True Love! What is true love and how do you find it?

Is finding true love only possible through someone else? My amazing sister in law Amy has joined me on my podcast this week with some great insight on true love. You can read it here or scroll down to the bottom to listen to it on Upliftings Podcast.

Today I want to talk about true love. Now hold on, don’t think I’m gonna get all gushy lovey dovey. I am not talking about true love with another person. I’m talking about you truly loving who you are. I know right now you may be thinking things like “well I can’t love myself until I lose weight, or “I can’t love myself today because… it’s a bad hair day… or I hate my outfit.”

Even worse thoughts are, “I can’t love myself because I am a terrible parent, I yell at my kids, I can’t manage money, I am a terrible wife, or I can’t stand those things that I do.” Have you had those thoughts or similar thoughts about yourself and you are so hard on yourself that you don’t like yourself sometimes? You feel mad at your thoughts and your actions? You become so disappointed with yourself that you start to become depressed or withdrawn once in awhile?

Or on the opposite side of the spectrum, I’m not talking about surface love for yourself. I’m not talking about how much you love your hair today, or your outfit today. You may think your love for yourself is on a sliding scale dependent on how good you look that day. True love, true love for yourself is deeper than that. It’s so deep that people can feel it radiating from you more than they can see it.

Today I want to teach you how to truly love who you are. So listen up, this can improve your life! I want to start off with one my favorite phrases. “You are your own best friend.” Let me repeat that, “YOU are your own best friend.”

Think about that.

It’s a bit weird I know but it is powerful beyond words. When this sentence starts to become who you are and you begin to truly love yourself, people will notice. People will see a confidence in you that they didn’t see before. People will notice a kindness and sincerity at a level unseen before now. You will seem lighter and happier.

This is a tool that once mastered you will begin to share with others through your mere presence. They will start to wonder what has changed about you but they can’t quite figure it out. They will make comments like “you seem happier, you seem more confident, you seem more at peace, you seem more driven.”

By now you are wondering how do I do this?

How do I love who I am Right Now?

I want to possess those qualities. There are four steps to becoming your own best friend and loving who you are.

Be honest with yourself
Have integrity
Show forgiveness to yourself
Do what makes you happy

#1- “Be Honest with Yourself.”

If you make a mistake, own it, even if in your own mind, own it, come to terms with what you did wrong. All too often we lie to ourselves. We lie to ourselves about why we did something or why we acted or thought that way. You are only hurting yourself. Don’t lie to yourself. Look for the deep hard truth and tell yourself the truth. Accept it.

For example, I was driving the other day in traffic with my four kids. I was driving my husband’s truck that I don’t drive often. It is huge and takes a bit more concentration for me to drive. One of my kids asked a question and I snapped back an answer.

There are two ways to think about this scenario. One is answering honestly and one is not. One thought could be, ‘they should know the answer to that question and realize I’m under stress right now and it’s their fault I snapped.” Another thought, that if I’m being completely honest with myself is, ‘I hate driving under these conditions and I snapped when I shouldn’t have, it’s my fault and nobody else’s.’

See how in the second thought I allowed myself to be completely honest with myself and own up to my mistake instead of creating a lie to ‘make myself feel better about myself.’ You see when you try to throw the blame somewhere else or to someone else, thinking that you are protecting yourself and in turn making yourself feel better, it actually has the complete opposite effect. It makes you feel worse about who you are as a person. So start owning up to your thoughts and your actions as your own and be honest with those thoughts and let them be a part of who you are.

#2 – Second thing I want to touch on is to have integrity.

Now this is still along the lines of being honest. But I want you to see this one as having strong moral standards, sticking to them even when you are around others. In turn this is being honest with yourself and trusting yourself. You will begin to love and accept yourself if you demonstrate integrity.

Remember, integrity is more important than visibility. You have created moral standards for you to live by. Whatever those standards are, if you have integrity and stick to them in all situations you will be happier with yourself. But we all know we aren’t perfect and are going to make mistakes, so let’s talk about the third thing.

#3 – Show forgiveness.

Just like if your best friend makes a mistake and you still love them and consequently forgive them, I am asking you to do the same thing for yourself. If you make a mistake, which you will, forgive yourself. Think what it was you did, and why you did it. Allow yourself to feel those feelings of letting yourself down, of making a mistake, and let yourself process it. Do what needs to be done to right the wrong, and then forgive yourself.

Allow yourself to move on because you love yourself.

Don’t allow negative thoughts to tell you you are worth less, or that you suck, or that you are never going to be good enough. By allowing those thoughts that is who you will start to become. Fight those thoughts with thoughts of “it’s ok, people make mistakes,” or , “that was hard but I’m glad I tried and learned,” or sometimes I say, “dang I shouldn’t have done that.” By simply owning up to it and then letting it go the negative thoughts don’t stay.

#4 – The last point I want to touch on is the phrase, “do what makes you happy.”

This can sound a bit crazy I know. For me, upon hearing that phrase I would think, oh ok, let me go eat that entire bag of chocolate because she just said do what makes you happy!

So let me explain. When I say do what makes you happy, I’m referring more to not giving into peer pressure. Don’t do something because someone else is doing it, do it because you want to. Let me give you an example. I have a friend who is amazing at replicating Pinterest. Her kids’ birthday parties are straight out of Pinterest complete with the decorating, to the homemade treats and birthday invites.

I see what she does and I love it. But being that Pinterest mom does not make me happy. In fact, when I try to be too Pinteresty, it actually stresses me out and then it’s not fun anymore! Although I’ve had a good laugh at some of my Pinterest fails, in the end having a Pinterest birthday party does not make me happy!

But for my friend it actually does make her happy. She loves spending the time and energy it takes putting on the Pinterest party, and it looks fabulous!

Me, I love buying the invites from Walmart, and taking the kids bowling so I didn’t have to come up with Pinterest games to play at home. That makes me happy, so do what makes you happy. Don’t do things out of jealousy or peer pressure. Do it because you want to. Stay true to those feelings and allow yourself to be you.

Remember, there is an energy that comes from happiness and optimism and it all starts with you. Love yourself for who you are starting right now. Aspire to those dreams and aspirations but allow yourself to make mistakes along the way, and as you do use those stumbling blocks as stepping stones and go get your dreams. It starts with YOU.

Missed last week podcast? Check it out Where to Find your Child’s Instruction Manual

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