Try This For a Week For Greater Self Love

Today is about our emotional wellness and the practice of self-love affirmations. I found a good one on Pinterest I'm trying out.

“I honor my body as my sacred temple

I send love and light to every cell, every

molecule and every atom of my beautiful

physical being I open my heart to

loving myself with every breath

I let peace wash over me now.”

I challenge anyone who reads this to meditate on and repeat this mantra to yourself each morning. Wherever you are, take a deep breath and repeat this a few times if need be.

I liked this one because it didn’t focus on beauty as we as a society see it. It says to honor your body, not like others I've seen affirmations that focus on the physical beauty but this one doesn’t.

My own self-love muscle is quite out of use. In the past, I distinctly remember looking in the mirror and hating what I saw. It is a battle every day to love myself. I keep telling myself I deserve love and I deserve to love myself, but the practice of this has been left wanting.

I know years of hating myself will not just go away and it will take years to shake them off and start to love myself again. I wonder sometimes if I have ever loved myself in my lifetime. I’m sure as a child I never thought about hating myself. I wonder when it all began. I assume it was during my teen or pre-teen years when I started noticing the models I saw in magazines, and that I didn’t look like them.

I remember by the time I started high school I was starting to get overweight. My mother decided it would be a good idea for my birthday to buy me a Slim-Fast bundle. One that has like a weeks worth of shakes and a shaker, I think. In a way, I was pleased to get this, the hope for change was limitless in my mind. But I never could stick to those changes so I fell further and further into the hatred I had for myself and my weakness. I just didn't have enough self-control I suppose. The same remains today. I'm overweight and unhealthy and still have no self-control. But I'm still trying to love myself anyway.

Things have gotten better healthwise, I have gotten healthier and dedicated my time and energy to being a healthier version of myself. Even though some of the weight has come off I still have trouble with the reflection I see in the mirror. But it is a work in progress and I will continue to work on it because I deserve to be able to look in the mirror and actually like what I see.

I have been doing this affirmation for the past week and it’s gotten easier. Why is this so hard? Because it’s hard to say it when you don’t feel it. I don’t feel it, though I’m getting there. A funny thing about this challenge is how when repeating the mantra I felt so uncomfortable. Physically saying these things was difficult. No matter how difficult, look at yourself in the mirror and say this mantra out loud. Let me know how it goes in the comments. What negative comments went through your mind as you looked at yourself? Next time try to think of a positive compliment to give yourself.