Love Yourself

Last week I was having a bad day and my sweet hub challenged me to do something.

He told me to write in a notebook something good I accomplished that day that made me feel good about myself. Sometimes I feel like he gets psychology more than I do.

I've been doing that and I can go to sleep at night with a smile on my face.

Today in my psych class we learned about ways to love yourself more.

This is something I think most people struggle with, if not, well... maybe you love yourself too much!

When I think of loving myself I'm not even sure what that means. Try reading Matthew 22:36-39, it might help you understand better.

So I thought I'd share 17 ways you can start loving yourself more:

1. Fall in love with yourself. Sounds weird, but love is liberating and hate, anger, or stress is draining. 

2. Eliminate self criticism.

3. Be kind and positive. Happiness and optimism are strongly associated with self-compassion.

4. Acknowledge your effort. (like what I did in writing down good things I did that day)

5. Let go of worry. Focus on the good stuff.

6. Trust yourself. Click on the title of this post, I added a link to a video of Bob Dylan's song Trust Yourself. Listen to the lyrics... they're beautiful and thought provoking. He's an amazing song writer and musician!

7. Forgive yourself. This can be the hardest thing to do, but you're holding yourself back by not forgiving yourself.

8. Be truthful to yourself.

9. Grow spiritually. Nourishing your spirit makes you even more beautiful.

10. Make positive affirmations everyday. Negative statements do more bad than positive statements do good.

11. Express gratitude. 

12. Nurture your dreams, set goals!

13. Boost your self confidence. Find the balance between low self confidence and over confidence.

14. Relax. Fill your time with anything that nourishes your soul.

15. Have fun! Go watch some episodes of Kids Say the Darndest Things and have child-like fun!

16. Look after your body. Our bodies are the instruments to our minds and foundations of our character.

17. Learn to see beauty, and even create beauty. 

Now soak that up like a sponge and love yourself like you love others!