Cultivating Self-Love
Last month, I shared the WHY and the HOW of creating flourishing friendships in midlife. However, I neglected to mention that the relationship that you have with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship in your life. So, this month, I am taking a step back and offering you a quick and easy way to shift the cycle.
When you are being hypercritical of yourself, run your thoughts through the “best friend filter” by asking yourself, “would I say this to my best friend?” And…If you wouldn’t say it to your best friend, then you shouldn’t be saying it to yourself…period. It’s important for us to consciously treat ourselves with the same compassion and consideration that we offer our friends.
I think this is best summed up by one of my favorite authors and teachers, Louise Hay.
“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
-Louise Hay
In addition, here are my top 4 ways to cultivate a more loving relationship with yourself.
Rediscover Yourself
Self-awareness is an essential part of living a happy and fulfilled life and is at the heart of my work. After decades of being a partner, parent, and a professional, many midlife women have forgotten who they really are and what they really want. Knowing your values, strengths, weaknesses, tendencies, what truly lights you up and what drains your energy can help you make more honest and loving choices for yourself. A free-write journaling practice along with personality assessments like Strength Finders and MBTI are good places to start.
Raise Your Standards
What are you tolerating in your life? Go through your day and notice what annoys you. It might be a messy car, an overstuffed closet, a cabinet door that won’t shut properly, chipped nails, etc. When you eliminate some of the little stressors in your life, you begin to raise your vibration. There will definitely be a few things outside of your control that annoy you but don’t focus on those. Make a commitment to take care of the things that you can.
Take Care of Yourself
Self-care is not a reward – it is a requirement – and it starts with the acknowledgment that you are responsible for your well-being. Putting everything and everyone else above your physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual health is a sign of martyrdom, low self-esteem, and is a fast track to stress, irritability and illness. Self-care looks different for each of us so it’s important to know what nourishes you and then get committed to doing that for yourself on a regular basis.
Practice Radical Self-Acceptance
A lack of self-acceptance can hold you back in every area of your life. It affects your confidence and can prevent you from reaching your full potential. Radical self-acceptance is the act of accepting yourself and all your personality traits exactly as they are, especially the parts of yourself you consider negative or undesirable. A lot of people have the misconception that accepting the parts of themselves they don’t like will make them complacent and then they will not be motivated to make the necessary changes. But it’s not true. My work on myself and with my clients has revealed that we get more traction on the changes we want to make by loving ourselves through the process.
Practicing the “best friend filter” along with these strategies will begin to shift the energy toward a more positive place where you will experience more happiness and peace with yourself and your world.
