“How can I stop feeling bad about myself?” you want to know.
Stop doing things that make you feel bad about yourself, and start doing things that make you feel good about you instead.
It's pretty much common sense, right?
It the same as if you know something gives you a tummy ache but you keep doing it and you keep getting tummy aches.
It's not really a surprise, is it?
“How can I stop getting tummy aches?” you want to know.
The common-sense reply is: “Stop doing the thing that causes tummy aches.”
In other words: LOVE YOURSELF.
But it doesn't feel so easy to do, does it?
Because we impose criteria and conditions on who is lovable and who is not.
And they're all nonsense!
“How can I love myself if my parents didn’t love me?” you want to know.
“How can I love myself if I shout at my kids?”
“How can I love myself if I’ve perpetrated a crime?”
“How can I love myself if I don’t have a partner/ if I’m a failure at business/ if my skin looks like this/ if I let people down/ if I hurt others/ if my penis is too small/ if my breasts are droopy/ if I’m too fat/ if I’m too thin/ if I’m not clever/ if I’m not normal/ if my best is not enough?”
I ask you,
“How can you not?”
Remember this as you go forth.
Any time you do something that makes you feel bad later, it’s because you didn’t love yourself in the moment you chose to do it.
Not loving yourself is both the cause and the effect of the things you wish you didn't do.
We do things that make us feel unloved, in order to avoid the pain of feeling unloved.
What?!
That just doesn't make any sense.
How about we just stop, and love ourselves instead?
Whatever you think is wrong with you, is wrong.
You are loveable. Just as you are.
If you were unconditional in your love for you, what would you say to yourself about the parts of you that you fear are unlovable?
