The Ask Sharon column as it appeared in The Area News on Friday 23 October, 2015.
Following is the full version of the column featured in The Area News.
LAST week Maggie asked:
“I’ve been divorced for a while and it’s difficult to meet new people. How can I find a partner to share my life with?”
The gist of my response was that if you take care of your relationship with yourself, your relationships with others will take care of themselves.
For part two of this epic topic, consider yourself enrolled in Self-Love 101.
Self-love is the linchpin of all self-help philosophy. The key is putting it into practice. If you do, you can attain not only harmonious relationships, but good health, prosperity and generally a happy life.
Self-approval and self-acceptance go hand in hand with self-love. If we do things for approval from others, we are only setting ourselves up for heartache. At a whim our self-esteem and moods can be affected by what is going on around us. Constantly reacting to things people say or do, or circumstances, is futile.
A pre-requisite of loving the self is identifying what makes you happy…but anything external will only provide a short-term burst of fulfillment. So it’s about finding out what makes your heart sing. Outside influences have no bearing. Has it been a while since you asked yourself, “What makes me happy?”
Tips on how to get your daily dose of self-love:
- Nourish yourself (eating healthily, exercising, taking time-out).
- Speak kindly to yourself (ensuring your inner dialogue is always positive).
- Try not to overcommit (Don’t say “yes” when you really mean “no”).
That inner dialogue in particular is worth paying attention to. It’s an indication of whether we’re engaging in self-love or not. Is it kind, loving and empowering or berating, judgemental and full of “shoulds”?
It would be remiss of me to write about this topic without deferring to the one who made self-love available to the masses. The central theme of Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life is loving the self by changing the way you think. It has sold 40 million copies…now that’s a lot of loving!
The premise is, if you can learn to love yourself – regardless of the experiences you’ve had – you can change your life for the better. Louise declares that, “Life is really very simple. What we give out, we get back. What we think about ourselves becomes the truth for us.”
For some this can be frightening, for others liberating. But it makes sense to harness that power to create the reality that we truly desire.
While writing this, I made myself a cup of my favourite tea coincidentally called “Love”. It just goes to show that it can be the little things we do for ourselves that really make the difference.
Send your questions for Sharon to editor@areanews.com.au
Don’t want to ask a question by email? Simply complete the contact form on this blog. Use the message box for your question and it will come directly to me. Only first names will be used unless you complete the form as Anonymous. Ask away…you may be pleasantly surprised by what the cards reveal.
You might also be interested in…
A previous column titled Enjoy Every Waking Hour, is also about finding love with a new partner.
A little extra information…
In Meditations to Heal Your Life, Louise Hay takes us even further into how to love the self.
“I treat myself as if I am someone who is deeply loved. All kinds of events come and go; yet, through it all, my love for myself is constant. This is not being vain or conceited. People who are vain or conceited have a lot of self-hatred covered over by a layer of ‘I’m better than you.’
Self-love is simply appreciating the miracle of my own being. When I really love myself, I cannot hurt myself, and I cannot hurt another person. To me, the answer to world peace is unconditional love. It begins with self-acceptance and self-love.
I no longer wait to be perfect in order to love myself. I accept myself exactly as I am, right here and now.”
Affirmations:
“I love and approve of myself.”
“My love is powerful.”
“Love makes my world go ‘round.”
