How to Love Yourself

So why is it so difficult to love yourself?

For a large part of our lives we develop habits to protect ourselves, to comply with expectations and to control what happens to us. If you've received messages from significant others in your life that you're not 'good enough,' 'smart enough,' or 'attractive enough,' fear and avoidance become the essence of your life as you try and survive in what is perceived to be a hostile world. Basically, you don't love yourself because you don't view yourself as being loveable.

Consider this: If one person on this planet is loveable, then we're all loveable. Why? Just because we're human. Just because we live and breathe and (mostly) have good intentions. After all, you don't have to be perfect to be loveable. Who is? You just have to be yourself. Maybe smile a little more. Lighten up. Be more accepting. Let go. Love your heart out. Give.

But even if you don't, you're still the only you in the universe. You still have a unique purpose and a reason for being here. Finding out what that is, is a lifelong journey of personal discovery - and you might as well love yourself on the way.

If you want to change something in your life, like your perception of yourself, it takes courage to step into the fear of change and dare to imagine that you are in fact, 'good enough.'

Benjamin Button brings a thought-provoking insight to the notion of how to love yourself towards the end of the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. He says, 'For what it's worth, it's never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit... Start whenever you want.. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that stop you. I hope you feel things that you have never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life that you're proud of and if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.'

'Nuff said!

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