One Day Self-Love Challenge

Yes, I do believe that one of the single most effective and powerful things we can do to participate in the Divine’s transformation of our own lives is to learn to love ourselves more.  Time and time again, as I work with people, when we get to the core of the problem, be it limiting belief, addiction, etc., it is a lack of self-love.  The thing that’s behind the thing that’s behind the thing is that they have placed a very low value on their life and don’t believe they deserve to be happy.    It is the most messed up thing of all and most people are barely aware of it. I genuinely think people want to be happy.  Yet deep down in places they haven’t explored often, they don’t believe they deserve to be happy or are worth it.  It’s the most devious trick in humanity.  Somewhere in our life we were told that we aren’t worth it.  We either were treated that way by those who were supposed to love and protect us when we were young and vulnerable, or because of decisions we made in the past, mistakes, we buy into the lie that we don’t have value and we aren’t worth being loved.  And yet we can spend our whole lives trying to prove that we are worth being loved and go to incredible lengths to try to show everyone that we are of value.

But you don’t have to prove anything.  Let me say it again.  You have nothing to prove.  The fact that God created you is enough.  That oxygen flows in and out of your lungs, bringing life to your blood cells, is enough.  What if instead of constantly trying to prove ourselves to ourselves and everyone around us, we just acknowledged that because we are alive and loved by the Divine, that we are enough.

Tomorrow is the one day self-love challenge.  Now if you just read that sentence and rolled your eyes a little, I understand.  I used to respond in the same manner.  And then I realized that being a control freak and a perfectionist, and being harder on myself than anyone else hadn’t really gotten me the things in life I want… peace, happiness, self-control, etc.  Has the way you’ve been living your life taken you to the heights of your dreams?  So why not take one day and commit to loving yourself?  Why not take one day to be completely and utterly gracious with yourself?  Why not take one day and instead of criticizing yourself for making a mistake, simply affirm that you love yourself anyways, just the way you are?  Here are a few places to start...

1.  Make the commitment to love yourself for 1 day:  Make the commitment and choose love for yourself.  Do it now.  If love is the greatest gift we have to give, what could be possibly wrong with loving yourself for one day in all your thoughts and actions?  Go ahead and literally write it out right now or type it in an email to yourself or send it as a text to yourself.  "Tomorrow I will commit my entire day to practicing self love."

2.  Affirm yourself verbally throughout the day:  Think of the most loving thing you could say to yourself, and repeat regularly throughout the day.  Get up and repeat it OUT LOUD to yourself first thing.  Write it on a post it note and stick it on your bathroom mirror before you go to bed tonight.  If you are having trouble coming up with something loving to say to yourself, try starting here.

3.  Forgive yourself immediately after any intentional or unintentional mistake:  So you just screwed up and maybe no one else knows it, but you do.  Immediately forgive yourself.  If it helps, you can allow yourself to feel your remorse and then say... "I totally and completely forgive myself for ____________________ and I release myself of all my anger and all my disappointment."  Try it.  Forgiveness is incredibly powerful and it is the one of the most freeing things to experience.  In fact, maybe you want to start your day by forgiving yourself for everything you've done that you have yet to forgive yourself for.

4.  Give yourself a gift:  Choose one thing to do for yourself that you know brings you life and you know cares for your soul and heart.  Maybe you love going for a run but haven't had time lately.  Maybe there is a good book you just haven't allowed yourself to read lately because you haven't had time.  Read it.  Maybe there is a friend that always brings you life that you haven't spent time with or talk to lately.  Ask them to hang out or simply call them and just talk.

Taking the one day self-love challenge is a gift that you can give to yourself with no strings attached.  It's only one day.  How bad could it possibly be?  A better question and motivation is, how incredible might it be?  What if you discover some things about yourself?  Wouldn't it be worth it?

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me via the website and I will be glad to get back to you before you wake up tomorrow.  What do you say?  ARE YOU WORTH IT?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.”  - C.G. Jung

"Loving yourself…does not mean being self-absorbed or narcissistic, or disregarding others. Rather it means welcoming yourself as the most honored guest in your own heart, a guest worthy of respect, a lovable companion. "- Margo Anand

"Well-ordered self-love is right and natural." - Thomas Aquinas

If you are interested in subscribing to the mailing list and receiving these via email, simply click under ‘subscribe to the mailing list’… all the cool kids are doing it.

Winning approval does Not make you a Winner

Last Thursday was part 1 of following your intuition, today is part 2. Just because someone agrees with my opinions and thoughts does not mean that I am anymore connected to them, to humanity, or to the Source.  Just because someone lets me know that they think I’m ‘right’ does not mean that they have shared love with me, or I with them.  It also doesn’t mean that I’m right, by the way.

And the opposite is true.  Just because someone disagrees with me does not mean that they hate me or that we are anymore disconnected then we were a moment before.  It also doesn’t mean that I’m wrong in my opinion or thought process.  Just because someone thinks I’m wrong doesn’t mean that we cannot love each other and be connected on a deep level.

Abraham Maslow said “be independent of the good opinion of others.”  Dr. Wayne Dyer drives this point home by saying that “you can’t get anywhere by simply doing what other people say or listening blindly to what your tribe tells you to do.”

I’ll go a step further and say that you have to own who you are, what you believe, and what you want for yourself.

Trying to please everybody means pleasing no one, especially yourself. In fact if you were trying to please everybody around you one thing I will guarantee is that you will never ever, ever, ever be happy (3 evers, that’s making a point).

I'll also guarantee you that you'll never truly know who you are what your purpose is.  If you are always trying to please others you will never know where you belong.  Because if you spend all of your time trying to make other people like you, trying to make other people happy or trying not to disappoint anyone, you will have spent no time figuring out what you like, what you want to do, and who you want to be.   It's not sustainable.

In an effort to please everyone you will add no value to this world. But if you take the time and you do the work to figure out who you are, what you want and what your purpose is, then you can add extreme value to this world.

You don’t have to please people to truly love them.  You don’t have to make people happy in order to act out of love towards them.  You don’t have to have people like you in order to add value to their lives.  But if love is the aim then you will have done your part to connect them and you to humanity.  Now that is adding value.

How can you love those who disagree with you?  Maybe its by engaging them, or maybe its by completely ignoring the way they so negatively announce that they disagree with you.  How can you love those with whom you can seemingly do no wrong?  How can actively love the people around you and free yourself from the chains of approval or disapproval?

What Kind of Life do you Want?

Our quality of life is dependent on many things.  Amazingly enough, our quality of life is not dependent on the circumstances of our world.  It isn’t dependent upon your spouse or significant other.  It isn’t dependent upon how well our children behave or if they meet our expectations.  Our quality of life isn’t dependent up on our job or our income. I believe our quality of life is determined by how we respond to life circumstances and the meanings we attach to what is happening in our life.  I’m not talking about being a ‘glass is half full’ kind of person.  I’m talking about attaching real meaning to what occurs in life and choosing to respond in a way that helps us live the kind of life we want to live.

What kind of life do you want?  How often do you think about what kind of life you want?  The question isn’t ‘what kind of life did you parents want for you?’  or your friends, or the culture you’ve been surrounded with or the particular faith tribe or political affiliations you have.  The question is ‘what kind of life do YOU want?’  Only you can answer that question.  And your answer to that question will determine your quality of life.

Lets say you’re in a job that leaves you completely unsatisfied.  Maybe you hate it or maybe you’re simply… unsatisfied.  You could spend the next 5 years (which would be way too long) complaining, wishing, hoping for a new job.  One that aligns closer to your purposes and the intentions you have for life.  If you’ve spent a fair amount of time and work, thinking about, meditating and praying about what kind of life you want to live, then the direction forward will be much more clear to you and you will be 10 steps closer to landing the kind of job you feel is aligned with your purpose on the planet (Full disclosure:  I believe everyone’s purpose involves adding value to the lives as others).

Discovering what kind of life we want isn’t impossible.  Those answers are lying there deep within us.  At first we may just have some general ideas.  I want to feel loved, I want to feel connected, I want to feel freedom, etc.  But as we do the work and process and dig to the core of who we are, these general ideas will get more and more specific.  Doing this work often times will reveal a road map, so to speak, of how we move towards the kind of life we want.

Some of you reading this are saying, ‘duh’ Brad.  That’s a no brainer.  But some reading this have had vague ideas of what they want, but have never clarified and done the work to get clear on what kind of life they want to live.

Some of you may be saying, ‘that’s too much focus on me’.  Well that’s a whole other issue.  But suffice it to say, if you can’t focus on what you want in life, you’ll only be able to give to others at a fraction of your potential.

So I ask you… what kind of life do you want?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Today I will take the time to begin to do the work to get clear on what kind of life I want.  I will carve time out of my schedule and get silent, meditate, pray, do the things that make me come alive, so that I can get in touch with my core, my heart.  The answer to this question lies within me and I am capable of getting clear on what kind of life I want.