your life on a daily basis. Speak favor and positivity over you and your life. Choose a
positive word a day to symbolize your love for you!
7.
Celebrate your newfound love for
yourself. Buy something
special for yourself; go to the movies with you; take a trip with you. Send
yourself flowers. Just love yourself!
8.
LOOK IN THE MIRROR & SEE THE NEW YOU---LOVING YOU unconditionally and
unselfishly!
If you are unable to take this journey to
rectify your self-hatred on your own, seek help from a professional coach or
mental health professional, who can help you to get the job done! It will show
you care about you!!
©2015; J.Morley
Productions, Inc; P.O. Box 1745; Decatur, GA 30031; 770-808-6570;
www.doctorjoyce.com
