Life doesn’t get easier, you just get stronger.
One of the best strategies to being emotionally stronger is to give ourselves the love and care we catch ourselves dreaming about receiving from others. I know this, because I learned this lesson the hard way.
There was a point in my life when I felt lousy about my appearance – I was insecure to say the least – and I saw myself as too flabby, too weak, too this, and too that. Yet I fantasized about other people seeing me as an extraordinary individual worthy of being loved and cared for as I am.
It’s a bit silly, isn’t it, that I would dream of others offering me the emotional support I was directly withholding from myself? When I realized this, I made a change.
This was a turning point in my life when the age-old saying “You cannot truly love anyone if you are unable to love yourself first” suddenly made vivid sense to me. And I also flipped it around on myself too: “Do not expect to receive any specific kind of love and care from someone else that you do not first give to yourself.”
But a question remained in my mind: How?
How can I begin to love and care for myself more? How can I gradually and consistently build more self-love and self-care into my life?
After lots of trial and error, and guidance from those wiser than me, I began two powerful rituals that gradually changed everything…
In the [Read more…]