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Through loving and accepting oneself fully and completely, we pave the way to self mastery.

You know for most of my life I have struggled with low self esteem and feelings of lack. So I would like to share with you what I have learnt and the tools that have helped me over the years.

It is said that we cannot fully love and accept others until we master it for ourselves.  I think a lot of people find it easier to love and accept others but struggle within themselves.

We tend to find fault or criticise the way we look, talk, second guessing ourselves with the ‘should have’s’, could have’s and wishing we were something other than what we are.  Ever searching for perfection in ourselves, when in actual fact, we are unique and whole just as we are. Having a healthy self respect and self worth for ourselves should be the norm, but quite often it’s not, and without it we never quite meet up with the expectations of how we envision our lives. Why do we do this to ourselves and what can we do to bring  more love and acceptance into our lives? A part of the how we do this is through self nurturance, maintaining a healthy self respect and honouring our life journey thus far.

What image do you see when you look in the mirror at your ‘self’?

Firstly why do we do this to ourselves? Well mostly it stems from our initial conditioning – the words and actions relayed to us in our childhood.  It is interesting, that if someone was continually shown love and acceptance as a child, normally they don’t seem to have self worth issues as an adult. How come and why does this happen?

As a child we haven’t yet developed our rationale aspect of our brain and so everything we are told goes straight into our mind as gospel. We soak up everything like a sponge, whatever is projected at us, or that we are immersed in from the world around us.  By the time we do form this aspect of our rational mind, the programmes have already been set in place. We believe these things to be our truth; we act and re-act out these situations, running our lives on automatic pilot.  Have you noticed – we can be still throwing tantrums as an adult!

Then as we grow up and become an adult, we may start to notice some conflicts in our belief system and the way we act. This is sometimes called our shadow self. We may start to have feelings of discomfort, disruption and dis-ease in our lives. We seem to keep repeating the same old unhealthy patterns over and over again. We start to feel depressed, unhappy & unfulfilled.  We feel like we are stuck and have no way of escaping our endless negative thoughts.  We find it difficult to enjoy a life of joy and happiness. Something just doesn’t feel comfortable about our life anymore…is this how we want to be living our life?  We just want to be happy and healthy and live a fulfilling life.

But there is hope…..we just need to first be aware that we do have choice to implement change. We now have a deeper understanding that these old programmes are not who we truly are, but are only an illusionary belief created when we were just a child, unable to make rationale choices. We can now take our power back and create a life of loving acceptance.

So now this is where we get the opportunity to challenge those old patterns and go on a journey of inner self discovery.  Once we reflect and discover on the truth of why we have become this person, we are able to re-discover the authentic truth of the beauty of ourselves.  To make the unconscious belief conscious, is a beautiful unfolding of awareness and a very powerful one at that! It does not mean you have to re-live the full situation, but to just allow the awareness of why it’s been there, so you can move forward with your will and power of more fulfilling choices.

So here are some things that you can do right now to bring you into a place of love and self acceptance.

Seek professional help: If we feel that we are really struggling with our life; then find a qualified psychotherapist or transpersonal therapist who can assist you to gently and lovingly rediscover what has been holding you back, and allow you to shift into a place of knowing and back into the driver’s seat of your life.

Workshops on Inner Processes: Attend some workshops that assist with transpersonal type processing. As you reflect inward, you can make the unconscious patterns conscious, and it is amazing the amount of shifts that can occur from just this type of reflective journeying. It also gives you the skills and tools to assist yourself through difficult times in your life, which is very liberating.  I will be running a few of these type workshops next year, so make sure you check them out through facebook or webpage!

Gratitude diary: Each day choose at least 3 things that you are grateful for and write: ‘I am truly blessed to have……..because………’ or ‘I am so happy and grateful for ………because…….’ or ‘I am truly grateful for ……..because……..’, or ‘I with all my heart, thank you for……..because…….’ Then after you have written them down, read them out to yourself and say thank you, thank you, thank you after each blessing.  Once you start, you will start to feel so much better about not only your life but yourself.  Where you put your intent energy must follow, so as you focus on what you are grateful for, more of those things come into your life.  Try it…..it works!

Take note of your achievements: This is a great exercise in appreciating and honouring your life journey up until now. Take a look at what has made you the special person you are today. So often we forge through our lives without stopping and reflecting on how much we have already achieved and how far we have come. When you stop and really reflect on this, you will be so amazed and feel very proud of yourself. The way to do this is to either talk with a close friend who can mirror back to you what they have noticed about you and your life, and the achievements you have accomplished. Or you can sit down quietly and write down all the things you have accomplished over your life or last few years.  It can be anything and at the time might not seem much to you, but write them down anyway. When you read it back you will see a pattern of your achievements and feel so much better in yourself, about yourself and your life.

Morning love routine: Each day start with at least one loving process that inspires you and fills you with love and joy. Maybe it is to read a few powerful affirmations, go for a beach walk, do some gentle yoga stretches, sit for 10 minutes doing a mindful meditation; whatever gets you off to a positive start of your day. This sets the mood for your day.

Daily Nurturing: Through self nurturance, we gain a healthy self respect for our body and our life. Choose at least one thing in your day that you can do that brings love, joy and fulfilment to you. What do you love to do? Whatever that is make sure you do one thing each day that makes your heart sing!  One for me that would be grabbing a coffee at a coffee shop, taking my journal and writing out some plans for my week.  I love doing that and if it’s with a friend even better!

We have to look after this human vessel as best we know how, without good health we have nothing.  Think about it.

By feeding it healthy and nutritional ‘live’ food and beverages…..hmmm maybe I might have to give up that coffee!! haha, but seriously even if you just do your best to make the percentage of intake as healthy as possible.  I like to get at least 70% of my dietary intake as healthy, but hey if you can do better even better! Having a few treats is nice to enjoy to. And the secret is to not give yourself a hard time if you do eat or drink something you are not proud of, just enjoy it and be in the moment.  Remember to hydrate yourself too with plenty of clean filtered water.

Also choose to do some sort of exercise, be it walking, running, going to the gym a couple times a week, bike riding, yoga, swimming – whatever takes your fancy. By moving your divine body, you will feel the benefits pretty quickly AND feel better about yourself. It will also help you to ground yourself and get in touch with your body. Your body will love you for it!

 Create a goal plan: This is always such a wonderful way to assist us in feeling like we have some personal control over where and what it is we truly want in our lives. Otherwise we are like a boat without a rudder – being thrashed around by life’s circumstances, instead of guiding ourselves gently towards our dreams. This brings about a feeling of acceptance.

Maybe do some mind mapping, I find them easy to do and very helpful. Once we have set the goal, the secret is to allow it to be, not holding onto an outcome.  Set it forth into the world; take some action steps to getting it out there, but then enjoy the journey!  It is in the journey that we actually find untold golden gems. Watch  opportunities present themselves to you. Sometimes we can be taken on an incredible ride into the unknown, creating exciting and unexpected new directions for us.  In this process of letting go and observing our journey, we get to create our inner most desires for ourselves.

And last of all forgive yourself and others:

We can hold a lot of dense unloving energy from un-forgiveness, so set yourself free from this. Here is a beautiful process you can do each day; Prayer for forgiveness…… Ho’Oponopono

So I do hope this has helped you and that you can take on some of these tips for improving your sense of self worth, self love and self acceptance. Even if you started doing just one of these and commit to it every day, you will quickly feel the benefits.

Your deeper feelings within you will shift to one of feeling more love and acceptance for YOU!

           You are beautiful and divine and I love you…..

           Until next time, from my heart to yours Trish xx