You are manager and boss of your life
In my previous universe and subconscious mind related articles, I reviewed how seriously universe takes you. If you are not yet a responsible manager of your own life, you have to change things around so that you decide what happens to you, not anybody or anything else.
You have to become the one who creates the life you want to live by not allowing to be pushed around or told what not to do. Just floating with the stream also takes you nowhere or it takes you where the stream goes which might be a place where you do not want to be.
Difficult times should not stop us
This is fast-paced and complex time we live in. Pressure from social media, requirements from workplace, family necessities and the need to prove the society that you are a worthy and valuable person, obligation to compete and establish your presence can take one’s true identity swiftly away and dilute your personal goals and intentions.
Somebody told me how the life felt so immense and infinite to her in the age before the internet. There was definitely much larger personal space, there was much less need to show off or demonstrate one’s greatness. There was absolutely no need to invent your online personality just to be in line with everybody else and not to look bad.
Satisfaction with life
Loving ourselves is a huge part of a good and satisfactory life. There is also a tight association between satisfaction with life and loving yourself. We are the source of our own happiness, genuine pleasure and well-being. The only true harmony must also come from within us. It is pointless to look for it in diets or entertainment. In order to be satisfied with your life and the way things happen, you must start with loving yourself, honestly, truly and passionately.
Most people try really hard to be an excellent student, flawless employee, perfect wife and mother, as well as good child to their parents. They end up perfecting and developing their skills to exhaustion and try to do everything for their children, take care of older parents and become a superb wife or husband that always supports her spouse to achieve their life goals.
Put yourself first
The only social role which is quite frequently neglected is our own personality.
It is understandable how one wants to please everybody in order other people would say they are helpful, kind and good people to be around.
We have to put ourselves first actually. While pleasing others and taking care of everybody else’s needs, we do not live our own life. We start to depend on other peoples’ judgement and opinions. In that case, our well-being completely depends on what the others said, thought and how they viewed our actions or us.
What does it really mean to love yourself?
It first of all means to realize who you are. That means to become conscious of your own desires, goals and intentions. That means to be aware of your qualities and bad traits of character and still respect and love yourself for who you are and how you are. That also includes self-care and doing no harm to oneself.
Being selfish or loving yourself
There is a thin line between selfishness, extreme selfishness and loving oneself. We have to always focus on the golden middle. Your common sense should guide you and tell where a total selfishness starts and where you just say “no” to make your own life more pleasurable and satisfactory.
The less you love yourself, the more often you will come to conclusion that you must be fine with what you have and you are not entitled to strive for more. Quite frequently that also involves neglecting your talents, skills and abilities, because why to bother?
Our only life: here and now
In our current shape, we have only this one life. We do not know if, when and how we might live again. Therefore, we have to live consciously our own life without being a patch to others needs and goals. Gradually, we learn saying “no” to invitations, requests and demands. We guard our inner space and we do not allow anybody to deplete our energy. That means choosing between activities, deciding on entertainment and even more so on work tasks and different duties.
Problematic matters
If you clearly know that you have to do a lot in order to genuinely love yourself which is not the same as publishing exciting stories about your success or selfies where you look the best on social media sites, you should at first identify the areas which require some change.
Most people will identify only physically visible things (too obese, too thin, too old, too many wrinkles, bad hair and so on), but we have to think about the mental part of us also. The satisfaction with life is born in our brain. Our brain and our head manage everything, and dissatisfaction with life causes neuroses, depression, anxiety, nervousness, insomnia, tiredness, lethargy and mood swings which sooner or later manifest as physical damage to our physical body.
Loving yourself results in happiness
The happy people usually take good care about themselves. They normally love themselves also: with all they have physically and mentally. That does not mean only loving yourself when you are in a perfect shape, look great and life is kind to you. That means loving your wrinkles, your not-that-perfect body, loving you when you are sick and when crying, too. Your current body is all you have for this life, so love it! That also means loving yourself early in the morning and after a long workday. That means understanding why you feel the way you feel and figuring out how to change the annoying or upsetting matters.
Steps to self-care and loving yourself:
identify what you adore, love about yourself and are pleased with, don’t stop at only physical look, work, skills or relationships;
identify what areas need improvement and include all areas of life, as well as physical body, mental state and any conditions that bother you;
learn making decisions about what you need and what you absolutely do not, prioritize;
make a list of things you want to do, what you desire, what is necessary in order you (nobody else) would feel better, good and satisfied with your life;
implement and focus on purposeful actions: new hobby, new skills, attending courses, getting education, engaging in sports, spending time outdoors, doing physical exercise, changing eating habits, giving up bad habits, learning new things, creating garden, attending hairdressers or spa, massage, cosmetic or beauty treatments, changing home interior and so on.
The goal: pleasure and satisfaction with yourself and life
The goal is to experience pleasure and satisfaction with yourself (what you have achieved) and be happy with changes.
Thinking less of yourself causes numerous diseases and health problems, therefore: love yourself genuinely and honestly and from the bottom of your heart so that the soul can sing!
Next time more.
Inese Poga Life School 