It all comes down to love. Do you love yourself enough?
Read that again.
I heard this statement in a podcast that I was listening to this morning and I thought, "yes". Do you love yourself enough to change your ways?
For many years I can say with 100% certainty that I did not love myself enough to do what was best for myself. In fact, I most often did the exact opposite of what I believed in my heart was right for me.
Why would I do this?
Simply put, I was insecure. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to make my family proud. I wanted to do what I thought was easy. And I wanted to have all the things that I was told by society, my family and friends that I should have.
The problem was, I always felt hollow and anxious because I was living someone else's life.
Ironically, simply not loving myself enough to do what was best for me made me feel worse. Then the results I got made me feel even worse. AND THEN I engaged in more self deprecating behaviors to COPE with how I was feeling about myself.
It wasn't until I started focusing on my nutrition and fitness that I built some self confidence. While to some degree I was still punishing myself for everything that I was not, that little bit of self confidence was enough to make me curious about what other habits I could change to feel even better. I just kept trying new things- changing, until eventually one day I woke up in love with myself.
Once I fell in love with myself it became nearly impossible to do things that I knew were bad for me or even felt wrong.
Now it's my self love that keeps me striving day in and day out to take exceptional care of myself and to learn as much as I can about health and wellness. The best part is, all of the care that I put into myself pours onto others.
My love for myself means more love for others.
Friend, do you love yourself enough?
I would challenge you to sit with this question. Ask yourself how you show yourself love every day? What habits do you have that are self deprecating? What do you need to change to love yourself better? How would your life change if you loved yourself?
Maybe answer these questions in a journal. Then you can choose a habit to add or take away immediately to be more loving towards yourself.
I wonder: how would the world change if we all loved ourselves?
This is why I do what I do: coach, write, mentor, DEI training, community service; etc. Because I want to know what the world would be like with more love in it.
What do you say?
As always, thanks for reading and don't hesitate to reach out with any questions, thoughts or to find out how you can work with me.
Be well,
Kellie
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