How To Love Yourself

First off I wanna start this off by letting your know that you young lady are beautiful. You young man are handsome. You are smart, you are unique. You are good enough inspite of what anyone told you. There is only one you. God made you. God loves you and there's nothing you can do about it.

I'm writing this blog because we hear alot that we should love ourselves and that we can't love someone else the way they need to be loved if we don't even love ourselves. The question is do you love yourself? Do you love what you see when u look in the mirror...without all the makeup...weave...accessories...butt pads...etc? Do you appreciate your gifts and talents? Don't admire everyone else and look down on yourself. I'm talking about the real you.

If you really want to change the world, if you really want to experience that life you’ve always desired, you must first love yourself fully, because all the advice in the world won’t matter if you don’t.

It won’t always be be easy, but your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you will ever have.

1. If you really wanna love yourself, first you gotta stop comparing yourself to others and realize God made you the way he felt you should be.
Embrace the real you. God made some of us big boned, thin, athletic builds, pear shapes, etc. Don't compare...just be the best you you can be. Be the best big boned you you can be. You can't enjoy your life envying someone else's. No one can take your place. Please remember that. As you stop comparing and appreciate what u have and who u are, u'll attract more positive people and situations into your life. You'll attract people that love you for who you are. Only when you stop comparing yourself to others can then you then begin to love yourself.

2. You gotta stop seeking approval.
Seeking approval is similar to comparing yourself to others, and it’s fair to say that we all do it from time to time. I’m not going to lie and say I’ve never sought approval from my family or friends and what we call 'church folk', etc, but I’m also going to tell you that when approval was my main focus those were also not the happiest times in my life. Yes, when I was busy trying please everybody else, I was the one who ended up unhappy.

Over the past 3 years or so, I’ve come to realize that my career path probably won’t be the most accepted by previous fans and some church folk...maybe even some family members. My next album I'm doing is an R&B album...in previous years, I've been known as a 'gospel artist'. I'm an entrepreneur..so those who feel I should go to school, get a degree and a 9 to 5 don't understand what I do because this road is not easy..but the pay off is awesome. Yet, I’ve come to discover that when you continuously seek approval from others to validate your own self worth, you’re simply damaging your relationship with yourself. I’ve accepted that my line of work might not be the ‘safest’ but I’m OK with that.
This doesn't just apply to working though...this applies to relationships as well. Stop seeking approval by being something you're not to be loved by someone. If someone can't love you for who you are, they don't deserve to be in your life. I don't care who it is. It's time for you to be happy...and you can't be happy living for everyone else but YOU. When you have an unhealthy relationship with "I", you attract unhealthy relationships with others. So until you start loving you, you'll settle for negative people who don't have your back for the sake of not being lonely. Enough is enough.

Not seeking approval doesn’t mean not to care. I can say without hesitation that I genuinely care about what my family and friends think, however it’s important you stop the process of seeking. When you rely on being happy from an outside source, you're setting yourself up to be miserable.

3. Next, you gotta believe in yourself.
Loving and believing in yourself go hand in hand. You can’t love yourself if you don’t believe in yourself, and you can’t believe in yourself if you don’t love yourself first. Believe in you. I don't care if you're a cook. You better cook with confidence and joy. You might be a salesman in a clothing store. You better sale with confidence and be the best at what you do. You may be a receptionist. You better answer that phone and work it.lol Do you and do it well. To fully experience what it means to live, you must have a confidence in all you do, even during the times in which you come up short.

Believing in yourself can be hard at times, especially when nothing seems to be going right, but it is during those times that you need your own love the most.
The wonderful about believing in yourself is that you are the only one responsible. You don’t need a stamp of approval before you can to begin to have faith in yourself.

Trust in your judgement and know that through both the good and bad you are good enough and you are worthy.

4. Forgive Yourself
I’ve gone through a period of my life where I was extremely hard on myself. I couldn't love myself and I couldn't embrace God's love because I didn't feel I was worthy of it. My emotions were everywhere and I thought I was crazy...literally. I was acting out. I was bitter. I was hurt and I hurt people around me because of it. Every little mistake I made, I quickly amplified it into something much larger than it really was. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the fact that I didn’t forgive myself was preventing me from connecting with who I really was.

I know people who have carried their mistakes with them their entire life, and as result they remain unhappy at the core. I know what it’s like to make a mistake and feel like you shouldn’t be forgiven, but that kind of thinking is nonsense. There is no action not worthy of forgiveness. Forgiveness may take time, but don’t look back at your mistakes as a fatal flaw you must fix, instead choose to embrace them completely as the whole person you are.

Forgiving yourself for your mistakes and shortcomings can be difficult and does take practice, but it remains essential in loving yourself fully.

5. Give yourself some 'Me Time'
Everyone may not agree with this part..but I do...mostly because this is naturally my personality. But I believe you don't have to have people around you all the time. I feel it's important to make time for you and just practice silence and self reflect. Some of my happiest moments have occurred when I’m simply sitting in silence by myself. While I can be a very social person at times, I also have to have my alone time. For me, this sometimes means meditation, prayer, worship, or sometimes I’ll just go for a long walk or go to the bookstore and just chill. Practicing silence allows for you to get a glimpse of the person you really are.

I know the act of spending time alone may not qualify as love for some people, but I feel I’m most connected with myself spiritually when I’m still.
You owe it to yourself to be silent at least once a day.

6. U Gotta take care of your body through eating healthy and exercising.
Part of loving yourself is allowing your body to be in its top form. An occasional indulgence in alcohol or some fast food isn’t the end of the world but making a habit of destroying your body is. Many don’t realize, but your relationship to your physical body and mind is very important.

Truly loving yourself means that you take care of your body and do everything you can to keep it in good shape, both physically and mentally. Don’t expect to have a good relationship with yourself if you abuse the machine consistently.

A few years ago, I realized that I wasn’t taking as much care of my body as I should be. It took me gaining 30 pounds twice and losing it to understand the cycle I was in. I gained the weight because I can admit that I'm an emotional eater and when I get comfortable or close to a goal...I tend to slack off. So after losing the 30 pounds again, I did what I had to do to keep the weight off and ensure I'd never gain that weight without any kids to show for it. I became a personal trainer..lol While it’s only been a few years, I’ve noticed the benefits of going to the gym and eating healthy on the regular..plus I've kept the weight off. Small steps make a massive difference.

7. Use your gifts/talents
One of the greatest ways you can love yourself is to express your gifts, whatever they may be. Finding and honing your brilliance is a way to reveal what it is that makes you remarkable. Do you enjoy to write? Share your stories with the world. Do you like to draw? Paint until your hearts content. Do you like helping people find their purpose? Do so by connecting with as many people as you can. It doesn’t matter what your passions are, express them to the best of your ability.

Unfortunately, Some people chose not to express their talents and passions because they feel as if they might get ridiculed or made fun of. But the reality is, failing to express yourself is failing to love yourself. Loving yourself comes down to expression.

Do me a favor...Make each day a day in which you continue to deepen your relationship with yourself and experience the life you know you were meant to live. The world depends on you to love yourself.

I love myself.

The more important question is, do you?