They all mean the same thing.
Your purpose in life is to LOVE and ACCEPT yourself and know who YOU REALLY ARE. Take time to understand yourself. Be vigilant about learning the reasons why you do the things you do – not just the wonderful things but also the other things you try to bury.
Developing and maintaining a healthy self-esteem is to become conscious of:
• who you are and your truth,
• what your needs are,
• what you believe,
• what you love and desire,
• what you need in the moment despite what others might think.
Being completely honest with yourself about any and all of it.
Ask the question: If I weren’t afraid, I would ______ then fill in the blank. Do this a few times until your truth spills out of your mouth. Your heart, your spirit wants to reveal itself to you, but you must be willing to hear and know it. Your truth is just behind your fears.
Sometimes you get so caught up on judging your thoughts, feelings and beliefs that you get stuck in the judgment of it. This prevents you from actually moving on with your life in a way that honors you. You instead trip over your own feet and get in your own way. LOVE and ACCEPT who you are NOW.
Once you can acknowledge your truth, you will feel free, less anxious, and less confused about life. With truth there is peace, inspiration and empowerment to be who you are and have always meant to be.
Then take the step of asking yourself – do I want to continue to behave, think or feel this way? If you decide to reject and ignore your choices you are not practicing self-love. Empower yourself and make the choice to either change and/or keep your behavior, thoughts and feelings. This is what creates a strong healthy self-esteem. It is accepting responsibility for all of your actions, not blaming it on or giving the credit away to someone else, and loving and accepting yourself with all of your choices.
To accept and love yourself unconditionally and have a strong self-esteem is to:
* Give yourself permission to behave or be the person you are and not limit yourself in order to receive self-acceptance and self-love. By allowing yourself to be yourself rather than what others want or expect you to be, you maintain healthy boundaries and this helps you to feel safe in your world and less fearful of life.
* Become accountable for how you behave, think and feel. No one has the power to make you do, think or feel a certain way. And the sooner you accept this the sooner you can take charge of and change your life.
* Place no conditions for accepting and loving yourself. Treat and talk to yourself as you would your own best friend. This will help you to be intimate with yourself without any limits or expectations and ultimately allows you to be more intimate with others and vice versa.
* Accept and love yourself for the fact that you exist rather than for what you do. The world is a mirror of you and the more you love you the more the world will mirror it right back at you.
* Accept who you are right now as a human being. Human beings make mistakes. Giving yourself permission to make mistakes without judgment not only honors you but allows you the space to be who you are and not some unrealistic fantasy. Mistakes are how you learn and grow.
* Understand your agenda as to why you do the things you do. This allows you to know yourself, be intimate with yourself and ultimately helps you to change unwanted behaviors.
When you develop a strong, healthy self-esteem you feel free. You feel free to be who you are and are able to take risks to be vulnerable because there is no need to wear a mask. You feel a sense of value and worth. You are desired for you rather than what you do or own. You are respected and understood. And you become less afraid to live life as you always dreamed of living as a child.
Healing is about self-acceptance. Accepting yourself is loving and being happy with who you are right now, even though you may want to make some adjustments someday. It’s about seeing yourself clearly, all of you, and appreciating whom you are in this very moment. Make the commitment to love and accept YOU for YOU.
LOVE YOURSELF! Assignment
Journal about the following:
* Identify the conditions you force yourself to meet before you accept and love yourself.
* Ask yourself why these conditions block you from being unconditional accepting and loving.
* Analyze if the conditions you put on yourself are reasonable, rational or realistic.
*Create healthy alternative thoughts which free you up to be more unconditional with yourself.
* Recognize that the limits and rules of appropriate behaviors which you expect yourself to conform to are rules for being accepted by others, survival, getting along, coping, but are not the qualities of freely accepting and loving yourself.
