New ways to BE lovable.
Being lovable is a gift to those around you…today is the perfect day to explore new ways to love life, love each other, love ourselves, and love God.
Investing in loving yourself, enables you to love others. You can love others to the same capacity as you have to love yourself. When we know this, we come in tune with heaven. Peace, joy, and abundance flow into our lives!
Loving yourself is not referring to vanity or arrogance, but agreement and alignment with the wonder of God’s creation. Each one of us is a divine expression of God Himself…when we love ourselves and consistently invest in our thoughts and perspectives, life becomes sweet and simple.
The two most lasting relationships I have is with God and myself. All the rest come and go. I’m with myself forever. Are you willing to enjoy yourself, compliment yourself, and find fulfillment in your own company of your inner dialogue?
If you don’t love yourself, you’ll be looking for someone or something or some circumstance - to fulfill your dreams and cause you to feel complete.
If you expect someone to fix your life, or make you happy, you will be disappointed. When you have a great relationship with yourself, you don’t need a relationship to be happy! However, we are created for relationships, so when you love yourself, you will find others wanting to love you as well.
If you’re in a relationship with someone who doesn’t love themselves, it will be impossible to please them. For someone insecure, frustrated, self-loathing, or resentful, you will never have the capacity to be perfect or loving enough to heal their wounds or calm their fears.
Unfortunately, many of us try to be good enough for our loved ones who don’t have any capacity to receive our love. They don’t love who they are. So our love towards them seems to bounce off, or even get rejected. Instead of focusing on this or getting discouraged, set the example of loving yourself, and being a light and a reason to have hope for everyone around you!
Four ways to BE lovable
#1 Stop all criticism
Criticizing yourself in the inner conversation you’re having all day leads to criticizing others and bringing moods of negativity.
You are likely criticizing yourself for the same stuff you were criticizing yourself for years and years ago!
Criticism never changes a thing, in fact, it leads to negative changes. On the opposite side of that coin, when we love ourselves it leads to positive transformation! Agreement with God! Give yourself 100% acceptance even if there isn't 100% approval.
Proactive and Practical
Approach this from the standpoint of habit. Criticism is a bad habit. Consider creating a baseline. A baseline is a non-negotiable agreement with yourself that you will do every single day no matter how you feel or what’s going on. It could be a walk outside listening to beautiful music before you look at your phone. It could be 25 jumping jacks with a smile on your face…Don’t make it too hard, because it is a commitment whether you feel like it or not. The purpose of a baseline is to align you with God. You have an understanding of yourself. “We do this every day, and then we are in the zone. We are getting our choice back. We are having a good day. No matter what.”
#2 Don’t scare yourself
Stop terrorizing yourself with tormenting thoughts! This is when you take a small situation and turn it into a monster! If this is your habit, choose to stop overreacting and jumping to a worst-case scenario. Loving yourself means you don’t participate with fear.
Reactive:
Scare-Jumping
We hear a remark at work and jump to - I’m going to be fired!
We get a dirty look or tone from someone we love and jump to - you’re mean! You don’t love me! This isn’t fair! You don’t even see what I do to love you!
We jump to - this is a very big problem! This is really bad!
Frightening thoughts are like negative affirmations.
Proactive and Practical
Switch the Image! Change the Channel
Find an image that you love…a view…a sport….I once saw a photo of myself when I was about two years old on a camping trip. I was wearing a pair of dirty white shorts, It looked like I hadn’t had a bath in a while, and I’m holding a glass bottle of coke with my head back, and I’m laughing. I love that image of my cute little dirty face. I visit that one. Maybe it’s because it’s so imperfect yet so extremely childlike and free!
#3 Forgive and love yourself
Give yourself a break. You’ve likely made a few mistakes along the way. It’s even likely you’ve messed up to the point where other people have had to pay. You may be locked up in an emotional prison called “False Guilt”.
Repentance in scriptures isn’t talking about remorse, deep sadness, and regret for your choices, it refers to a radical change in attitude! Have a conversation with Jesus. Start by going to a location or place with Him in your imagination. Absorb His love and acceptance by seeing the love He has for you in His eyes. Reach into yourself and take out the toxic regrets and guilts you’ve been carrying in your stomach. Watch as He takes them from you…holds you and clothes you in beautiful and strong clothes of righteousness, peace, and joy.
Proactive
Create and watch movies of you with Jesus. Watch them often. Feel the relief and peace as He takes your sorrows and sets you free from the prison of “False Guilt”.
#4 Be kind and patient and gentle
Choose thoughts that are nurturing and supportive of yourself.
Proactive
Imagine your heart as a garden. You start with dirt, you plant seeds and give them loving attention. Not much happens, but if you’re patient, your garden will grow and blossom. What kind of garden do you want? What kind of seeds should I plant for this? Thoughts are seeds! Be attentive, you are learning new ways to approach your day, your relationships,
Watch your weeds, pluck out negative thoughts towards yourself. Treat yourself like you’d treat a gentle child. You don’t have to be perfect, just develop this! Every new thought is a great beginning.
Being proactive instead of searching for problems
From a health standpoint, Pathogenesis vs. Salutogenesis explores the concept of emphasizing factors that support human healing and well-being rather than factors that cause disease. Simply put, instead of spending resources getting rid of the disease, we put positive energy towards strength and well-being.
We can apply this to relationships! Instead of focusing on problem-solving (which will only get us free from problems) what if we gave attention to strengthening our resources, and being flexible in our attitudes and approaches to each other? What if we fed ourselves and each other with pure influences that make our thoughts and feelings aligned with God’s ways and names? Flexibility, strength-building, and nutrition are applicable focal points for every area of our lives…including relationships. Being proactive will take you to new levels of enjoying life!
Let’s have a good time improving the quality of our lives. This doesn’t have to be serious, yes we need to WORK on ourselves and take our choice back, but we can do this with joy!
I recommend “Like yourself love your life” ebook available at bobandaudrey.com
Hear more about this topic on Episode 140 of All About Relationships Podcast with Bob and Audrey.