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Posts tagged with “self love”

4 Tips to Start Loving and Stop Criticizing Yourself

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

I used to give myself quite a hard time. I felt like I wasn’t measuring up or doing enough or achieving as much as my peers.

I decided to make a note of the way I was speaking to myself and treating myself. What I found surprised me.

I noticed that I’d berate myself for days if something didn’t go exactly to plan, convinced that there was something wrong with me and that was why I had messed …

You Have Value (and You Can Be Happy) Regardless of Your Relationship Status

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“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire Universe deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

Relationships give us the opportunity to learn about ourselves though identifying with another. I’ll be the first one to admit that some of my relationships didn’t end on ideal terms. I’ve managed to stay in touch with a few partners over the years, but for the most part, they’ve fallen to the wayside.

Here’s how most of them played out: The initial phase was intoxicating, I was completely enamored with the other person, and likewise, they made me feel like the object of their …

3 Things Kids Do That Can Lead to Self-Love & Happiness

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“When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.” ~Jean Shinoda Bolen

As we grow older, a lot of us fall out of love with ourselves, and as a result, have a hard time figuring out what we value and what lights us up.

Self-love is crucial to creating a life that aligns with our desires because it serves as our inner compass, empowering and enabling us to steer our life in a direction that makes us happy. Otherwise, we end up turning …

How to Boost Your Self-Esteem When You’re Insecure

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“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

When it comes to self-esteem, I’ve had a bumpy ride. Throughout my school life I was severely bullied and, consequently, I grew up intensely insecure and self-critical.

I constantly measured my self-worth against the opinions of others, and when opinions weren’t forthcoming, I simply filled in the blanks by imagining the worst.

By my twenties I measured my self-worth in terms of my popularity, how successful I was compared to my friends, my appearance, and my love …

How to Stop Shaming and Start Loving Yourself

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“Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face.” ~Helen Keller

It’s discouraging, isn’t it?

Walking around every day feeling as if you’re never enough?

Comparing yourself to others and continually coming up short?

You feel as if you’re not smart enough, talented enough, organized enough, or disciplined enough. You’ve made mistakes, some small and some big but all of them embarrassing.

Fortunately, you and I are gloriously human and perfectly imperfect. We falter and fly, fall and triumph, cry, laugh, forget, remember, hurt, heal, dream, and love. Our one-of-a-kind uniqueness is amazing, really.…

How to Stop Tying Your Worth to Things Outside Yourself

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“If you find yourself constantly trying to prove your worth to someone, you have already forgotten your value.” ~Unknown

There’s nothing like being one of the few black kids in your school to make you feel like the odd person out.

Well, that was my experience, anyway. I appreciate my parents’ desire to provide my brother and me with a safe neighborhood to live in and a good education, but growing up in a predominantly white area really affected me. I very rarely felt like I fit in among my peers.

That didn’t stop me from trying, though. I did …

The Key to Finding Your Ideal Partner in Life

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“The most perfect relationship is the one that supports you in fulfilling your destiny—the one that empowers you to be everything you are meant to be in this world and beyond.” ~Jan H. Stringer

As I was sitting up in my bed, reviewing my “Ideal partner wish list” from six years ago, I was a little appalled. I had no idea how much I had been influenced by Hollywood when it came to identifying what I wanted in an ideal partner. It was watermarked all over my wish list. It was hard to ignore.

There was an undertone of …

Unlearning the Self-Loathing That’s Passed Down by Generations

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“Embrace and love your body. It is the most amazing thing you will ever own.” ~Unknown

The first time I made myself throw up to feel skinny, I was five years old. My grandmother still loves to tell this story—she thinks it’s funny.

The story goes like this: I tell my grandmother my stomach feels sick. She rubs my belly. I tell her it still hurts. She asks me if I want to try the “potion.” I say, “Yes.”

The “potion,” as I realized in an unrelated context in my early twenties, was syrup of Ipecac—a strong vomit inducer. I …

From Loathing to Love: What Makes Us Feel Worthwhile

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“Never be ashamed of a scar. It simply means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you.” ~Unknown 

My healing journey can be described through what I call the “self formula”:

Self-Doubt > Self-Loathing > Self-Destruction > Self-Awareness > Self-Love

Mine is the oldest story in the book. Adolescent angst. Mental deception. Physical revulsion. I feel fat. No, scratch that. I am fat. This girl in the mirror is ruining my life. Woe is me.

Groundbreaking drama, right? How original of me to “feel fat.” Surely, you’ve never heard that complaint before.

Except it wasn’t just a complaint. I …

Are You Frustrated in Your Search for True, Unconditional Love?

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“Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~Rumi

Have you ever wondered if there is such a thing as true love, like in the good old movies of Casablanca or The Notebook? Maybe you’ve found your true love. Or perhaps you’re still searching.

When I was a teenager, I was mesmerized by this dream that someday there would be someone who would love me so unconditionally that he would literally die for me. After all, you see that all the time in …

The Most Important Thing to Ask Yourself After a Breakup

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“The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” ~Ralph Blum

Divorce. Not an activity that I ever had on my to-do list and not something I contemplated when I got engaged in Paris. Who does?

We’ve all heard the statistics that one in three marriages ends in divorce. Yet this is something that happens to someone else and certainly not a possibility to focus on while skipping down the aisle.

People change or they don’t, as the case may be. Unless both parties are exceptional communicators, it can be challenging to stay on the …

Marrying Joy: You’re the One You’ve Been Waiting For

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“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” ~Alan Watts

There had been other voices asking such questions as “How can this be happening?” and “When will this end?” that I understood: My partner was planning his honeymoon before our divorce was final.

After the divorce, a voice asked a question I didn’t understand, “Will you marry me?”

“Marry me” popped into my head at what seemed to me the least likely times: talking zip codes with my new mailman at my new home, passing strangers on the street, visiting old friends, …

Mind Over Melodrama: 5 Lessons on Self-Awareness and Healing

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“Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming better than you are.” ~Julius Charles Hare

In a few months it will be the two and a half year anniversary of my mental breakdown.

I don’t really celebrate the date, partially because I don’t know it—it’s not the sort of thing that you remember to mark on your calendar—and partially because my entire life since then has been a celebration of what I began to learn that night.

I began to learn about myself.

It’s been a wild ride of healing, helplessness, forgetting, and remembering. Many times, I …

What Self-Love Means: 20+ Ways to Be Good to Yourself

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“Self-love requires you to be honest about your current choices and thought patterns and undertake new practices that reflect self-worth.” ~Caroline Kirk

If one more person told me to “love myself” I was going to levitate into the air and pull one of those impossible martial arts moves from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I was sick of it!

What the heck does loving myself mean? Were they talking about bubble baths, pedicures, and cucumber masks? It turns out there is so much more to self-love than just pampering ourselves. I found this out the hard way.

About a year …

The Benefits of Flying Solo: Why I Took Time to Myself After My Breakup

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“Don’t let past relationships ruin your future happiness. Scars remind us of where we’ve been, not where we are going.” ~Unknown

I believe that the breakdown of relationships can lead to some of the most powerful lessons we learn in life.

When someone who we’ve been close to suddenly steps out of our lives, it can leave a huge emotional void. It can conjure up feelings of loneliness, vulnerability, anger, sadness, fear, and hurt, and the natural reaction is to go on a desperate mission to fill that void.

My relationship recently broke down. It was my choice, and though …

How to Strengthen Relationships by Releasing Fear and Control

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“To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is: a dissatisfaction with self.” ~Joan Didion

When I was a young man I had an issue with relationships. Looking back now, it is easy to see that I had low self-esteem, though I could not see it at the time. Because of my low self-image and my neediness, many relationships that could have had a decent chance went by the way side.

I developed a low-level anxiety about how much any girlfriend cared for me, which, in turn, became outright jealousy and resulted in controlling behavior.

I would …

Why Self-Love Is The Key To Finding True Love

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“The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others.” ~Sonya Friedman

The moon was shining brightly that balmy summer’s night in the park. He’d arranged a meeting to “sort things out.” Little did he know I’d finally built the courage to walk away. And that’s exactly what I did.

I was devastated but mostly relieved. Finally, I was free.

For the longest time I’d craved his love. I needed his approval. I wanted the happy ending so badly.

Why? I meant something when I was with him. I felt worthy and kind of secure.

But I wasn’t. I’d given …

Addicted to Approval: Reclaim Your Self-Esteem

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“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

The past few years have been full of hard but necessary lessons that I needed to learn about my relationships with others—their limits, boundaries, what healthy relationships are and are not.

I realized that the foundation for some of my relationships (the unhealthy ones) was my need for attention and approval. This, of course, was futile, because we can only truly feel good about ourselves despite outside opinions.

Because I felt inadequate and overly self-critical due …

Accepting Yourself as an Introvert and Loving Your Inner Tortoise

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“We can’t underestimate the value of silence. We need to create ourselves, need to spend time alone. If you don’t, you risk not knowing yourself and not realizing your dreams.” ~Jewel

Tortoises are out of fashion. They are no longer the wise ones, taking one patient step after another, coming out victorious in the end. Today, they are the ones who can’t cross the road fast enough, the ones most likely to get hit by a car.

There is shame involved in being a tortoise.

And so I have spent a considerable chunk of my life trying to turn into …

Letting Go of the Lies That Make Us Feel Bad About Ourselves

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“Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger but faces it head-on.” ~Alice Duer Miller

The man who I thought was my soul mate walked out on me fourteen years ago. He immediately remarried a lovely, beautiful woman who was everything I was not.

I am desperate to fall in love. I’m thirty-eight. I want a baby. I want a relationship. I feel alone.

A year ago, I fell unexpectedly in love with my photographer. Yes, star-struck romantics, it was just like the movies. Shy, awkward woman gets pictures taken for her brand-building website, and she is completely unraveled by his boyish …