With all of the turmoil, bad news and unknowns that surround us every day in our world, with all of the stress over money and the increased cost of every basic essential in our lives, with all of the shortages and struggles to even find the things we need and the things we took for granted as being easily accessible, with all of the worries that we face every single day, the thought of self reflection, healing and self love all seem like laughable concepts during these uncertain times, but I feel they are just as important as ever. Even if you have to force yourself to stop and check in with yourself, it is important to do so each and every day!
What are you blessed with? Every day provides a new opportunity to take a look at your life and really see the blessings that are around you. For me, I am blessed with a secure job that allows me to provide a home for my children and thankfully that job was not impacted by this pandemic. I am thankful for the love I have for my family and my friends and even more thankful for the love that I receive from them. I am thankful for the warmer weather, the sunshine and all of the hope that summer brings.
Look at your strengths, what are they? What do you offer the world and what do you offer to yourself? I am compassionate, empathetic, kind, honest, and loyal. I offer the world the happiest version of myself as much as I possibly can, which is not always easy. I offer myself forgiveness for the times I fall short.
Look at the things that you need to work on to heal yourself, what are they? I forever struggle with patience. When I want something, I want it now - even if I know it's something that is going to take time to progress. Patience is something I continue and will always need to continue to work on. All good things come from patience, hard work and perseverance and when I don't remind myself of this often my lack of patience becomes my biggest weakness. Not only in achieving my long term goals, but also in my everyday life.
Communicating my needs and expectations in a healthy manner. For the longest time and due to many reasons that are better left for another post, I bottled up my wants, needs and feelings so deep that I just stopped feeling them. During my journey to self love, I vowed that I was going to learn to heal this aspect of myself the most. I have made small baby steps over the past few years, which partly belongs in the thankful category, but I feel this will also be something I need to actively work on every day. I regularly fall short here as well, but I am now at a point that I recognize when I do fall short in this area of my life. While I don't always know how to overcome this, I can at least recognize when it's happening.
Trust, insecurity and letting go of trying to control the things I have no control over! Still haven't figured out this one yet, but it's certainly another aspect of myself that I'm starting to recognize. Maybe that's the first step in working through it. When you are able to recognize a negative pattern within yourself, you might be able to find a way through it someday too.
Look at the steps you can take to heal and love yourself, what are they? Self reflecting on the above and assessing where I am, how far I have come and where I need to go from here. Prayer, lots and lots of prayer!! Connecting with nature and doing the things I love the most - gardening, camping, walking, reading or whatever it takes to turn negative energy into something positive and peaceful. Learning to accept the past and learning to leave the past in the past. Learning to forgive often, especially myself, love hard even on the days where it's hard to even love myself, and laugh as often as I can.
I feel a person can truly begin to heal and find happiness by being honest and open with themselves, self reflecting on what is most important to them each and every day - what is working and what isn't working - and finding ways to work towards that happiness. It is not always easy and there are many days that I forget to do this myself, especially with everything else going on in the world right now, but I always feel more grounded when I do!
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