Appreciate Yourself
Happy Truth Thursday! (and first of the month)
Today's post is about taking the time out to appreciate yourself.
I can honestly say that for most of my life I have focused about 50% of my thoughts on what I haven't done or accomplished, 40% on missed opportunities and the 10% leftover to briefly congratulate myself in the moment that I have achieved something that I wanted to achieve.
The problem with this is that I have been unsatisfied with myself most of the time. Given that 90% of the time my thoughts are centred around how not-enough I am, this isn't surprising. However, now that I have resolved to learn to
SEE MYSELF AS GOD SEES ME.
TREAT MYSELF AS GOD TREATS ME AND
LOVE MYSELF AS GOD LOVES ME
I am learning different approaches to change that thought composition. It started when I went back to reread the post reminding us that Learning Is A Process. In that post it says to:
"Write down a list of your accomplishments, lessons learnt and the new good habits you have formed. Thank God for each of them and each time you successfully apply a new lesson, acknowledge your doing well and thank God for it. Each time you struggle to apply a piece of knowledge, ask God for help and keep trying. One day it will surely become a part of you."
So I wrote down a list of things that I had done consistently for the last six months and I realised that I could write down about four or five things that I have done more or less every day (or every week, depending on the thing) without fail. I forced myself to stop and appreciate those things. I refused to allow thoughts along the lines of: "but you aren't exercising properly" or "you are still eating stuff you are not meant to be eating" or "it still takes you forever to get your work done". Those are the things that I had been listening to that got me to a place in which I was so unhappy with myself and unable to see what I was doing or adding to the world.
I took it a step further to value all those things that I had been doing because they are indeed valuable. I may not have one hundred thousand people subscribed to my blog, but I know that every Thursday and Sunday I show up with my blog posts and at least one person reads it and appreciates it. It doesn't matter how many. It just matters that I have shown up, even on Christmas and New Years day.
It feels really good when you stop and appreciate all that you have done. We spend time appreciating other people but we hardly do the same for ourselves. We would never spend hours and hours and hours of the day making our friends feel bad about what they may or may not have accomplished. We encourage them. We remind them of their small and large victories. We celebrate with them and we let them know that we appreciate them. True, we may not do this all the time, but we do do it some of the time and at the very least we don't make them feel bad about themselves, at least not intentionally.
So let's start doing this for ourselves.
LET'S APPRECIATE ALL THAT WE DO.
Let's say well done for being a good friend or smiling at a stranger or going out of our way to help others. Let's feel good for being there for our families even when we are tired and supporting our sisters and brothers when they feel down. Let's say well done for taking care of ourselves and choosing to go home early because we were clearly tired or putting in that bit of extra time to help someone else out. Whatever it is that we do, let us try and celebrate ourselves a lot more.
For the Month of March, give yourself a weekly pat on the back. There is nothing too small as everything you do adds value to the universe in some way shape or form.
Dear [ Your name],
Well done for being such a great person this week. You may not have accomplished all that you set out to do, but you did make a difference one way or the other this week. Good job for _____, _______, ______. Well done to you.
I love you very much,
[Your Name]
AS YOU APPRECIATE YOURSELF, DON'T FORGET TO REMIND OTHERS TO APPRECIATE THEMSELVES TOO! LET'S MAKE MARCH A #SELFAPPRECIATIONMONTH.
Love,
O.F.P.
1.3.18