It may sound weird, but yes taking “Selfies” is an indication that you love yourself. Of course it’s not the ONLY parameter, however it shows that you love yourself the way you are. In today’s topic I am going to talk about this only.
Do you remember the times when you were disappointed with yourself and thought what was wrong with you? Why you felt like a failure? You frowned and withdrew yourself into your cocoon, cut off from the rest of the world and kept thinking that you were making too many mistakes, just not getting anything right, often fought with others, kept complaining and hated yourself that it was always your fault, you always let yourself down and that you couldn’t trust yourself ever to do anything right.
This is typically how most people tend to treat themselves. They would love themselves only when they feel they are good and successful in the eyes of others. They would love themselves only when they do things always right, when things happen the way they had planned and others love them for being good and successful in their eyes.
What then is the right way to treat yourself?
Self-love – is the answer.
The most important decision of your life, the one that will affect every other decision you make, is the commitment to love and accept yourself. It directly affects the quality of your relationships, your work, your free time, your faith and your future.
Desire to be perfect can lead to self-criticism, self-hatred and results in eating disorders, mental and emotional disorders. The greatest struggle in life is the struggle to accept, embrace, appreciate and love yourself, with all your imperfections.
How then to start loving yourself?
You don’t have to because it is already there but you have created barriers and walls in your mind against it. You create these barriers and walls by comparing yourself with others. You find many faults and shortcomings in yourself. You find that many qualities, traits and blisses are missing in you that are present in others and you consider yourself below them. You forget to count the qualities, traits and blisses that are present in you but probably missing in others. You are unkind to yourself. You have to break those barriers and push through those walls. You have to learn to be your own best friend, because sometimes you fall too easily into the trap of being your own worst enemy. You always aspire for others loving you. You try to develop those qualities or traits which will make others love you, which others want to see in you to love you. You forget the value of your own qualities and traits. You forget to love yourself.
Therefore, it’s time to tell yourself what you love about yourself and how to do that?
* Focus less on winning the approval of others. You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing. You don’t have to get permission from anyone else for doing something different from others.
* Distance yourself from those who bring you down. Don’t worry too much about folks who don’t worry about you. When you give yourself to those who disrespect you, you lose. Keep your friends limited to those who motivate, inspire and respect you.
* Forgive yourself for what you think you did or you didn’t do in the past and focus on what you will do now on. Consider that after all you are a human being and made some mistakes and wrong choices. It’s over, move on.
* Start making the changes you know you need to do. If you want to see changes in your life today, you will have to do the things that you have never done before. Move away from the things that drain you and move towards the activities that empower and fulfil you.
* To be successful in the long run you have to fail sometimes. So the fear of making wrong decision should not prevent you from taking any decisions.
* Show gratitude for who you are and what you have right now. No, you won’t get whatever you want and wherever you want to be but you have to be grateful for what you have and where are you are, for a lot of people don’t have even that.
* Do something every day that makes you happy. There is a big difference in empty fatigue and gratifying exhaustion. There is nothing selfish about self-care. While travelling in aeroplane do you remember instructions given by air hostess that in case of low air pressure or other emergencies, first take care of your own self before helping others. The same applies here also. Do things that move you by caring for yourself, by doing things you care about.
* Give yourself a fair chance to explore new ideas and opportunities. Listen to your intuition and be honest with yourself about everything. Listen to your inner voice. Believe in your abilities. Pay close attention to your life as you are living it.
* Loosen up and be a little less serious about it all. All self-misery has its roots in self-pity and all self-pity is rooted in taking life too seriously. If you take everything too seriously especially yourself, you will wind up fearing every new step you take. Loosen up and laugh it off when you can – especially when things don’t go as planned. People with good sense of humour have better sense of life. You grow up when you can laugh at yourself and your circumstances.
* Last but not the least, go out of the way to be loving and kind to others too. Almost everything comes full circle. People who love themselves come across as very caring, generous and kind to others too. They express their self-confidence through humility, forgiveness and inclusiveness.
To sum up, we find most people treat themselves unfairly. They are unkind to themselves. They consider themselves below others, always doing things wrong.
Are you also trapped in this kind of situation? Do you also criticise yourself? Do you also feel you are no good and you are below others?
Then you are missing self-love.
Self-love is the solution to bring yourself out of this trap.
So start loving yourself from today. Stand in front of mirror and shout at yourself “I Love You”. “You are the Best”. Do this 20 times every day. It may sound stupid in the beginning, however you will see the difference soon. And yes don’t forget to take Selfies and Hug Yourself :).
Have a Selfie Day
Kiran