All Love Begins Within

By Jenn: How much time do you spend looking for love in the world around you? How much energy do you pour out to others in the name of love? If you can relate to either of those questions as much as I can, it may be time to focus that energy towards yourself.

When we are looking for love we are actually focused on the lack of love in our life. What we focus on expands and grows. In the end, we are creating more lack of love in our lives by focusing on looking for it. When we put our energy towards pouring love out to others, is it possible that we are trying to cover up the fact that we feel we need to be giving in order to be loved? Are we just going about looking for love in a different way?

We are all lovable. We all have love in our lives. Our primary job is to find that love within us, to foster it, become comfortable with it, and embrace it. Self love. When you hear that word, what comes to mind? Do you think bubble baths and long massages? If so, you are a little off.

Self love takes work. Self love is living with integrity and in alignment with your inner truth. It means standing for what you believe when others are following the crowd. Self love means letting go of people, places and situations that don’t support you, even when you love them. It means setting boundaries for yourself and others. It means creating the life you want to live, rather than the life you want to escape from. Self-love is letting go of blame, pulling up our socks and taking responsibility for our lives. Self-love is a daily discipline, the bubble baths massages, chocolate and red wines are rewards for doing the work.

Self-love isn’t selfish. Self-love embraces all of you, even the parts you don’t like so much or aren’t very proud of. Self-love wakes up each morning, looks in the mirror, and says “You are enough, I love you just the way you are”.

If that feels too uncomfortable for you, here are some tips and techniques that will help you create self-love habits and as I call it disciplines.

Look at yourself in the mirror every chance you get. Really look. See into your eyes. Listen to the words you say to yourself. Now change the criticism to positive thoughts and affirmations as you look at your reflection. Give the little mean girl within you the boot and give yourself permission to love yourself.

Take a good hard look (lovingly) at your life. What changes would you make if everything were “right” in your life?

Ask yourself, what you love about you and your life. Ask yourself what you don’t like so much about your life. Be honest, this is you we are talking about, you have to live with you. These answers are the map to creating more self-love within you. Now the work begins. Let’s not look at this as fixing you, or fixing your life. Instead, let’s look at this as loving what is, and creating what we love.

What do you need to stop doing, or what do you need to start doing? How will you accomplish these things? Do you need someone to keep you accountable to your plan? How will you motivate yourself? How will you know you are on the right path?

Do you want to change your diet to feed your body more vibrant healthy food?
Do you want to start an exercise program?
Do you want to be more social (or less)?
Do you want to speak up for yourself more?
Do you want to learn a new hobby?
Do you want to stop people from taking advantage of you?
Do you want to stop meddling in other people’s lives?
Do you want to stop self sabotaging behaviours and patterns, or negative though patterns?
What are you putting off doing?

Take a look, this is all about you. This is all about what you want and don’t want in your life. This is your job.

When we try to change anything in our life, even our thoughts, we create a little chaos. Don’t allow the chaos to stop you, in fact, use it to propel you forward. Get your tribe around you, talk about your plan with your friends, ask for support and offer to help support them. You are not alone, the work is yours to do, but you don’t have to do it alone.

Start taking baby steps in all areas. Start your day with positive thoughts and affirmations. Embrace who you are on this day. Be grateful for who you are and what you have. Be gentle with yourself. Notice the excuses you make, and laugh at them. Notice the restrictions you have placed on yourself, try reaching out beyond them. You will know you are on the right path by paying very close attention to what your body is telling you.

When we are honest with ourselves, and listen to our bodies, we will know when we are doing something in alignment with what we want and who we are. If our body feels tight and restrictive, we know we are on the wrong path. Self love creates light, empowering, open feelings in our bodies. In fact, our natural essence in our bodies is love. It feels safe, like a warm blanket.

Self-love is setting an intention for how you want to feel, and doing everything you need and want to do to feel that way, rather than waiting for someone to help you or make you feel that way. Once we cultivate this on a daily basis, falling in love with ourselves, we begin to easily attract everyone and everything that supports that energy. Once we find the love within ourselves, love shows up in so many different forms all around us. When we love ourselves, we open doors for others to love us and we won’t tolerate anything less.

Love and Light,

Jenn