Loving Ourseles

What Would Love Do? About Ourselves – and Regarding Others This text is from my February 2023 Newsletter Message. Sign Up to Receive Future Ones or Read Past Ones.  ?How we perceive and internalize what happens to us – dictates how we will feel afterwards ?How we respond to disappointments, misunderstandings, and others’ unwanted or aggressive attitudes or behaviors – dictates the atmosphere afterwards ?How we deal with unexpected or unwanted situations – dictates how satisfactorily they will be resolved And it Is How Much Love We Have for Ourselves that dictates how we perceive and internalize, how we respond, how we deal with situations – and how much we can express love to others – and out into the world. Self-Love Self-love means that we are accepting, understanding, compassionate, and forgiving to ourselves – we are basically kind to ourselves. When we come from a place of love, we think, speak, act, and react from a place of love – and empowerment. Focusing on the positive aspects of ourselves and others is uplifting and empowering. Focusing on the negative aspects of ourselves and others is deflating and disempowering.  And it is from this place of empowerment that we can be accepting, understanding, compassionate, and forgiving to others – we can basically be kind to those around us. Ensure Your Thoughts, Words, and Reactions Align with Self-Love Self-love requires being conscious and aware of what you are letting into your mind and life – and what you are putting out into the world. When we think, speak, react, and act unconsciously, we are at the beck call of Unconscious Influences. Based on unresolved past hurts and pains that we project into the present, these influences cause us to feel, react, and behave in habitual and protective ways that have no bearing on what is currently happening. This unconscious way of dealing with life and others causes unwarranted anger, hurt feelings, misunderstandings, and conflicts. To get to a place of loving yourself, your thoughts, words, reactions, and behaviors must align with, ?The way you want to feel, ? How you want life to show up, and ?The kind of relationships you want to have. If you want to feel love in your life and have peace around you, you must come from a place of love – and extend Love’s Qualities to those around you. If your thoughts, words, reactions, and behaviors do not align with what you want, you have to exchange them with loving, compassionate, and forgiving ones – rather than berating yourself, complaining about a situation, or criticizing or blaming others. This is vital because how we think about ourselves and how we deal with others and situations dictates what shows up in our life and affects the quality of our relationships. Replacing negative thinking requires consciously training our minds to shift to positive thoughts about ourselves and others, and hopeful thoughts about the future. And replacing is really re-programming our habitual ways of approaching life. This article [...]