“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” (Plato).
I’d like to tweak this quote a bit if you will: Be kind and loving to yourself for you fight a hard battle.
Think about what you’re thinking about when you think about yourself.
Yep, that was a mouthful. But seriously, have you ever thought about the things you think about and say to yourself?
Do you speak to yourself the way you would speak to your best friend?
Is your inner voice honoring you with respect, kindness, and love, or is there a constant dialog of all negativity all the time? Sadly, some of us only hear and believe the negative.
When we speak poorly about ourselves, we blur the line of self-respect, permitting others to mistreat us. And if we’ve chosen to believe the worst in ourselves (and it is a choice), we can also choose to accept the best in ourselves instead. We can because we are important too.
Keep in mind when I ask you to believe you are important. I am not talking about arrogance. There is no place for that in our lives, and nobody likes an arrogant ass anyway. I’m talking about knowing you’re important enough to practice self-respect, self-love, and self-kindness continuously.
It’s time to rethink what you’re thinking.
The words you speak about yourself go out into the Universe, which will be the messages you get back. How you treat yourself has a direct effect on how you teach others to treat you. Changing what you believe will set a domino effect in motion, and a self-respectful way to behave will begin.
Once you have the process going, you become the catalyst for other women or girls to change and begin to re-think the way they think about themselves. And all because of you, they could start the journey of self-love too.
If you believe all the negative crud you say and think about yourself, then I argue you can re-train your brain to kinder thoughts too. It will take practice, but self-love and respect are achievable. No longer will there be crud in and crud out.
Get to work.
No magic will change years of negative thinking. Switching to uplifting thoughts will take demanding work on your part. Work to re-train your brain to un-learn incorrect beliefs and be aware of your self-destructive thoughts. Then in those moments, shut them down! For me, when I’m able to catch myself having negative thoughts, I say ‘STOP!’ And then I purposely re-word my thoughts from ‘…I’m so stupid…’ to ‘…take your time, sister, you’ll get there, mistakes happen…’ It’s a constant work in progress and a shift in thinking. Change your words, and you will change yourself.
So, where might you start?
Start with gratitude. For me, I can’t practice gratitude and have destructive thoughts about myself at the same time. It feels better to be grateful for the things I have than it does to abuse myself. For example, I can’t hate on my thick eyeglasses and be thankful for the opportunity they provide me to see. While it’s not the most attractive look to wear one-inch-thick eyeglasses, they are a means to an end.
I wake every morning saying, ‘Thank you for getting me through the night.’ And at night, before I go to bed, I write down three things I’m grateful for as I journal about my day. I’ve been thankful for food, windows and walls, ceiling, floors, and random texts from my family. There are so many opportunities to give thanks it would take too long to list. But I believe I’m living an abundant life because of gratitude.
Gratitude works. By giving thanks for all you’ve been blessed with, you will begin to see how abundant your life is too! The more you practice gratitude, the better you will feel about yourself. You deserve this. You deserve an abundant life!
Write yourself a love letter.
Yes, a love letter to yourself. In it, thank yourself for all you have done and forgive yourself all the mistakes you’ve made. We are all perfectly imperfect people. Give thanks and embrace your imperfections.
While you’re writing, find a place in your letter to write “I love you,” because, (once again), the words you send out to the Universe will come back to you. Therefore, make sure you are forgiving, kind, loving, and grateful.
NOTE: A BLOG POST ABOUT A LOVE LETTER TO YOURSELF IS ON THE WAY.
Treat yourself by doing something positive on the daily.
Do something positive for yourself daily to reinforce your new self-loving way of being. You could take a walk, have a nap, light candles, play your favorite music, give yourself a manicure or a pedicure, drink your favorite beverage (no judgment here). But do something positive for yourself daily to reinforce your new self-loving way of being.
Positive things will happen in time.
Our lives are not going to be all roses and sunshine all the time. But if you begin to take baby steps toward speaking to yourself with kindness and love, you will be able to squash the negative thoughts before they can take control. You can stop allowing all the crud to take over and only let positive and truthful thoughts in.
Send a new message of love into the Universe. You deserve this.
xoxo
JoAnn
Peace.
Tell us in the comment section below how you plan to re-train your brain.