Results tagged “how do i love myself” from Self Love Blog

The other day I was talking with one of my long-time clients... a fellow recovering achievement junkie like myself, who was totally stoked about the new job he landed recently - a promotion, more direct reports, more money and more travel - but realized that once again he was falling back into old achievement junkie patterns. So I asked him to run down his entire day for me. He ran me through his entire treadmill routine... emailing before brushing his teeth, no time for meditating, yoga or breathing much for that matter, skipping lunch (no time) or eating it while glued to the computer screen, maybe getting in dinner before 7pm and finding little time for fun and friends without his fifth appendage (his iphone) distracting his attention and pulling him into the vortex of 'to dos'. Other than the people he worked with, he and his computer were having his most intimate relationship.

What struck me in our conversation was that this entire cycle of achievement junkie behavior (which admittedly I used to fall into myself) started from the moment that he opened his eyes. It starts that way for all of us. From the moment we open our eyes, the choices we make in how we spend the first hour of waking determine the flow of the rest of our day... and determine whether that day becomes one that nourishes our body and soul treating them like the temple they are, or whether it becomes another day that our bodies and souls become slaves to all the 'to do's' of the day. Even if those to dos are things that we enjoy, is being a slave through them really want we want?

So I got curious - that's what us coaches do, we ask silly questions to see what pops up. I asked my achiever client and his workhorse body, tell me the first 3 things you do as soon as you wake up. I was super curious about what he was putting into his body before he even stepped out the door... this was his answer:

1.  Coffee. I make a cup of coffee and start drinking it. Okay, check caffeine and adreneline taken care of.
2. Cigarette. I go outside and have a smoke. Okay, check, breath, albeit full of nicotine and toxins, but breath none the less.
3. Computer. I go to the computer, check email and surf the net. Great, information filling the brain, check.
   

 
The three C's! Wow. We took a moment to pause after he answered the question, and I asked him,"So what do you notice?" Another vague but sneaky coaching question. And his answer, "I am fueling my body with toxic junk before I ever leave my house. No wonder I crash about 11am, have more coffee, skip lunch alot, and then by 4pm I am dead tired, and have no energy for fun, friends  or taking care of me."  I pointed out the fact that he had infact made his body into a sweat factory. And he agreed, 'It's like here you go body have some porridge and get back to work!"

The thing that I love most working with achievers is that once they realize that something isn't working they will jump full in to making a change.

So I invited my client to join us all on the
My Body is My Moving Temple 40-day self love practice, and went on to invite him to make his first order of self love practice to change the first three things that went into his body everyday to...

1. Breakfast Tea. My acupuncturist told me that putting something warm into your body first things was the best way to tell your body, hello, its time to wake up. Welcome to the day. He also told me that coffee was the devil to your body temple, and even with clients who smoked, he asked them to give up coffee first. That says alot. Turns out that my client already had lots of great herbal tea and a good tea cup (the cup is super important. get one you love. My cup says I LOVE ME on it, of course!). I am a big fan of Mighty Leaf teas, Gypsy Tea and Yogi Teas myself... Licorice is my fave! By breakfast tea, I mean herbal, not black liquid.

2. Breath.  Sans toxins begotten from puffing on the smoke stick. Just sit, set the timer on your stove, Iphone or blackberry for 3 minutes and breathe. In and out. Everyone can do this, no training required. You can get fancy and do alternate nostril breathing, where you plug one nostril while leaving the other open and then switch. Or you can do more advanced yogic techniques like breath of fire. But most importantly just close your eyes and breathe!

3. Breakfast Shake. I've already written about how trading in my breakfast sausage for a breakfast shake has changed my life... in fact i am sipping tea and a shake right now. I do them together. Fill it with super foods. Its portable. All you need to do is shop for food, get a blender and you are good to go! An achievers dream. 

BONUS... I also added a fourth part of this self love practice, and that was taking a half day every week with no computer, no iphone, and only personal phone calls. He chose Sunday mornings til 2pm. A good choice, I myself have Christine Morning every Sunday, and it's better than chocolate!

My client accepted the invitation of 4 B's instead of 3 C's for fueling his body temple every morning. And on Sunday, after 2pm, I got an email saying he was 2 days in, successful! Gosh, I love achievers!

So now, you and YOUR body temple. Here is my invitation to you.

1.  Write down the first three things you do each morning.
2.  Write down the first three things you fuel your body temple with each morning.
3.  Make a conscious choice to change whatever fuel you are putting in that is not treating your body like the temple she/he is.
4.  Listen to this weeks Self Love Studio interview with Dr. Deanna Minich on Fueling Your Body Temple. You'll learn lots about your energy system, about cravings and about what you put in is what comes out. My favorite line from her book is this...

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THIS...
EAT THE ENERGY THAT YOU WANT TO BECOME!

When I first did this dare about six years ago at one of the first spiritual-pooloza-like conventions I attended - five days in the Palm Springs desert with some of the most influential and masterful spiritual teachers of the 21st century - I admit that I was VERY uncomfortable. "You want me to hold hands with a stranger, touch my knees to their knees and stare into their eyes for 5 minutes? Have you lost your mind? Have I????" That was indeed the inner dialogue going on inside my head. My heart was having her own internal conversation too, sweating bullets, scared to death of the kind of emotional intensity she could feel coming. Luckily, my spiritual warrior, the one who has continually had the courage to face growth experience after growth experience, had the strongest voice this day. I call this part of me Arylo, she is my most enlightened, courageous self and although she may feel fear she never lets it stop us.

So on this day, as the facilitator of the workshop said, "Find a partner, someone you don't know, and then turn your chairs towards each other," Arylo spoke loudly to me saying, "Let's try this. The worst thing that could happen is that we will die, and they usually don't kill people off at these spiritual-pooloza-like conventions, bad press!"  So we found a partner, held hands and touched knees with her, and began the staring process.

As the first few seconds clicked away, I found myself wanting to let this person in. I started letting go of some of layers of armor around my heart - not all of them mind you, but more than had ever been let down to a stranger before. I also found myself wanting to see her, and to have her feel me seeing her. As the minutes ticked, I could feel her letting me in. For five minutes we did this dance, and when the bell rang to let go, I found that I could have stayed there for a much longer time. I felt exhilarated and free. I became a Love Stare junkie, repeating the exercise time and time again with anyone who would let me. And now here I am, daring you to do the same.  I dare you to do the Love Stare and let more love in to your heart and soul!





the LOVE STARE SEQUENCE:

1. Get a partner. Find a person who's older than a baby and has less than four limbs to do this with. Babies, toddlers and doggies don't count. No risk there.
2. Set the purpose. Explain to them what the Love Stare is and why you are doing it.
3. Set the time. Agree to a time period to try it out. Set timer. Minimum 4 minutes the first time.
4. Assume the Love Stare Position. Sit facing each other, knees touching, hands holding, staring into each other's eyes.
5. Do the Love Stare. Your job is to both see the other person and let yourself be seen.
6. Stay & Feel It. When the timer goes off, don't immediately let go. Actually stay connected and feel what happened.
7. Thank You.  Say "Thank You" to each other. Hug even!
8. Share. Talk about what you both experienced, both in giving and receiving during the 4 minutes.
9. Repeat Often.  

the LOVE STARE NO NOs
avoid these no nos so that you keep the love in that you just spent 4 minutes generating.

• Smiling okay, laughing not.  Don't use the giggles to dissipate the energy between the two of you. Laughing can be a way to keep the love from coming in.
• Don't apologize or say anything negative about yourself post stare. Just say thank you and talk about what you experienced. Negative thoughts are also a way to shove love out.
• Don't stand up and disconnect right after the four minutes is up. It will cause a break in the energy. Stay connected and challenge yourself to stay with the vulnerability.
• Don't worry about what the other person is thinking while you are doing the love stare. Just stay focused on giving and receiving love. They're experience is not your responsibility.

Now get going and get that Love Stare started!  Maybe you can even have a Love Stare party ☺


To get more love dares, download a free copy of the Madly in Love with ME Kit at http://www.madlyinlovewithme.com

Two months ago I had a moment. You know one of those moments when you have just had enough. Frustration. Exasperation. A realization that enough is enough and it's time to make a change. After 38 years of walking around this earth with negative thoughts in my head or spewing out of my mouth I decided that I had had it. I was over this negative crud and what it was doing to me. In that moment I knew there was only one thing to do, give it up. And within 10 seconds I had uttered eight words that completely changed my life. Those words were: "I give up ALL negative thinking and talking."

I can still remember the moment, dressed in my Lululemon yoga clothes, I had this visceral experience that felt like waves echoing around me, sending out the sonar that shift was afoot and a new sheriff was in town.

Moments before I had just finished a very harsh mental workout, the kind that used to take place in my head, and that consisted of me beating myself with dumbbells for how much I sucked... or kept me spinning in my head like in a spin class to nowhere, unable to gain any traction. Beaten down, I was just about ready to strip myself down completely and throw myself into what I call 'the muddy, all-consuming pool of suffering' aka the black hole of self-love, void of all self-love. But then something stopped me from flailing my body and soul into that nasty and all too familiar pool. Maybe it was the books I had been reading by authors like Napoleon Hill or Jack Canfield. Or the zillion interviews I had listened over the weeks prior given by successful people (really successful, which to me means spiritually, physically, emotionally and financially). Whatever finally clicked I stopped myself from a pattern that I had repeated over and over again in various ways my whole life... and said NO MORE! I give up ALL negative thinking and talking.

It's been two months, and I have to say giving up the negative thinking and talking addiction has changed my life. I am happier. I have more energy. Fantastic opportunities are coming my way that I could never have imagined. My life feels full, not busy. I am enjoying my life more, the one I am having right now. Situations that before would have caused me to spin, judge myself, over analyze, paralyze, whatever unproductive waste of energy I was engaged in, have become ways for me to love myself vs. hurt myself. If that sounds like something you could use too, I dare you to say those same 8 words and stick to it. You CAN change your entire life... in just 8 words.

• I only say nice things about myself. If there is something I don't like, I love myself through it. I admit I don't like it and then ask myself, "How can I change it. I focus on making ME the person I want to become.
• If I say something mean about me, I don't criticize myself for saying something mean (that's double negative thinking!). I notice it, realize that I am learning, and I choose different words.
• I make everything in my life as an opportunity to learn, realizing that no one but me asked me to be perfect and that is just plain ridiculous. I smile at being ridiculous.
• I don't compare myself to anyone else.
• I don't judge other people. If there is something in them I don't like, I ask "What is it about me that I don't really?" Then love that part of you.
• I don't gossip.
• If I don't have something nice to say about someone, I say nothing.
• I abstain from taking in any negative energy. I avoid negative news, conversations and people.
• I am not a pie in the sky Pollyanna. I am realistically optimistic woman who understands that my thoughts, words and actions create my reality (and I'd prefer a great one)

• Get A Freedom Buddy. Take the vow to be free from negative talk and thought with a friend, your partner, your daughter, your dog... someone that can be there to be a lifeline for you when you stumble and who can laugh with you along the way.
• Be Super Aware. Notice your energy every time you have a negative thought. What does your body feel like? Notice the energy coming out of your mouth when you have negative talk. What does it feel like, smell like, look like? Words and thoughts are energy. I guarantee once you start tapping into the toxicity of negative ones and their affect on you, you'll want to stop.
• Start and Do a Daily Practice. Mediate, chant, go for walks in nature, anything that boosts your energy fields up, that gets you out of just your head and into your heart and body. Any spiritual teacher will tell you, a daily practice is a must have. You can't afford not to take the time to have one. Your life depends on it.
• Be Super Aware of Success & Get Witnessed. Notice the changes that start to occur, because they will. Talk about your insights, successes, and shifts with your freedom buddy. Find others who have freed themselves or are in process and share with them. Being witnessed in this shift is hugely important.  

Inspiring Resources... we were never meant to take this journey alone, so give yourself some self-love and check out there inspiring books and teachers who can really help you give up that negative talk and thought for good.

Napoleon Hill -  Think and Grow Rich, 21st Century
Jack Canfield - The Secrets of Success


And for more ideas and dares on how to fall more in love with yourself, get your Free Madly in Love with ME Kit at http://www.madlyinlovewithme.com

It all came to me at a café on Friday when I decided to sit down with my notebook and journal my own journey of falling in love with Christine. I wanted to know, How did I do it? At what point did I know? And where am I at on this journey?

I totally expected to start the documentation of my self-love journey at the age of 30. After all that was the age at which I realized, due to the life changing events that followed my broken engagement, that I didn't really love me at all. But instead when I put pen to paper, I found myself traveling back in time to when I was a really little girl, like being five, then being 7, and then 10. It was like seeing myself through a looking glass, observing me, this little girl.

What I saw through the piles of stuffed animals, love of drawing and penchant for collecting everything, was her innocence, her happiness and her wonder of the magic of the world. I could literally see and feel what she felt and saw in her, in my, experience of the world. That's when the revelation hit me. OMG, I was born in love with myself, and in love with the world. I had it, I felt it, I was it. It was totally something that I came in with... but then something shifted. I began to see myself somewhere around the age of 11 when that beautiful love was cracked and shattered...  it began to be stolen away by people and situations that hurt me, chunks of love taken away, leaving these gaping holes inside me that I wouldn't go back to fill until the age of 30.

So first, I was mad! I had it, the self-love, totally and 100%. I really did love me. I really did love the world and everything in it. And then people hurt me... and with their actions, they stole my love. And if that was true for me, it was true for every person. We were all stealing each others self-love!  

And then I was sad! Wow, 19 years of living without that complete love of ME. I still was hugely successful without it - college, career, material stuff, so I lived totally oblivious to the fact that I was missing anything. It was like my own personal version of the Dark Ages. I saw clearly the events that had taken place, which had caused me to start building a force field around my heart... that layer upon layer had created an armor that not even I could penetrate. I saw how because I had felt unprotected, I had learned to protect myself. And I saw clearly that protection had kept me from having the unconditional love I craved... for myself, and with someone else for a long, long time.

And then I was excited! If this was all true, which I knew it to be, than what this all really meant was... I didn't have to learn to be in love with myself, I had to remember how to be in love with ME. And I started to see that how the choice at the age of 30 to put massive amounts of time and energy into healing those holes created by the love stealers and into taking down the armor and learning to let myself be loved, had in fact been the exact path that had gotten me to the first time in my life in which I could honestly say, I do really love me, and I did.

And if it was possible for me... it is possible for everyone.



If you want to fall even more in love with YOU, you can visit the self-love site I started called Madly in Love with ME.  You can download for free the Madly in Love with ME Guide, full of zany, yet proven, Love Tips, Love Adventures and Love Inspirations.  www.madlyinlovewithme.com

Zany, yet proven
Love Tip #18:  The Self-Love Serenade
Inspired by Amy from California

"On the way home from work, I started discussing (with myself) all the reasons I love Amy.  It was not exactly the same as the repetition, but saying all the reasons out loud felt great. By the end of my drive I was in tears. I realized that no other person I encounter in this life will ever be able to know or love all of me, not all of my years or stories or scars.  Not one other person will be able to appreciate everything it's taken to become exactly who I am right now. I found hundreds of reasons to love myself, and the only person who really could know them all or even NEEDS to know them all - is me.  It was a very powerful and  pivotal moment, completely shifting my beliefs about loving myself - I realized I was just scratching the surface."  -- Amy

The Self-Love Serenade:
It may sound a little crazy, but it's guaranteed to bring you love...


Love Fact: You've gotta know and own what you love about you!

What you need:
1. 30 minutes free from all other distractions
2. 30 minutes alone

The action:
1. Turn off all electronic devices - that means for real off.
2. Tell everyone else to go away - so take a walk, a drive, a bath, just do it alone
3. Start a conversation with yourself by saying, "Hi <insert name>. I am dying to know what you love about me. Can we talk?"
4. Begin saying out loud all the reasons you love you. "I love me because..." or "What I love about me is..." Say it, proclaim it, even sing it. 
5. Keep saying what you love about you until you feel some kind of breakthrough - you cry, your heart opens up, you laugh, something that indicates you are letting the love in.
6. Stop and let the love in. Feel how much you really do love you, and feel how much that love has to start with you.


If you are ready to fall even more in love with YOU, then visit the #1 self-love site this side of the internet and get your free Madly in Love with ME Guide, full of zany, yet proven, Love Tips, Love Adventures and Love Inspirations.  www.madlyinlovewithme.com
 

Okay, I know it sounds harsh, but it's the truth... settling in our relationships is stupid, and after spending a week talking about it on the radio, coaching on it with clients, counseling it to friends thinking of leaving their husbands, and remembering the years I myself settled, I have to just say it out loud for everyone to hear, "Let's all get this one statement straight in our heads and hearts, Settling is a dumb choice, don't do it!"

And okay, I get that just because it's dumb, doesn't stop us from settling. I know that better than most because I did it for 15 years. And I'm not alone, we've all settled at some point in our relationship. If you say you haven't, please write me a note because I want to know who your parents were so I can send them a gold star!

So the why... as far as I can deduce from my own escapades as well as those of my friends and clients, here are two common reasons why we settle:

1. We are too afraid to leave the relationship and ask for more. Instead we brainwash and bargain with ourselves. I call it Love Poker, in which we keep dealing and playing, staying in the relationship and the game, hoping that we will win back our chips, that we will get whatever we feel we are missing. We are too afraid to fold and walk away from the table, to end the relationship, so instead, we convince ourselves of crazy thoughts like, "Well, he's not always so bad" and "Maybe I am the crazy one to want these things. Maybe I am being unreasonable." We brainwash ourselves! Sure if you are harping on your mate cuz he's not the perfect housekeeper or the biggest breadwinner, then yes, get over yourself. But if you aren't getting the partnership, unconditional love and respect your heart and soul crave, "You deserve to have it, Period! Stop settling."

2. We are on the escalator to death.  We are on a mission to get to that next life stage -- marriage, babies, big house -- no matter who we have to settle for to get there. Our focus becomes on attaining the 'thing' vs. actually stopping and asking ourselves why it's really not showing up in our lives, and being real about whether it's actually what we want, or if we've fallen prey to the brainwashing of society that until we have it, we won't be happy. I've been there myself. When I turned 30, it was time to get married. I demanded an engagement and a ring. I got it, only to be broken up with six months later. It would have been a heck of lot less painful if I had just been honest that I was trying to marry this guy for all the wrong reasons, including beating my friends to the altar. It's demented, but it's true, and I know I am not the only one.

Which is what compelled me to start a life long love affair with me so that I could stop settling in love by learning to love ME first. After I got that straight in my head, love from another literally showed up on my doorstep when I wasn't expecting it in the form of a 6 foot 3 inch bald guy named Noah. What did I 'do' to make that happen? What can you do to make sure you don't settle in love? People always ask me this question, and while there are many layers to this, it all starts with two ME-Vows you have to make to you.

Vow #1.  I promise not to settle for less than my heart and soul - not my pocketbook, fear, ego, or parents -- really desire. I honor and respect myself so deeply that I only have relationships that do the same.

Vow #2. I promise to be honest with myself, always. Uncompromising, unwavering honesty, about my motivations, my actions and my reality. When I can't be honest, I will seek out people who can help me find Truth, and listen.

Not settling is a promise and a practice. It's something that you have to commit to and choose whenever the option to waver comes up. Here's what I tell myself whenever it seems hard or confusing... Remember that you were given a great gift, your life. Do you want to live it fully and be so happy that joy is streaming out of your ears, or do you want to struggle and suffer because you were too afraid to go after what your heart and soul craved and desired? Choose to live. It's not that life is too short - it's that life is too magical, fabulous and precious!

If you want that great love and partnership, be willing to be that love and partner yourself first, and then accept nothing less from another.

To start your ME-love affair today, visit http://madlyinlovewithme.com for a FREE self-love starter kit.