Everybody Deserves Some Love
A reminder to not forget to love to yourself. Self-Affirmations Included
I’m not saying don’t love others. However, in this article, my emphasis is on honoring you, yes you.
I have noticed that in the past week of being kind to myself, I have accomplished more, besides knowing that I usually do more when I’m behind school deadlines, lol.
Anyway, I’m still learning to be kind to myself though. Here is how I started to realize that I was good at loving others unconditionally but I was neglecting the same kind of love for myself.
When you love yourself unconditionally, you also respect yourself. You can’t love someone you don’t respect, love without respect sounds like a lie, forced, or fake.
Here are some tips:
- When you recognize that you are blaming yourself, or giving yourself higher expectations than what you know you can do, think of one thing you have done well in the process.
- When you think you are not good enough to do something, or to talk to someone, think of the last time that you received feedback or encouragement about something you have done well.
- Just whisper to yourself “I’m enough, I did enough.”
One thing I’m working on is in showing myself unconditional love in my study time, not just to the action of studying but just showing love and kindness to myself in the process of studying.
As an online student I receive limited feedback from my professors, except for one of them whom I shared some of my struggles. He has given me grace to complete assignments with extended deadlines in addition to giving me more encouragement than what I expect from a professor. So what do I do to succeed since I’m pretty much working on my studies on my own?
What I do is, I talk to myself as a teacher, coach, pastor, mentor, best friend, or accountability partner would.
I also share struggles with people I trust, who shower me with support, prayers and encouragement.
I have people who encourage me from time to time about my studies but they have lives you know. So I had to learn to love myself unconditionally during the process of school by praying for myself, and saying kind things like:
- “I’m making progress.”
- “I can’t focus on that, because I’m investing time to get my homework done.”
- “I have to finish my class assignments on-time because my professors have the responsibility to grade my papers, and don’t want to overwhelmed them with late assignments.”
- “I’m worthy to give myself the gift of learning. The rest can wait. Nobody is going to die because I haven’t replied to messages.”
- “I prayed for this a while back.” (This is hard to say but is the truth)
- “I want to do a lot of things, but right now I need to get one thing done.”
- “I’m loving Liliana (insert your name instead) by respecting the time I have.”
- “I’m paying for this, and seminary school is not a cheap thing to do.”
- “I can’t afford to repeat a class again.” (I’m repeating one of my classes right now, I’m not perfect but making a lot of progress!)
- “Time is a gift God gives me, I have to appreciate and honor it.”
If you are still struggling or feel stuck in this area of loving yourself, perhaps you are of the male gender, let me speak to you right now…
As a man, you have grown up seeing that men take on the role of a “hunter” and “provider.” Even if you are single, you are naturally drawn to making sure you are doing everything you can to provide for yourself. You tend to look for solutions to problems, and get stuck when you don’t find a now solution. While I encourage women to not compare their looks with other women, I encourage men to stop comparing their careers with how other men are doing.
If you are a man, I challenge you to speak one kind thing to yourself about the progress you are making in your finances and career. I also challenge you, to not relate how much you are making with your worth or sense of fulfillment. I understand this might be hard to do, but try it. Try to focus on what you can do now to make progress.
If you are a woman, I challenge you to speak one kind thing to yourself about your appearance and to remember that you are not what hurtful people have spoken to you. You are not what a random person or a hurtful person says you are.
If you still feel stuck, under-appreciated, and not good enough, my last tip is to let you know that someone out there created you and that you belong to him, God. You are not your job, your income, how much money you make, you are a child of God. “You are made in God’s image,” so you are good! Your job or title does not make you good. You are good, that’s it.
If you don’t believe in God, I want to challenge you to still treat yourself with kindness, because you truly deserve it. In this world, where nobody is perfect, not even you, you can choose to be kind to yourself, do something kind to yourself. Do you remember the smile you brought someone when you said something nice to them? When was the last thing you looked at the mirror and said something nice to yourself? There must be something really cool about you that you like, and my last challenge is to journal it or say it to yourself.
Some side note announcements:
