Loving Yourself

We all start out loving ourselves. It seems to be how we are born. But through a multitude of circumstances, many of us grow to dislike something about ourselves after being influenced by another. It could be that siblings made fun of you, your parents were busy and you fought for attention, so reasoned that you didn't matter much, it could have been a teacher or classmates that made you feel inferior. I am trying to list a few of the possibilities possible, a couple of them belong to my personal story. The point is, that many of us have things to influence us to come to a place where we feel "less than" and perhaps some even feel unloved as a child.

I read over and over in the Bible the admonition to "love your neighbor as you love yourself". Well, it seems that these days many folks haven't gotten to the place where we love ourselves enough to love understand loving our neighbor.

Nurturing ourselves is an important detail, and by nurturing I don't mean pampering and buying what we want sort of thing, as a spoiled child is pampered perhaps, we know all too well that that is not love. But to look at ones self and see value, to pat yourself on the back now and again without becoming an ego monster. Balance. Love what God has made. Love what you have accomplished in who you have become, now now, just look at the positive here. Being able to see the good in yourself, to love what God has made, is a first step in loving yourself.

There is always self talk going on in our heads, listen to the positive, not the voice that says things like, "you are so stupid". " You are ugly" and so forth. Listen to the kind nurturing inner voice, the positive one that removes the self doubt, the self hate and the crippling negativity.

Make a list of things you know you do well, and things that you do that are nice. Make a list of your good qualities, memorize them and use that as your self talk. Drown out the negative and then it will be easier to love those around you.

me,

excuse the blob of something in the corner of the picture