Love Yourself Enough

What is enough? The Oxford dictionary tells us that enough means

• as much or as many as required
• as much or as many of something as required
• to the required degree or extent

I love the last points description as it pertains to loving yourself enough. So I thought I’d expand on that somewhat and let’s explore what it actually means.

If I say to you, love yourself to the required degree or extent, how would you complete that sentence?

I would say, love yourself to the degree that you fully align with your worth and to the extent that people around you see that love for yourself.

I’ve said this so many times, but as human beings we’re always drawn to the negative. So to say I love myself, immediately we think of being boastful, of being ‘full of ourselves’ whatever that is supposed to mean! And of course pride comes to mind. Again, when we think of pride, we think of it in a negative way. But why can’t we be proud of ourselves? Why can’t we feel confident enough to show others that we love ourselves? The answer is that we are afraid – we are afraid of rejection if someone sees you in this negative light.

But we need to ask ourselves, why do we believe that loving yourself is negative. Is it because of what has been programmed into your very DNA from the time you entered this world. Programmed by authority figures to whom you looked for guidance, recognition and validation in your younger informative years? Absolutely, it is! It’s an old archaic outlook that has been carried over for generation after generation. The interpretation of loving oneself is vanity, when you see life through the eyes of people who have come before us. These people who have implanted these thoughts into our very existence, even without us even knowing it.

When you love yourself, you open yourself up to a life of joy and abundance. You open yourself up to all the amazing possibilities that exist within you and around you. Life is full of possibilities, full of opportunities. Yet, how many of us deny ourselves these possibilities and opportunities? And the reason we do this, is because we’re told that we can’t put ourselves first. That we always have to give someone else the opportunity. That to ‘want’ something for ourselves and then actually going ahead and claiming it for ourselves, is to be selfish, self-centred and downright egotistical. How much do we blame the ego for wanting what is best for us? How much do we blame the ego for making us aware of the importance of loving ourselves?

We’re always told that the ego is bad. We need to do everything in our power to overcome the ego! But I’m here to tell you that you need your ego. It is who you are. It is bound to you just as your personality and it works really hard to bring to you, the very best of every aspect of your life. It’s what gives you the courage to stand up for yourself and not shy away from what you want. You cannot deny your ego, neither should you.

It is only when you find yourself taking away from someone, their opportunity to learn and to grow, that your ego is working against you. That’s where you’re saying to yourself, I can do it much better, therefore if you just allow me to do it for you, you’ll have a better outcome. But of course that person won’t have any outcome at all, because you have denied them the experience. And that’ when you need to check your ego and understand that you’re sitting in judgement and then take immediate action to realign, to adjust your thinking and your interaction with that person.

I appeal to you today, to focus on loving yourself enough. Enough to bring you peace. Enough to make you feel connected to yourself. Enough to show others around you what they are worth. Enough to acknowledge your own worth. Love yourself to the extent that your loves resonates out from yourself into each and every interaction that you have with others and yourself. Love yourself to the extent that it shines through in your behaviours and it shines through in everything that you do.

Give it try and let me know how your life begins to change – because you know….it will!