GUEST POST: WRITTEN BY VIENDA MARIA
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"You must love yourself before you love another. By accepting yourself and fully being what you are, your simple presence can make others happy" -- Unknown
It is my understanding, from what I have observed, experienced and learnt about life so far, that all negative, unhappy, unkind, insensitive thoughts, words and actions stem from a lack of love. And in order to create more love in our lives, firstly we must start with loving ourselves.
RADICAL SELF LOVE
I love the term radical self love, which I believe was coined by Gala Darling, as it so eloquently encompasses exactly what we must feel for ourselves. Radical self love is knowing, understanding and accepting oneself fully. It means that we allow ourselves to be exactly who we are, reverie in it even. We support ourselves without question and stop criticising ourselves. We stop the banal chatter in our minds and drop the beliefs that we are underserving, unloveable or unworthy of all the good we would like in our lives.
Radical self love means that you know that, by the mere fact that you exist, you are worthy of love, of success, of wealth, of friendship, of beauty, of safety, of fun, of anything and everything that you dream of, and aspire to be...
Why is self love so important? Because what you feel, think and believe about yourself is exactly what you get. If you think you are wonderful, unique and deserving of the best, that is what you will get. If you believe that you are unworthy, unlucky, and always finish last, then that is what you will get.
WHAT IS IT THAT YOU WANT?
Countless books have been written on this topic and the one that I continuously recommend is by Louise Hay, called, You Can Heal Your Life. Not only does Louise tenaciously describe how and why radical self love is so important, she also gives and entire step by step guideline on how to change your thoughts and belief patterns. One of my favourite parts of her book no less, is that back pages which explain common physical ailments that are reflected and can be changed by our thought processes.
Not only is self love important as a realm of creating your own Universe, it is important in the relationships you create with others. No one will ever be able to love you more than you love yourself, so you must love yourself first in order to be able to let others love you. And the more you love yourself, the easier it is to love others. Suddenly your world opens up into a myriad of magic and compassion, and anything and everything becomes possible for you.
"I'll tell you, the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people" -- Vincent Van Gogh
HOW TO PRACTICE SELF LOVE
The best way I can think of how to describe how to practice self love, is to treat yourself as you would your best friend. Somehow, somewhere, we have learnt to put ourselves last, to put up with less than we would like or expect. So start pretending you are someone external to yourself, someone you truly love and admire, and treat yourself as so.
Would you allow your best friend to stay in a relationship that is obviously detrimental to them? No! Would you allow your best friend to behave in ways that makes them sick, sad, tired or unhealthy? No! Would you allow your best friend to be in situations or with people that made them feel bad? NO!! So, why would you allow these things in your life?
Now is the perfect time to make those changes. Every day show yourself how much you love yourself, by protecting yourself, nourishing yourself, pampering yourself and giving yourself the best that you can. Start thinking positive thoughts about yourself and your body. Compliment yourself and watch in awe how the world around you begins to change to reflect your new perspective.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This post was written by Vienda Maria. Vienda is a philosophising wordsmith and life coach who lights up when she helps others realise their full potential. Want to know more? You can read more from Vienda Maria here, or connect on Facebook and Twitter.
lovely topic for a post. its astounding how few women are self-loving, given the unrealistic standards imparted by our society on what it means to be a woman. x
ReplyDeleteThanks Philosophia! True, true. In order to learn to love ourselves I think we need to start to disconnect from the 'unrealistic standards' of our society and find our own inner standards for what it means to be beautiful and loveable.
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by xx