Can somebody help me, please
A few days ago I attended a conference where a lot of life coaches were talking about love, self-confidence and happiness.
I know people nowadays are under a lot of pressure, they work hard, and capitalism is taking its toll.
But do we really need someone else to tell us who we are, and what do we need in life? Can anybody else be aware of our real feelings, know what's really going on in our life, what do we have to do to feel better?
'You have to love yourself, take care of yourself, it is not selfishness'. That is the sentence that life coaches repeated the most. And then comes the treat - 'If you don't love yourself, no one else will'!
Ok, have you ever met a person who doesn't love himself?
I know people who are their own worst critic and enemies, who are ashamed of their actions, people who don't take care of themselves, people who are ruining their lives with drugs or alcohol, but it doesn't mean that they don't love themselves. They just have some other problems in life, usually psychic problems, and they are trying to solve them in obviously not so successful way.
I know I am sometimes my own worst critics, and I resent myself things I probably wouldn't resent others. We all do that. But even if we say sometimes out loud - 'I hate myself so much, I'm ugly, I'm stupid and I don't love myself' - we don't mean that. It is not in our nature. I don't think there is a person who thinks she or he is stupid. (Unfortunately, that is true. If we had such experience we would have less problems in life, especially in politics).
If your boyfriend left you, if you lose a job, if you are underpaid, if you don't wear makeup, if you wear too much make-up, if you are depressed, if you are too happy, if you have many friends, if you don't have friends... I have a feeling that for all the problems, the answer is always the same - You just don't love yourself enough.
To love yourself - what does that mean?
I'm a mother, a wife, a journalist, a daughter, a sister, a friend - I have a lot of roles to play, but and the end of the day the question is always the same -
Who am I indeed?
I used to worried about the issues like 'Do I love myself enough, why don't I love myself, OMG, even I don't love myself...' So, in one stage you came to the conclusion that you don't love yourself and because of that no one else will love you eighter. Beautiful.
While I had my personal struggle, I realized something else. I realized that for me works totally opposite thing.
I have to escape from myself. I have to take time from myself a little bit. I have to let myself go.
I have a lot of things on my mind, I'm overwhelmed and I don't want to spend the rest of my life trying to find the answer - of caurse you have to have a personal development, but not to be obsessed with yourself.
So I realized I have only one goal. To be a better person.
I'm very far away from that goal, I try hard but sometimes give up, I make mistakes, I'm only human.
You don't have to be perfect, no one is. But you have to try.
To be a better person, to others and to you, means truly love yourself. You know you give everything you can - to others for your sake!
Sometimes to be a better person is not enough, we lose people in life in spite of that. Then we are going round and round in our head - what did we do wrong. In that case we are at the beginning - maybe I didn't love myself enough. We blame ourselves and others one more time, moving in a circle, losing a battle on our way to the main goal.
Resentment poison your soul
If we look inside we'll find a lot of wounds, in some stage of life people and their actions hurt our feelings - some of them criticized, some making fun of us, some didn't give us the right attention and love. In that case we blame someone else. 'I would achieve so much more if my teacher didn't do that, if my mother didn't say that, if my father was more around...' We usually blame people for not doing something, we never focus on what they did. They probably did some good things for us, and it would be good to focus on that, and even if they didn't do anything well, they taught us a good lesson.
Forgiveness - the most powerful word
What I've learned over the years is that you can not love yourself, you cannot be happy and fulfilled person if you don't forgive. But I mean truly forgive. Let go.
I'm a religious person, and every night before I fell asleep, I close my eyes and I let go.
It might sound stupid to you, but it is such a liberating experience. I forgive every single person that hurted me and I forgive myself for hurting the others. This second part is harder than the first one, I assure you.
I used to have insomnia and this problem with sleeping was tearing me apart. But ever since I've released things and people from my life, peacefully and with a lot of gratitude, I sleep like a baby.
I thank for every new day, because in the rush and in the search for answers, we often forget that our journey here will not last forever - we do not know until it will last and it does not depend on us! So be grateful and forgive. Trust me you'll find inner peace and plenty of love - for yourself and others.
*I was pretending to be a life coach a bit, but this method works for me...
Thanks Piksabay for nice pics!
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