Are You Loving Yourself Well?
Are you loving yourself well?
It’s a question we may not ask ourselves often enough, and we really don’t have to look very far for the answer. Especially when we think in terms of how well we’re loving others.
As women, it’s so easy to put others’ wants and needs before our own. We’re built to care for others and the world tells us we are more when we’re doing more. We often sacrifice, pour out and lose sight of ourselves in the process.
When we find ourselves investing so much of our time and energy on others to the point that we overlook our own needs and desires, it’s time to take a step back. When we see we’re overcommitted, feeling underappreciated, depleted, irritable, and even resentful it’s time to recalibrate.
How can I authentically love others well unless I first love myself well?
It’s true. The degree to which I love and accept myself will directly impact how I love and accept others.
I know when I’m not loving myself well.
- I say yes when my gut is telling me to say no.
- My inner critic is taking up space
- I don’t ask for what I want
- I give in to please others
- I slip into the comparison trap
- I act out of a need to be perfect
What does it look like for you?
“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” ― Oscar Wilde
Loving yourself well is not selfish or self-centered. It’s necessary.
Self-love impacts our energy, inner peace, and motivation. Without it, we have the tendency to trudge through life as a people-pleaser, stressed, and living on autopilot. Never really taking time to consider what’s best for ourselves.
We allow people to take advantage of our willingness and good nature in the name of dependability and loyalty. Granting others what our soul longs desperately to receive and only we can give.
Giving to ourselves first is the avenue by which we are able to give the best of ourselves to others. We give from a place of fullness, not from a place of needing to be filled. And this magnetism radiates out and calls others in simply because we’ve taken the time to cultivate self-love.
Loving yourself is an opportunity to become the best version of yourself.
We don’t enter into this opportunity from a place of needing to fix ourselves. We enter from a place of already being enough. Already being worthy. Already accepted.
When you have nothing to prove, loving yourself becomes the lens to see your unique traits, qualities, and potential. It’s a chance to witness the fullness of who you are and draw inspiration for where you want to go and how you want to show up in the world.
Loving yourself well is always an invitation to come home.
We come home to all that makes us who we are. Our thoughts, feelings, and desires.
Coming home is a willingness to simply BE. It’s a continual open door to sit with yourself, get to know yourself, and let your uniqueness draw you into a space of warmth and safety. It’s in this space compassion and resilience grow.
When you cultivate greater compassion for yourself, you extend it to others. Your inner voice grows stronger so you engage with greater resilience to what’s going on around you because you are grounded. Your grounding isn’t in others and it isn’t dictated by any surrounding situation.
When we come home, we are free to be the fullness of ourselves.
We see ourselves. We know ourselves. We accept ourselves.
Loving yourself well takes intention and practice. There’s no shame in admitting there is always room for improvement. It’s a lifelong pursuit that pays great dividends.
Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. It can feel awkward or a bit selfish. This is where we start small. Small, consistent acts done over time yield huge, impactful outcomes.
The good news – it’s never too late!
- Are you feeling stressed or overwhelmed?
- Do you continue to say yes when your gut’s telling you to say no?
- Are you unable to silence your inner critic?
- Do you find yourself in the comparison trap and always coming up short?
- Feeling guilty for wanting what you want?
- Having a hard time asking for what you want?
- Is it easier to please others than to do what pleases you?
You’re invited to join me here throughout the month of February for the Self-Love Series.
Each week, we’ll set our intention toward loving ourselves better. With valuable resources and fun tools to implement and practice, you’ll discover that loving yourself isn’t hard or time-consuming. You’ll experience a shift right away, whether you’re new to the practice or you just need to retune your awareness.
We’ll practice growing self-compassion, discover what we really love, learn how to silence our inner critic and so much more!
So, let’s do this! You have nothing to lose and so much to gain!
[bctt tweet=”To love yourself is the beginning of a lifelong romance! Join the Self-Love Series and grow self-compassion, discover what you really love, learn how to silence your inner critic and so much more!” via=”no”]
Today’s “C’est Si Bon” find…
I absolutely love this journal because it lays flat so writing is a breeze, the cover is both beautiful and durable, and it’s super sleek for holding the space of 280 lined pages! After trying so many different journals, this checks all my boxes for how a journal should feel and function.
Just For You…
The SOUL-HOPE CAFE is a place created exclusively just for you – a calm, quiet little corner full of free gifts for you, where you can download all of our PRINTABLES, FRAMEABLES and INTENTIONAL LIFE TOOLS designed to sprinkle hope throughout your daily life.
Do You Know What You Want?
Do you know what you want?
When was the last time you asked yourself this question?
It’s not always easy to figure out what we want. Sometimes it’s hard coming up with something as simple as where we want to eat. With our busy lives, we often get used to adapting to what everyone else wants and we lose sight of what lights up our hearts.
The quality of our life depends on the quality of our questions.
If you’re wondering what questions have to do with the quality of your life, you’re not alone. A few years ago I wondered the same thing.
As a lifelong learner, I’m always asking questions and looking for answers. If there’s something I don’t know, I’ll look and ask until I find the answer.
It wasn’t until I made the decision to really dive in and take deeper ownership of my personal development that I realized I’d been neglecting to ask questions of the most important person in my life – ME.
For many years my life was full, and I was busy.
- raising children
- volunteering
- filling roles
- checking off lists
- keeping track of schedules
- balancing budgets
- managing a business
Being the person I thought I needed to be – for everyone else.
I was busy, happy, and fulfilled – Until I wasn’t.
Children grow up, businesses and relationships come and go, and life changes. My life changed. In what felt like the blink of an eye, I found myself looking at the woman in the mirror and wondering what was next.
Can you relate?
If you can, let me assure you that it’s a wildly wonderful and dreamy place to be!
Why?
Because it’s in this space that you get to BECOME MORE. You get to BE MORE. More of who you were always meant to be.
And it all starts with a question I now ask myself continually. I fill pages in my journal with the answer to this question. When I feel stuck in the past. When I can’t move forward from the present. When I need fuel to step into the future.
One question that changes everything…
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
Each time I ask this question with an emphasis on a different word it gets richer and more exciting to think about!
Try it.
Do you know the answer or does your mind go blank?
What do you want?
What thoughts come to mind around the question?
- I’m too busy.
- I don’t have enough money for what I want.
- Life doesn’t work that way.
- I have too much responsibility to worry about what I want.
- I never get what I want.
How does the question make you feel?
- Uncomfortable
- Silly
- Confused
- Energized
- Hopeful
Perhaps it’s a question you’ve never asked yourself before. The good news – it’s never too late. As long as we are breathing we get to explore the answer to this question. When we understand this truth and give ourselves permission, we have greater freedom to really dive deep and find the answer within ourselves.
Do you want to know a little secret?
You get to want whatever you want!
Children have no problem believing they get to want whatever they want. Yet somewhere along the way, as the realities of life set in, many of us stop believing this for ourselves.
Necessity replaces desire. Responsibility replaces freedom. The doer replaces the dreamer.
You get to want whatever you want, and only you know what that is.
Living into the answer is the difference between a life lived and a life lived well.
Everything shifts when we continually check in with ourselves and identify our truest desires. They don’t have to make sense to anyone else, and there’s no such thing as wanting too much.
Knowing what we want is the beginning of the adventure that’s daring us to take a risk. Calling us to not settle. Inspiring us to believe.
So, go ahead.
Give yourself permission to want what you want.
Do this by welcoming all the thoughts and excuses that come up. Don’t resist them.
They are just the brain’s way of protecting you because that’s what the brain does. They are only thoughts, and they have no power apart from what we give them. We can let them come and go while we get to the business of answering the question.
The answer to the question is the best part. Let yourself relax into it and see what comes up. Start listing as many desires that come to mind without judgment or editing. You’ll know if it’s really what you want by how it makes you feel.
Not sure where to start? Download the Worthy Woman Wish List
When you start to explore and play around with what you want, you draw closer to yourself and you get to know yourself more. You start to wake up to the longings tucked deep within which may have been silenced by life your environment. You don’t have to choose anything if you don’t want to. Just enjoy the process of igniting your spirit to dream of more than what’s right in front of you. You’ll find your brain won’t let go of what’s on your list, and eventually, if you allow it, you’ll be drawn to choose something because the energy created from just exploring your desires can change everything.
Remember, it’s just a list…
so everything is acceptable and nothing is impossible.
You’ve got this!
[bctt tweet=”The quality of your life depends on the quality of your questions.” username=”Crystal Twaddell”]
10 Ways to Inspire Hope with Mini-Habits
“It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It’s what we do consistently.” ― Anthony Robbins”
Quite a few years ago, before becoming a certified life coach, I became enamored with the idea of incorporating small, deliberate, and consistent baby steps in my daily life instead of surges of energetic momentum to accomplish my goals.
Why?
Because the joy and motivation I experienced during my surges rarely lasted as the work of meeting goals became more grueling, and I found myself depleted, defeated, and unable to find the momentum to keep going. It’s discouraging to be stuck with no real progress to show for it.
In the coaching world, we call these Mini Habits.
Mini-habits are small, positive steps (routines or rituals) that only take a few minutes out of each day and require little thought. When done consistently and over time, they have a compounded effect on our quality of life and overall happiness, which directly correlates to our ability to sustain the momentum needed to reach goals.
The overall well-being we feel and sense of accomplishment in something small builds over time into something substantial and profound, until one day we realize our small steps of intention led to accomplishing a pretty significant goal.
I entered into the challenge of mini habits with one great success under my belt of writing 3 gratitudes a day throughout the course of several years. I was busy filling my second journal and had over 4,000 gratitudes, spanning about 3 years, so I understood the concept of inspiring hope through this simple, small step. This one mini habit created such a change in perspective over time, particularly during a challenging period of navigating betrayal trauma.
So I added another challenge, and then another, and then another…
- Drinking a glass of water before and after I choose to drink a cup of coffee kept me hydrated.
- Decluttering for no more than 10 minutes before I left work kept my office clean.
- Stretching as soon as my feet hit the floor in the morning sent energy through my body and lifted my spirits.
- Turning off all electronics and developing a bedtime ritual helped me fall asleep faster and more deeply.
- Reading 30 minutes a day helped me read more books in a year than during my previous spurts.
- Increasing my retirement contributions by 1% every year over 3 years grew my nest egg faster.
[bctt tweet=”Great things can be accomplished through small, consistent steps.” username=”CrystalTwaddell”]
My newest mini-habits, for the mind, body, and soul…
- Lay out my vitamins the night before.
- Use my standing desk at work frequently to increase circulation and focus.
- Eat meals on a smaller plate for healthy weight management.
- Check in with my body several times a day to determine what I’m feeling to stay grounded in the present.
- Breathe deeply several times a day to release tension.
- Pack two boxes a day to get ready for the big move in 8 weeks.
- Climb the stairs to my downtown office instead of taking the elevator to improve cardio health.
Small steps are more manageable and more likely to create continual forward movement than spurts of energetic action. The goal here isn’t mastery or perfection. It’s all about using consistency in small things to create enough satisfaction and joy to impact our quality of life in significant ways that build up over time. The satisfaction we experience will take us to 30 days and beyond by impacting how we feel, how we think, and ultimately, the actions we take toward our future goals.
Mini habits are an important key to inspiring hope, improving quality of life, and creating lasting momentum.
What goal are you wanting to reach in order to improve your quality of life and inspire hope?
What areas have you struggled to experience a consistent level of success because the steps are too big?
How can you implement mini-habits to propel you toward continual, ongoing motion?
From the ‘It’s So Good’ Collection…
MINI HABITS by Stephen Guise
“Fresh shots of weekend hope” to inspire moments of simplicity, relaxation, and creativity. Coming in March straight to your inbox, so grab a cup of your favorite Saturday brew and enjoy a little weekend hope!
You can be sure to receive the Saturday Soul Brew Newsletter by subscribing HERE!
Just For You…
The SOUL-HOPE CAFE is a place created exclusively just for you – a calm, quiet little corner full of free gifts for you, where you can download all of our PRINTABLES, FRAMEABLES and INTENTIONAL LIFE TOOLS designed to sprinkle hope throughout your daily life.