Is It Hot in Here or Is It Just Me? How You Can Love Yourself with Abandon

By Jackie White

Oh man, how can we love ourselves without abandon when beautifully photoshopped, pinteresty, insta-flawless bodies, faces, and lives are constantly shoved down our throats? It’s an overload of perfection and it sucks!

We all know rationally that no one looks like that in real life. We know that the shots are set up to create an image, we know that,, so why is it so hard to let it go? 

This is why: because we don’t love ourselves enough. Listen, there is no award for being so hard on yourself. You are perfect just the way you are. Oh, you don’t believe me? I’ll take you to task on this one. Let’s look at the top three rotten things women pick themselves apart about and let me help slay these dragons for you with some straight talk.

Weight: Let’s begin with the biggest evil, weight. You might be thinking that you have to lose weight. Ya, so does almost 50% of the American population. So, take action and show your body some love by caring for it through healthy choices. Choose to eat properly, drink water, dump the soda, quit the sugar, and move your body. Change your focus on getting healthy and get off the damn scale! When you do the right things, you will return your precious body to the health it deserves. 
The Love Yourself SOULution: Don’t complicate this. We like to complicate because then we have a great excuse to claim “nothing works” and then go back to eating chocolate bonbons. Instead, eat healthfully, eat proper portion sizes, drink water, and walk 150 - 300 minutes per week (Psst: that’s 21 - 43 minutes per day), You can do that, and oh yea, your life does depend on it, so there’s that.

Critical Inner Talk: You can’t stop thinking about that stupid thing you said at work the other day…guess what, everyone has said or done something stupid at work too. Get over it. You can’t change it, so move on. This situation is all about critical inner talk that fuels worry or anxiety about things you can’t control. That which you cannot control, you have to let go or you will pay a price of exhaustion and an unstable foundation because you have built your house on a pile of worry. You cannot do that. 
The Love Yourself SOULution: Love yourself first and work to calm your mind and focus your thoughts on peaceful intentions. Start a practice of meditation to calm your mind and settle your body. Replace negative talk with positive words, always without fail. Choose to longer accept negative inner talk.

Low Confidence: There seems to be an epidemic of women who are not confident in themselves. Do you feel lost in making decisions for yourself? Do you feel you are not worthy of certain things in life? If so, you are suffering from this and you need to step up on your behalf. Hey, if you don’t, who will? Will it be difficult? Maybe, but you know what’s worse? Shortchanging your life because you are afraid to speak up for yourself. Living life in that manner will result in regret, don’t stand for it anymore! If you are battling the critical inner talk problem mentioned before, you are likely feeding the beast that is beating down your confidence. If you suffer from both, it calls for double the love for yourself.
The Love Yourself SOULution: Begin a practice of gratitude by listing something you love about yourself daily and why you love that about yourself. Begin to change your physiology by walking and talking confidently even if you don’t feel like it. Put on some pump-you-up music to change your state. Feel how good it feels to walk with more confidence! When you practice being confident, you train yourself to choose confidence over shrinking back into silence.

Sometimes to love yourself, you have to love yourself with tough love. No one said any of this was easy and in case you didn’t get the memo, life isn’t supposed to be a walk in the park. What I can tell you is that the effort is all worth it because you will stop worrying about how you rank in this crazy world of unattainable perfection. Instead, you will be catching your totally imperfect reflection in the mirror and you will start strutting and singing “I’m too sexy for Milan, New York, and Japan”. Imagine that scene! I love it! 

Make the time to love yourself today and every day. When you do, one day you will finally realize your worth and how much the world needs you just the way you are.

Shine On!

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