Love yourself

In my last column, I had talked about the vital importance of self-love. The most important relationship in our lives has to be with ourselves, because that alone will determine our relationship with everyone and everything. If we have a good relationship with ourselves, by which I mean have a healthy self-respect, feel confident of our capabilities and ability to get on in life, and feel good about who we are, we will automatically draw similar reactions from others. People will be drawn to us, think well of us, treat us with respect and trust us to deliver.

In other words, if we want to be healthy, happy, successful, prosperous, love and be loved, we have no option but to cultivate a great relationship with ourselves.

So how do we learn to love ourselves? It is not easy but it can be done.

Whole and perfect: The first tool in your self-love arsenal should be the recognition that you are innately whole, perfect and complete.  Your real self is divine, a spark of God, and therefore you are pretty damn awesome. But what then, of all the stuff about you that is patently imperfect? Oh, that stuff is only conditioning. It is the personality we have built up on the basis of beliefs we have about ourselves, drawn from our experiences, as well as from what others tell us. Since we have created it, we can uncreate it too, and release our real, whole, perfect and complete self to shine out.

Affirmations: Since our personality is based on our beliefs about ourselves, many of them negative and limiting, we need to create fresh beliefs about ourselves. Since these beliefs have been formed in our subconscious mind, we need to go to that level and implant these fresh positive beliefs. This is where affirmations come in. Create affirmations of all that you want to be: Start with “I am whole, perfect and complete”. Add all the qualities you want such as confidence, capability, intelligence, wisdom, compassion, love and so on. Always use the present tense and not the future tense. Say, “I am confidence personified’ and not “I will be confidence....”. Equally important is to frame your affirmations positively. Say “I am courageous” instead of saying, “I am not fearful”. If you can, get into a peaceful state while affirming, because that is when you access your subconscious mind. But if that is not possible, just affirm whenever you can. This will take time, but you will get there.

Mirror work: Louise Hay, author of the book, Heal Your Life, recommends standing in front of the mirror everyday and saying “I love you. I really do” while looking at yourself in the eye.

Self-acknowledgement and support: Each time you do something well, acknowledge yourself. Stand up for yourself when unfairly criticised or bullied. Refuse to accept bad behaviour. Establish your boundaries and do not let anyone intrude beyond. All this will take time, but as you grow in confidence, you will find that it will become easier.

There will come a time when your inner critic will soften and even shut up. Instead of facing internal criticism, you will find that your inner self is softly supportive, encouraging and staunchly on your side. When you align with yourself internally, you will be rewarded with a flood of positive energy. Your happiness, health and other factors will rise. Your life will expand and opportunities will come flooding in. Accept them all. You deserve them.

The writer is former editor-in-chief of Life Positive magazine and founder, facilitator of the Zen of Good Writing Course. Contact her at sumavarughese@gmail.com