How To Stop Beating Yourself Up & Start Feeling Self-Love Immediately
While I’m sure that we’ve all crossed paths with some form of a bully in our lives, if not many, they likely pale in comparison to the torment we regularly inflict upon ourselves.
Whether we’re being critical of our looks, our life choices, our lack of accomplishment, or any of the hundred other things we could be unhappy about, most of us seem to be addicted to mentally beating ourselves up.
It’s not that we consciously enjoy making ourselves feel bad; in most cases, it has simply become second nature. And that’s what makes it so scary!
Life inherently has enough challenges for us to navigate through — why would we ever want to put even more hardship on our plate, and such a regular and hearty serving of it, at that?
As a frequent self-bully, I sought out a solution to this mental pandemic, and was happy to come across one within the work of a familiar face. The individual I’m referring to is businessman, author, life coach, and philanthropist Tony Robbins, whose teachings have played a prominent role in helping me through several personal challenges.
While much of Tony’s most recent content (Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook and Money: Master the Game) has focused on helping people achieve financial freedom, I found the answer I was looking for in one of his older and most famous seminars:
In this seminar, Tony encourages the audience to take a moment and list off all of the things that they have done or still do to show their love toward other people in their lives. This list should not be limited to just significant others or previous partners, but also encompass friends, family members, and anyone else we are close with in life.
Common gestures that people will list include:
Buying their favourite things
Surprising them
Making meals for them
Taking them out for dinner and/or something fun
Supporting their dreams
Listening to them
While I’m sure that many of these apply to you, I encourage you to take a moment now and list off any other ways that come to mind through which you express love.
Once you’ve done this, the next step is to now to see how many of these things you also do for yourself, and how often.
It’s here that I, and many others, have found one of the greatest contributors to our lack of self-love. We always make time for, and even go out of our way to show our love to others, but we rarely — if at all — make time for ourselves.
I don’t know about you, but I know that I personally would love to make more meals for myself, buy myself some of my favourite things occasionally, and support my own dreams. So why haven’t I been?
With this simple exercise and powerful reminder, I’ve made a point lately to give myself the same level of respect I regularly give loved ones. This has not only improved the self-love I hold for myself, but has also made life that much more enjoyable.
Originally published on Collective Evolution.
