Where did you learn how to love yourself?

Here is a 1 minute video on this.

Your relationship with yourself is not kind and loving, if:

You tend to be mean to yourself. You say you don’t deserve something. You punish yourself for not meeting your expectations. It feel like every comment or question is an attack. And more.

Where does it come from?

It’s possible that you had parents, partners, or “friends” who mistreated you – likely, totally unintentionally – and this way you subconsciously learned: this is how I deserve to be treated. Maybe your parents treated you ok, but mistreated themselves and they set an example for you.

They showed you an example, a “model:” of self-love. Now, could it be that even those the people may be long gone, even though they are not an active part of your life now – you keep treating yourself like they did? 

This is what we realized recently is a session with one of my clients. But how many of us don’t realize it?

I know. Now you want to get rid of the legacy of these persons asap.  That dysfunctional model of love is long expired.

I do want to emphasize: 1) this may be ONE of the reasons why you are not treating yourself well. 2) Let’s don’t turn to blame those persons. Maybe they never experience anything better themselves. Listen, sometimes other people do it to us, sometimes we do it to other people. Besides, blaming will disempower you even more. 

How do you change the “model” of self-love.

• When you have an inner dialogue and you feel negative emotions… the same that you used to feel with those people… connect the dots. My client knew consciously she was working on healing herself from  the impact of her parents.  What she didn’t notice until now, was that she was exhausted every evening from negative feelings that came from her mind. From her inner dialogue. These were the same feelings she remembered most from her childhood… 
• Whenever you hear mean thoughts in your mind – ask yourself where do the thoughts come from? Who used to speak to you like that? Who do you still model  – even though it doesn’t give you want you want.

As with any transformation – it starts from awareness. Then follows the willingness to change. The thoughts and feelings are our mental home –  we take our mind with us everywhere we go. You are building a new mental and emotional home for yourself. And it starts with thinking and believing kinder thoughts about yourself. And there is no limit to how great it can become. 

You do not have to be afraid of loving yourself “too much”. What we are afraid of, is arrogance – and that is the opposite of love.