If you are anything like me, you always have something you want to improve about yourself. Today I want to drink more water. Yesterday I wanted to be more respectful to my kids. Tomorrow I may want to loose that baby weight or keep a cleaner house or just stop for 15 minutes and take a break.
I want to ask you what your motivation is to make those changes. Is it because you love yourself and want the best for you? Or are you like I used to be and sometimes still slip back into. I want to make that change because I’m not good enough.
Not Good Enough
I have 65 pounds that I could loose. The doctor told me to stay a certain weight to avoid back problems after breaking it 20 years ago. My husband might find me more attractive if I lost the weight. I might think I look better if I loose the weight. I might have more energy to play with my kids. With more energy I may not snap at my kids as often or tell them no as often.
All of these shoulds aren’t good enough reasons to for me to loose the weight. How do I know? Because they haven’t motivated me to do in the last 5 years. I’ve allowed them to shame me into making changes and will powering thru for a couple weeks. But in the end, I have lost and regained that same 10 pounds several times a year for the last 5 years.
Why do we shame ourselves to be better? Because we believe that if we aren’t mad or disgusted enough then why would I really change. But I want to offer you a new way to look at self improvement. Love yourself better instead.
What is Self Love?
Now I’m not talking about this idea that if you loose that weight, or be a better mom, wife, sister, friend, or whatever then you are worth more love. That is a HUGE NO WAY!!! You are loveable just for being a human.
This was life changing for me to understand. If I sit on the couch and watch TV all day and scream at my kids for interrupting me, then I am loveable. But also if I get every item on my to do list done, am an amazing mom and wife, I am also loveable.
Your value as a human does not change. Every person is loveable! People who do quote unquote bad despisable things are loveable. And so are you mama!
So self love is the act of loving yourself. This was a foreign concept to me at one time. What does that even mean or look like?
How to Love Yourself
Let’s take a mental field trip for a minute. I’m going to assume you have kiddos if you are here. So lets look at what it means to love your brand new babies. You care for them physically, feed them properly, try to understand and meet their needs when they cry, etc.
Do you shame them for soiling their diaper before you change them? Or do you just change it because you love them and don’t want their bottom to blister? What about hug them? Are they only worthy of hugs and snuggles if they slept a certain amount of hours or smiled at you so many times? Or do you hug and snuggle them just because they are here and you love them?
Example of Self Love
One place in my life that I have been working on this is my relationship with my body. I started by noticing when I would talk inappropriately to myself. My personal measure was would I say that to my kids, husband, sister, mother, or best friend? If not, I don’t say it to myself either.
I love the analogy I heard from Jody Moore. It’s like your brain is a toddler with a Sharpie coloring on the wall. You would never allow that. You would take the marker away and say “No!” We need to do that with our brains. When we are bullying ourselves with our thoughts, we need to ourselves “No!” and take the Sharpie away.
After I stopped bullying myself with my thoughts, then I looked for things I like or love about my body. For some you may need to start with things that are neutral about your body and work yourself up. I focused on liking my blue eyes or my cute toe nails. I appreciated the fact that my body got me thru 4 hard pregnancies, kept up with demands while my husband had a broken back and shoulder surgery, can walk to and from my vehicle to give me freedom, etc.
With Self Love Achieve the Life You Want
When I got to a place of self love, then I could loose weight and keep it off. This process has been slower for me, than when I beat myself up. It took me a year to loose the 10 pounds, but I didn’t gain it back. I made the changes necessary, because I love me and want the best for me. I want my health to better, I want to keep up with my kiddos, and I want to do things that brought me joy before that are hard weighing more.
You want to know the magic of it though? When I come at self improvements from love, its easier to not “mess up.” Because I am loving myself, I ask myself regularly “what do I need right now?”
For example, right now Wyoming is having a harder winter than normal. That means travel is greatly affected and I haven’t lived in my own home for six weeks and my kids and I haven’t been living with my husband for about 10 days because of travel difficulties. So from love, I made a choice to stop trying to loose weight or start other new habits right now. Life will return to normal, and I can try then. But it isn’t loving myself to stress my body extra at the moment.
Getting Help with Learning to Love Yourself
I am passionate about helping mamas learn this! Check out some of my other blog posts to learn more like what do I really want out of life. Or get my free PDF teaching you how to coach yourself. And as always please book a FREE Explore Coaching Call to get the results faster in your life.
