Practice Loving Myself
It’s amazing how many opportunities there are during the day to love myself. Almost moment to moment I am voting on loving myself or not, then loving myself or judging myself for the previous moment.
I did the lesson Sunday at Unity of Indy. I basically tell the story of my life as it relates to different skills I have practiced along the way. Skills like my guitar playing, my singing, writing, relationship skills, accepting and giving criticism skills and on and on. Afterwards, because I have delved into my past on stage, I tend to dwell and not always on the good stuff.
My tendency is to dwell on those things I did that I consider wrong; where I have transgressed or wronged another- a great opportunity to love myself. So, I remind myself I did the best I could, it’s okay the past is gone and what’s important is how I behave and feel in this moment. And I do this over and over and over. I usually have quite a bit of time as I’m usually driving home from wherever I have just played, spoke or both, as in this Sunday.
We stopped for something to eat on the way home (my son drove me to and from the gig). I got barbeque, which could be construed as loving myself because I love the taste, or could be construed as not loving myself because my blood pressure is a little high and that stuff is not good for my health. I was hungry, scarfed it down and then felt guilty for doing so, which is definitely not loving myself.
The clarity of the guilt was easier to see and deal with, so, with each moment I felt and heard myself express guilt, I released it and reminded myself what a mindful healthy guy I was and that I was treating myself healthier all the time, while still allowing for treats once in a while. It took almost an hour of this exercise for the guilt to subside and my loving myself to win out. Practice, practice.
A few years ago I started the practice of telling myself in the mirror each morning “I love you.” I think it’s made quite a difference, in not only how I treat myself, but others. There was a time I really hated myself, and everyone else. An hour of guilt feels like quite the improvement to me. Practice, practice.