6 Steps to Help You Fall in Love…

…With yourself

It’s September and we move closer to the next season — Fall. For many, at least here in the United States, it’s a time to get back to routines. Summer fun and different schedules end and we return to more set schedules, habits and routines that support this time of year.

With this in mind — Do your habits and routines support YOU? What are you doing that is helping you — or are you hindering yourself?

The choice is yours…

Let this time regardless of what season you are in, be a time to fall in love…with yourself. Now before you roll your eyes or decide to leave this page, I want to share how this is the “secret to life” and share from one of my mentors, Louise Hay, the importance of loving ourselves.

“Love is the most powerful healing force there is.” as Louise shared in a documentary I watched called Doors Opening. Louise is known for her work on how healing your body — heals your life, using tips and techniques she developed in the mid 1970's.

Louise actually healed herself of cancer without the conventional treatment methods by changing her diet, changing her thoughts, forgiving others and loving herself. That’s tapping into our inner power in a massive way!

“What we believe about ourselves comes true for us. And what we give out, we get back.”

I also quote Louise in saying. “We need to love and appreciate the beautiful being that we are — and when we do, we can’t hurt ourselves — or other people.”

Hurt people — hurt people… As hurt people lack self love.

The practice of self love has nothing to do with arrogance or vanity— those are actually a form of fear. Self love is the acknowledgement and respect for who we are.

Now, you might read this and think that it’s hard to love yourself when there is so much that you want to change about yourself. Many feel the way to make any change is to berate or beat ourselves up — as that will be the motivation we need. And according to Louise, that only brings about ‘negative’ change.

Think about it — has putting pressure or being mean to yourself ever really helped you to make positive long lasting changes? Maybe some short term change, but not for the long haul.

Instead Louise suggests starting with the affirmation (which Dee Wallace will call ‘directing your energy’) using the statement: “I love myself the way I am and still I want to grow.”

We need to understand the importance and the power of embracing and loving ourselves — as that’s where the magic begins.

Louise’s 6 Steps to Love Yourself:

1. Stop ALL criticism — This means criticizing yourself as well as others. Accept yourself as you are right now. Beating yourself up only produces negative changes.

2. Don’t scare yourself — How often do you choose to think thoughts that literally terrify you? It’s not a loving act, so stop it. Create 2–3 topics you really love and put your focus on them the negative thinking comes in. Maybe it’s a beautiful day, an event you enjoyed, music you love. For Louise it was yellow roses and when she became negative she would say ‘yellow roses’ and start to picture them. You can’t think of two things at once. And you are training your mind to go into another direction.

3. Be gentle, kind and patient with yourself — Don’t expect to learn it all in one day. Realize that you are doing the best that you can and it’s a process.

4. Praise yourself — A LOT — We are raised with negative conditioning. We think if we beat ourselves up we will “behave” or “get where we want to go” or “motivate” ourselves. Praising ourselves will do much more.

5. Support yourself — In what you are doing and in what you are trying to accomplish. Difficult to do? Have some support buddies. And if you struggle with doing something — find someone who can help. Louise gave the example of how she just “couldn’t do” her checkbook. Instead of making herself wrong or focusing on this weakness, she found someone who would do the checkbook for her. This way you focus on your strengths.

6. Take care of your body — Learn about the good fuel for it. We wouldn’t put junk into our car to fuel it, so don’t for your body. And when you are not feeling well, it is even more important to nourish yourself. And move - what form of exercise would work for you? Movement is so important.

Louise was a big advocate for what she calls Mirror Work. By looking at yourself in the mirror, you start to connect with yourself. Start your day by looking yourself in the eyes and say: “I love you (state your name). What can I do for you today that will make you happy?” …

…Think about that one. Ultimately everything we look to accomplish in life, when you go deeper, is to bring happiness in. Even if your intention is solely to make someone else happy — that would make you happy as well, would it not? Why not spend some time each day doing something that would give you what you look to achieve — happiness.

How might this be a game changing thought/activity for you?

It’s time for us to wake up to our full potential and see how magnificent we are. To tap into your inner power to make the changes you desire, as only you can help yourself. And it starts by changing the way you think.

Louise ended the documentary with a close up of herself saying, “Look in the mirror and say I Love You — it will work miracles.”

I would like to share a story that I came across by Dr Mehmet Yildiz that I found very inspiring and fitting for my messages. Maggie might not have been aware of Louise Hay or her work, but Maggie turned to spirituality, took action — and created her life on her terms.

“Maggie started her business with zero funds with desperation after her husband left her with two little children in her thirties”:

This is the journey of self-awareness…

If you would like to connect even further, please like my Facebook page and subscribe to my YouTube channel for Minutes With Michele where I do a SATURDAY morning Live based on my published articles. Replays are available.

You can also find me My Website, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram.

And I encourage you to read the work of my fabulous writer friends: Trista Ainsworth, Gurpreet Dhariwal, Amy Marley, Aurora Eliam, CMP, Kathryn A. LeRoy, Ph.D.,Selma, Keno Ogbo, Melissa Bee, Francine Fallara, Erin King, Karen Madej, Sumera Rizwan, Chowa Sekai, Alison Tennent, Neha Sandhir S, Lanu Pitan, Sherry S, Agnes Louis, Kyomi O’Connor, Chris Hedges, Paul Myers MBA, Terry Mansfield, Rasheed Hooda, Tim Maudlin, Bob Jasper, Joe Luca, JeffHerring.com, Indra Raj Pathak, Dr Michael Heng, David Acaster

Always celebrating, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, Founder & Leader of ILLUMINATION

Until next time ~

Sending you light, love — and self-awareness.

Be Well,