Be your Own Valentine

Self-Love

This week is Valentine's Day, and we always think about the special people in our lives. Our partners, kids and maybe even your bestie but what about yourself. The relationship you have with yourself is the most important relationship you will ever have. When was the last time you made yourself a priority? Show yourself some compassion?

It's time to love yourself.

Not feeling good enough? lovable? worthy?

For many people, they have been listening to their negative self-talk on repeat. What you say to yourself is very individual and depends on your childhood, belief systems, etc. Become self-aware of how you speak to yourself. The truth is you probably speak to yourself in a way that you would never speak to someone you loved.

No matter what you say, if it runs along the lines of just not being good enough and feeling unworthy then it’s time to work on it.

Here are some ways to raise your self-worth.

How do you value yourself? Do you look at how much money you make? What material items/labels you have? How big is your house? What title do you have in your career? If you do, you have extrinsic goals and those types of goals set us up for depression. We feel like we are always falling short and comparing ourselves to others. Instead, set intrinsic goals. These are goals based on personal meaning, purpose, and passion.

Talk back to yourself- When you find yourself stuck in the negative loop ask yourself these questions:

1.??????Are the phrases you repeat on autopilot even based on truth or fact?

2.??????Are these words/phrases what you heard repeatedly growing up and became your beliefs? We develop many of our beliefs between the ages of birth -7/8 years old. Many of our beliefs are just learned from childhood, it doesn’t mean they are true.

3.??????What would happen if you challenged those beliefs? Could you see that they are not true? That they came from someone else? What if every time you made a negative statement you asked yourself - is it based on the truth? Is this belief serving me? Is this belief keeping me stuck?

4.??????Are the expectations/standards you set up for yourself not yours? Are they based on what your parents wanted? teacher? coach? society? If you wrote down what your expectations are for yourself would it match? Do you even know what your expectations are? Are they realistic for you? Do they align with your goals? Dreams? Values?

5.??????Take some time to think about what makes someone worthy or enough? Write a list. Sometimes, we realize we have much lower standards/expectations for others than ourselves. Why are you so hard on yourself?

6.??????What happens when you make a mistake or fail? Do you beat yourself up? Instead, why not look at each mistake or failure as a teachable, learnable moment. What did I learn about the situation? Myself? What changes can I make? How did I grow?

For more information, please visit www.dianelang.org or email Diane at [email protected]