Love thy Self

If you’ve watched TV lately you may have seen the Victoria Secret’s commercial in which a few of the world’s most toned bodies dance around in their bras and panties and individually proceed to tell you “ l love my body.” If you’re anything like me you’re immediate reaction is something along the lines of “And why wouldn’t you, you’re perfect. 5”10. Perfect abs, great skin. 34”- 25”- 36”. Stupid commercial.” But why wouldn’t the model look perfect on TV, isn’t her whole job based around looking that way? Even so, perfection always looks that way from afar. We all see flaws in ourselves the rest of the world may not even consider, and you never realize that “Perfect” has problems too.

Maybe the fatal flaw of humanity is that it can never find contentment in its own perfection. Humanity is too concerned with being bigger, better, more stylish, fabulous and always finding the next best thing. Terrible predicament really, the human race is quite a spectacular breed; we have fingers complete with thumbs, the ability to reason, and of course, YouTube.

On an individual level learning to love yourself and see your own perfection seems like one of life’s biggest lessons. There are so many ways in which we find reasons to put ourselves down: “I don’t make enough money. My job sucks, and I’m not doing shit. I need to lose weight. Everything would be better if I had a nicer car, bigger home and a better education. I can’t do it because...” And the list goes on.
Rarely does the average person tell him or herself: “Wow, you did amazing, you’re really making progress. You worked hard. You deserve a rest. It’s tough now but you’re really getting somewhere.”

Louise L. Hay, metaphysical lecturer, teacher and author of the book The Power is Within You says that loving yourself cures all problems. A cancer survivor herself, Hay links self-love to power, and believes strongly that the power of love can cure even the most deadly of diseases. I think that this idea can sound a little wacky at times, perhaps more so because in Western society modern medicine treats only the body and ignores a mind body relationship. If you ever pay close attention to your body when you’re angry you will notice that certain parts of your body tense up, I notice that my shoulders hike up and my stomach gets tight. It’s true: emotion does manifest itself on a physical level. A loving relationship with yourself means a healthy relationship with your thoughts and emotions—you are not a victim to negative thoughts or a slave to the intensity of your emotions—which means you can healthily let each negative thought pass and release each feeling. Your body is free from the deeply rooted thoughts that manifest feeling such as resentment, rage and even loneliness.

Hay says that “self-love is the most important gift we can give ourselves, because when we love who we are we will not hurt ourselves,” I know this sounds kind of obvious but the thing that surprises me about really obvious things is that people still don’t do them. The part of loving my self to the fullest I struggle with is all the negative bs I tell myself. Like most people, I am my toughest critic, and on days when I feel like I didn’t do my best I really have a way of beating myself up. I let negative thoughts take over like lakes that flow into oceans, and sometimes I get so muddled under the mess of negativity that I forget I control my thoughts they don’t control me.

“In order to consciously create our lives we must first become aware of our unconscious thought patterns. Our minds chatter incessantly, all day long judging ourselves and everything we come into contact with,” author and artist Lalania Simone says. The thing about negative thoughts, and the majority of thoughts you may have on day-to-day basis is they’re not new. A meditation practice will show you that you think in patterns, often bringing up the same garbage, you turn worries around in your mind like it’s a power source but the energy you use to do so leaves you feeling depleted. SARK, author of the book Make Your Creative Dreams Real: A Plan for Procrastinators, Busy People, and People Who Would Really Rather Sleep All Day says instead of just letting negative thoughts run wild you can “learn to dialogue with them, give them new jobs, turn them into allies or you can dismantle or exterminate them.”

There truly is a lot of power that comes with self-love. When you love yourself fully you’re a step ahead of the game, you can stop finding reasons to make yourself miserable and start actively pursuing your interests, you dreams and your bliss.

Here is a starter list to developing a loving relationship with yourself, feel free to add more and change what doesn’t apply to you:

1. Power is always in the present moment. If you’re not willing to love and respect yourself now, you may never be ready to.

2. You must first belief it is possible to be the person you picture and love everything you are even in progress.

3. You must be prepared to release old thought patterns and face your own negativity.

4. Be persistent, negative thoughts are persistent. But for all the negative thoughts you have accepted you have dismissed a positive one…it is possible.

Like Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “make the most of yourself, because that is all there is of you.”