Yeah, we’ve all heard the golden rule. Treat others how you’d like to be treated. But if you’re like me, you take others people’s needs into account WAY before your own.
Treat YOURSELF the way you’d like to be treated.
It starts with going to friends houses and playing with their dollies because that’s what they wanted to do, but you really just wanted to color. You may have enjoyed this new experience, or you may not have, but still gone over to that friends house again, and been miserable again.
As kids, it’s important that we do things, even if we don’t want to, because that’s grown up life in a nutshell. However, as a grown up, you realize these things are important and stop giving emotion and negative energy to them, just because you want to get them done already!
As a teenager, you get in that car even though you know that person is under “an influence”, because you want to be cool, or don’t want to hurt others feelings.
As a grown up, you date people who don’t give themselves entirely to you. Either because they like the attention, or they don’t know how to love themselves.
When did we stop being nice to ourselves? When did we start putting other’s needs before our own, making us forget to eat, sleep, or poop?!?!
I had an epiphany a few months ago. When you’re a baby, everyone takes the gentlest care of you. It’s all about you, pretty much until you can reach in the fridge for jello and wipe your own butt. After that, you’re sent to the wolves (as if) and you must fend for yourself. At which point, we forget to take care of our basic human needs. I forget to pee all the time because I don’t want to miss anything. I’ve gotten better at the eating thing because I have a trainer telling me to eat. That alone has lessened SO much anxiety!
To quote my good pal Hillel, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
So, what would happen if you treated yourself as kindly as you would treat a baby. You’re still just as fragile, and someone (you!) has to take care of you!
Caution: This is about to get real.
This goes the same for dating and finding a partner. Why do you let people treat you like they do, when you would NEVER treat them that way? Take all that nice energy you’d give to them (that they can’t even begin to appreciate like you would) and give that stardust right back to yourself. Take yourself on a date. Buy yourself something you’d LOVE to get for someone else, and “maybe if I deserved it” would like to GET from someone else.
The fear of being alone is overwhelming to some, but getting your heart broken over and over again, is happening for the same reason you fear being alone- we unconsciously are drawn to people who we can’t have don’t know how to love like we do, or are incapable of sharing their emotions to the same depth. This is not your fault, so far, you’ve been conditioned to believe certain things, but now is the time to change your story.
How often do you say to yourself, “That’s just how I am”
You’re in charge of how you feel, and if you can’t treat yourself the way you’d treat others, how do you expect anyone to treat you that way?
Here are some ways I’m trying to “change my story” and cultivate more self love:
My fall resolutions… (well, things I’m working on a little bit at a time, starting now…in the fall…)
After a long time of calling myself “go with the flow” I’m trying to take back what is really important to me, which means I’m trying to stop doing harmful things to myself. Not like, really physically damaging, but things I know are a waste of time and literally don’t move me forward. (Uh, the incessant internet trolling?)
I’m literally experiencing fall cleaning right now. Of the mind.
E.G.
-Stuffing my face with cookies, not enjoying each bite, morsel, granule of sugar. Or, eating fruit, which has way more benefits and helps my brain feel good. My brain on sugar is ugly, I’ve accepted it.
-Having a bad day and eating chocolate, rather than talking it out with a friend, or writing it in a diary-which has been my savior! LOVEMYDIARY.
-Staring at all the imperfections on my body. OR finding the parts I like, focusing on those, and having a kinder approach to my acne and cellulite, by softening the focus there.
-Not working out. Then reminding myself that a good mood is one workout away. There is no evidence that exercise is bad for your mind and body. Feeling blue? Go for a walk, and notice all the little beauties around you. Breathe that fresh air in.
-Going to work out and keeping up with the group to not feel like a wimp, instead of feeling the muscles working, and noticing how strong they are, how strong they’ve become. Progress doesn’t end, and fitness is a journey!
-Instead of waiting for approval, noticing how far I’ve come on my own.
And last, but certainly not least, being gentle to myself regarding thoughts. They just pop in my head, but I don’t have to feel any which way about them. Like passing clouds, noticing them and noticing them being temporary.
Everything is temporary.
What small actions can you take today to be nice to yourself? What nice things do you already do for yourself? Let me know in the comments below, and sign up for my newsletter of rainbows!
