Love Yourself First

When I first decided to write this post, all I had was a fun playlist idea. I have listened to it numerous times while cooking dinner with Ben, both of us really enjoying ourselves. But when I sat down to actually write the post, I just stared at the blank page. What can I say about loving yourself that hasn’t already been said a thousand times?

I turned on the playlist and began flipping through my journal to try to find anything that related back to this topic. I know I wrote about it in the past, because this topic is a really important one to me. But if it’s so important, then why can’t I think of anything to say?

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

Oscar Wilde

The Oscar Wilde quote was the first one that I came across. Something just clicked. The reason I can’t think of anything to say is because I am still trying to figure it out for myself. Loving yourself is a difficult concept for me to wrap my head around. But when I really sat down to think about what it means to me, it comes back to the concept of enoughness.

I like to listen to podcasts when I run. Lately I have been listening to The Living Experiment Podcast, and I came across this one titled Enough. In it they ask a simple question: Can you quantify enough?

Scarcity & Fear

When most people talk about scarcity, they are talking about physical scarcity. Not enough money to pay rent, put food on the table, and fix my car at the same time. What I am talking about is emotional scarcity – the feeling of not being enough. That concept is not as easy to quantify. Enough of what varies between individuals I have noticed, but it boils down to the same basic emotion. Fear.

I have learned three major concepts in therapy about emotions. #1 Emotions are involuntary. #2 Emotions love themselves. #3 When we change our attention, we can change the emotion.

Okay let’s break it down. Emotions just happen during our day to day lives. The point of an emotion is to bring your attention to something. It shouldn’t take over you. (Easier said than done in my case.) Ask yourself what the emotion is trying to tell you.

Have you ever loved something so much that you couldn’t stop thinking about it? To the point you call it obsessed, maybe? That’s how emotions are. They get tunnel vision. I am sure you have heard the phrase “seeing red.” Well I have actually experienced that, and it’s not a pretty place to be in. But good emotions act the same way. So how can we get more of the good and less of the bad? By changing the bad emotion to a good emotion.

Say what? I can change my emotion. Well how the hell do I do that? Let’s think about this. Everything you feel is a result of just 2 things: the pictures you make in your head and the words you say to yourself. Love is a feeling. I can show myself love by making myself feel as though I am enough and that I have enough. I have to feel as though I am not in a place of scarcity; I am in a place of abundance and worthiness. But in order to do that I need to face that basic emotion, fear.

You don’t have to hustle for your worth. You are born with it.

Viola Davis

Emotional fear really is a foreboding of joy. It sucks it right out of us, and it is so easy to run away. Think about all the fun you’re missing out on!

Neural Pathways

I know it sounds sort of “woo woo,” but for some unknown-to-me reason, when I see a saying that I want to resonate with me I feel compelled to write it down. Some call them affirmations, and they are written all over my journal. I knew there was something to this concept of repeating positive things to yourself on a daily basis. I just couldn’t figure out what the point was.

The point, I have only recently just realized, is that if I can change the words that I say to myself, then I can change the way I feel about myself. But (and this is big but) you have to do it over and over and over again. You have to create a new neural pathway to your brain. You have to wear the carpet down on the main path in your house. Make sense?

That’s what affirmations are for. They can be used to rewrite the things you say to yourself, in turn giving you feelings of love and enoughness. A few of my favorite affirmations to say to myself are:

• I love myself unconditionally because it is imperative to my health and happiness.
• I love how easy it is to be present with myself.
• I am worthy. I am deserving. I am beauty.
• I love how I bring light into the lives of others.
• I am enough.

When I first started saying affirmations to myself, I felt like an idiot. I didn’t think it would work, but my therapist said it would. She has been right up to this point, so I gave it a go. Now, I get it. I’m hooked. I will ride on the “woo woo” train.

Tim Ferriss says to “ask yourself throughout the day, are you giving yourself pats on the back or papercuts?” And who doesn’t love a good pat on the back, or a gold star even? Try it out, see if it works, and keep me posted.

I hope you enjoy the Love Yourself First playlist!

XOXO – Jenna