February 2018 – Self-Love

You yourself as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection – Buddha

What are the ways in which you are a friend you yourself? What are the ways in which you minimize, ignore or deny your own needs and wants?

Every moment is an opportunity for a new beginning. If you feel that you could use more self-love, here are a few simple ways to start….

– Spend time daily doing something you enjoy.
– Do those things that bring inner peace.
– Learn to laugh heartily and frequently.
– Cultivate within yourself an attitude of gratitude.
– Fill each day with as much love as it can possibly hold.
If you want to go even deeper and to fully connect with all that you do and how you are in the day, not from a place of evaluation or criticism, but from a place of acknowledgment and appreciation, I invite you to try the following practice. It’s a way to fully take in all that you are with compassion and self-love.

  • Set aside 5 – 10 minutes toward the end of your day to reflect. Find a quiet place where you can be with yourself. Take a few minutes to settle into this quiet space in whatever ways feel most intuitive to you. Allow your body to soften, your breathing to slow down and your mind to become quiet.
  • Scan back through your day and recall 2 or 3 interactions you had during the day.
  • As you do so, FEEL your actions, FEEL your care and attention, FEEL the time and energy you spent, FEEL how and where you’ve been throughout the day with an appreciative, soft heart.  FEEL you in your day for what it is….fully, softly, tenderly, appreciatively, even joyously.
  • If at any time you experience internal thoughts of criticism, argument and your heart hardening, simply acknowledge its occurrence, try to open your accepting heart and continue with the exercise.
  • At the end of this exercise, take a few moments to write down what you experienced in doing this exercise. And then acknowledge yourself for compassionately seeing yourself with love.

 

If you’d like to explore this further, try visiting: Befriending Ourselves: Resources for Inner Peace and Compassionate Self-care at http://www.befriendingourselves.com/

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