Compassion for Yourself and Practicing Self-Love

  Most of the time in our lives, we are our own worst critics. We usually have the strongest perspective against ourselves and believe it or not, it weighs the most!

So how do we change this to have a more positive perspective, have compassion, and love for our self?

It starts with FORCING the change in our own mind and start thinking positively about yourself. What do you like about yourself? Highlight what you consider positive traits about yourself and your personality. Let those elements be your foundation of your own positive perspective.

Self-validation is key to help build this perspective.

I often hear objections about self-validation being possibly considered arrogance. There is a big difference in the two and I believe the main difference is in the intention. With self-validation, we are intending to meet a need in feeling okay and positive about our self, which is absolutely okay and should be done!

With self-validation we acknowledge what is good and great about ourselves.

A common self-validation exercise and positive affirmation that I share with clients is a positive cheerleading statement, “I am perfect and complete just the way I am.” Every action we take we can validate ourselves in saying “I gave it my all.” If you think about that statement, it must be true, right? Here’s an example: As I write this blog, I am giving it my all. Now objectively is it the best writing I have ever done, or even the best article you will ever read? Probably not, but my intention and my efforts are 100% to potentially help anyone that reads this, and I am giving it my all to make that so. Validate yourself and tell yourself that it is okay and that you are “good enough”.

Your all is good enough and you should believe in that!

Compassion for yourself and love for yourself includes these exercises of self-validation and praise. Why not, after all you deserve it! Now if you just read that last part and you don’t agree and believe that you do deserve praise and love for yourself, this is where the compassion comes in. Challenge those thoughts and challenge them with reasonings of why you DO deserve praise, love, acknowledgement, and to overall be happy. I believe that we all deserve to have a happy and fulfilled life and I hope that belief can be adopted by you. Here are some reasons to tell yourself why you deserve it:

• I am a good person
• I give it my all
• I do my best
• I am loved by…..
• I love …. and they love me

Focus on things that you believe are good about you and why you deserve it! Challenge yourself to acknowledge at least 3 things you like about yourself a day. Highlight them and continue to build on them. From there, recite at least one positive affirmation daily and let that be your mantra throughout the day. Try an application, an affirmation calendar, daily website posts, or make your own to help you get started. Here is a helpful application that can help you jump start your day with daily affirmations https://www.uniquedailyaffirmations.com If you’re still having difficulty with having compassion and self-love, you can always ask for support from those around you. That can also include a therapist to help with confronting those negative beliefs that may be blocking you from loving yourself the way you deserve.