For me to understand how I could love myself when there were parts of my body I simply didn’t like, meant I had to change my perspective. To do this I began looking at myself with what I call The Self-Love Scale. This is one of the strategies I used to learn to love and accept myself, and I hope it will help you too.
There are different areas of a person when we speak of self-love, and they can include your physical appearance and your body image, and also your self-worth, the way you behave, the way you treat others and personality. Let’s make up an example here based on only physical traits. Imagine you have a scale and on one end of this scale is the one thing you love most about yourself physically, and on the other end of this scale is the one thing you dislike most about yourself. Every other part of you falls somewhere on this scale in order, depending on how much or little you like those parts. Here’s a fictitious example of what a self-love scale for someone might look like with number 1 as your favourite thing, and number 10 as your least favourite:
But how you look at this part of you that comes in last on your scale is what matters. If you can learn to accept that something must take up this place, much like the last runner in a running race, and see it for what it is and realise it is not as bad as you think, then life becomes that much easier and happier. When you live in a fear-based mind set then naturally all your focus goes on everything you fear – the things you don’t like, the things you wish were different, and the things that are on the bottom of your self-love scale. But when you live with a love-based mind set then you spend more time focusing on all the wonderful things about yourself, and you pay attention to the things on the top of your scale – your favourite parts. Once this happens you no longer feel the need and desire to strive to be something else. You can recognise that the best parts on your scale are much more important than the worst parts. If you can start to see this Self-Love Scale for yourself, ask yourself what would happen if you were to fix the thing you least liked about yourself? If you were to change it to something better, another part must then take up the end spot on your scale. You will never ever get to a point where you are happy, because you will continue forever trying to perfect yourself, when in fact you can’t because something must always take that last place on your scale. If you had 10 runners in a running race, and worked really hard on improving the slowest runner and made him faster, then it doesn’t change the fact that there is still going to be the last place runner, it will just be a different runner – number nine will be bumped back to number 10. If you spend most of your time focusing on the last place thing on your scale, it loses its perspective and in your mind it becomes a lot worse than how others see it. Like a running race again, everyone else sees all 10 runners – the fastest right through to the slowest. Chances are their focus is on who is winning the race. But when your focus becomes fear-based within your own self you lose sight of the whole race and who is winning, simply because you spent the whole race watching the person coming last. It’s not about fixing your least favourite part. It becomes more about perspective when you can understand and grasp the idea of the Self-Love Scale, because when you are living in a fear-based mind set all you focus on are the things you know aren’t good enough – the last place runner in your running race. But when you flip that perspective to a love-based mind set, then instead you focus on the things you love about yourself – the first and second place runners in your running race. Look at your flaws and be grateful for them, because they are the things that make your best bits stand out. Be proud of your flaws because without being proud of them you will never be perfect, because you will always be trying too hard to be something else, trying too hard to be someone who is less perfect than the real you. Go and love your best bits! Kerri van de Loo xx
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Kerri van de Loo - Mindfulness coach, Personal Trainer, Nutrition Coach & SELF-LOVE COACH:Join our Online Wellness Club here: https://www.bodyessence.co.nz/wellness-club.html Categories
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