Your Ad Here


Web advertising works. Click here for more details.

May/June 2007 Living Now
I Love Myself: Steps to Nurturing Self Love

by Rita Loyd

Self love is valuable. It nurtures peace, happiness, health, wholeness, healing and empowerment. Follow these simple steps to nurturing love for your self.

Decide that you want self love in your life. Then explore what it is. What it isn't. What it looks like. How it feels.

Examine the relationship that you have with yourself. How do you talk to yourself, treat yourself and view yourself? Is it with gentle compassion or is it with criticism and judgment?

Learn from teachers. Read, search the Internet. Find a workshop. Observe people who are happy.

Give yourself permission to express yourself creatively. Creative expression is healing because it allows you to get in touch with the real you. Allow yourself to create from a deep and honest place from within.

Don't be ashamed of your past. You are a human being who has survived many experiences.

Look inward and examine your life with compassion instead of judgment. See what you believe and know why you believe it.The more questions you ask, the more you can learn. The more you learn, the more you can understand, forgive, love, heal and grow.

Forgive your mistakes. When we can look at our mistakes and understand their reasoning, we are then able to find the compassion to forgive them. And when we are able to forgive our mistakes and the mistakes of others, we then are able to let go of the pain that those mistakes once made us feel.

Look for the message of your emotions.  Are they revealing to you your wounded self that needs your time, attention and truth to heal?

Examine your coping skills. Have they matured since childhood or have they become a source for problems? It might be time to evolve the techniques we use to cope.

Be patient with yourself and your rate of progress.  Self love is a gradual process.

Check in with yourself every day. Ask "What do I need? What am I neglecting?"

Rita Loyd, author of Expressions of Self Love and creator of the DVD In Search of Self Love, is a writer and painter of nurturing art. Visit www.nurturingart.com to see her art, affirmations and greeting cards. Email rita@nurturingart.com or call 256-880-3935.