This is Day 2 of the 15-Day Affirmation Challenge held in July 2014, where we practice positive affirmations for 15 days. The challenge is now over but you can do the tasks in your own time. Visit the overview page for all the challenge tasks.
Dear everyone, welcome to Day 2 of our 15-Day Affirmation Challenge! :D
Here is the overview of all the posts for the challenge so far:
- Affirmation Challenge announcement and signup details: 15-Day Affirmation Challenge | 380 Participants!
- Affirmation Challenge Day 1 [New Beginning] | 33 Comments
Let’s move to Day 2’s task, which is about…
Day 2: [Self-Love]
![Affirmation Wallpaper, [Self-Love]: “I love myself unconditionally.”](https://personalexcellence.co/files/affirmation-self-love.jpg)
Today’s affirmation: “I love myself unconditionally.”
How many of us have carried self-hating thoughts before? Consider the following:
I hate myself.
I suck.
I’m so bad at this, I can die.
I wish I was born different.
I’m so slow/clumsy/stupid/[insert negative adjective]. I wish I had someone else’s brains/body/looks/ability/etc.
I hate [XXX] about myself.
I wish I were someone else.
If you have, you’re not alone. I used to carry strong self-hating thoughts, many of which were subconscious. When I was a kid, these self-hating thoughts were of myself as a person. (Many of these thoughts, I was not conscious of them — I would only realize them later on when I was older and referred to my personal journals, where I wrote about hating myself and wishing I was different.)
As I grew up and became more self-aware, these self-hating thoughts changed — they became more targeted, where I would dislike certain aspects of myself (as opposed to my whole self). While it may seem like hating parts of yourself is better than hating your whole self, the truth is that these thoughts are all of the same nature — they consist of hate for yourself. It took years of conscious personal development before I worked through these self-hate issues, one by one, as I’ve documented in multiple series on the blog.
Perhaps some of us have this belief of “If I become [XXX] or if I get [XXX], then I will like myself better.” A common example of this is our body, where people think, I’ll love my body if I become slimmer. (I’ll be dedicating an affirmation to physical looks later on in the challenge.) Another example is in the area of love, where you may have beliefs like “I can’t love myself when I can’t even get someone else to love me” or “I can only love myself / I’ll love myself more if I can get into a great relationship.” Yet another example is the area of achievements, where we feel that we must be at a certain level of achievement before we can love or accept ourselves: “I need to have X pay / Y job / Z status, or else I’m not deserving of anything.”
However, be it direct self-hate (“I hate myself” or “I suck”) or conditional self-love (“If I become [XXX], I’ll fully love myself”), they are no different in that they are rooted from self-judgment, self-disdain, and self-criticism. Real love is unconditional; it doesn’t have to fulfill any conditions, expectations, or criteria before it can be dispensed. Real love is all encompassing; it comes without judgment, and without assessment. Real love is everywhere in the universe and inside of us, at every second and every moment.
The question to you is: Are you ready to open your heart and experience this love for yourself; this love that has always been inside of you, ready to be received by you? Are you ready to love yourself unconditionally, even if in tiny steps, starting from today?
Today, your task is to start this process of self-love.
Your Task Today
- Identify any self-hating thoughts you may have. For example:
- “I hate myself.”
- “I wish I have a different [XXX].”
- “I’m such a clumsy fool.”
- “I’m a pile of sh*t.”
- Identify the reason behind this self-hate. For example:
- Perhaps you have the belief that you only deserve love if others love you. Hence, you spend half your life seeking affirmation from others and having yourself validated, as opposed to affirming and validating yourself.
- Or, perhaps your family has never been loving towards you, and has only reprimanded you or pointed out your flaws. Hence, you grew up not knowing how to love yourself, or even thinking that you don’t deserve love at all.
- Change your self-hating thoughts. For example:
- “I love myself.”
- “I don’t need to be different to love myself. I can love myself now and strive for betterment all the same.”
- “I may make mistakes, but so does everyone. My perfection lies in my imperfections.”
- “I’m smart, positive, and caring towards others. I love that I have such wonderful qualities and I’m proud of myself for having them.”
- Identify your action step(s) to love yourself today. What is ONE action (or more if you desire) you can take today to express self-love? For example:
- Take a long shower and appreciate every second of it.
- Buy myself this beautiful organizer that I’ve been eyeing for a while, that will be a crucial tool in planning my goals and action steps.
- Go for a nice foot massage at the local massage parlor.
- Read this book that I’ve been meaning to read but have been putting off for a while.
- Give myself a hug.
- HUG YOURSELF. Like, REALLY hug yourself LIKE YOU’VE NEVER HUGGED ANYONE BEFORE. Feel every part of your body, your skin, and your soul, in your arms. Let go of your personal barriers, self-hate, and self-criticism — LET THEM GO, LET ALL OF THEM GO. Feel the warmth and love emanating from your body back into your arms and body. Close your eyes, pause for about 15 seconds, and just soak in this moment of self-love.
- Say your new belief(s) and affirmation. Then, with your arms still hugging your body, say your new belief(s) out loud, along with today’s affirmation:
“I love myself unconditionally.”
(If you think it’s silly to say them out loud, you can say them silently in your heart.)
I encourage you to write down your new belief(s) and today’s affirmation so that you can always see them and commit them to your heart. Repeat them every day to yourself, for as many times and as long as needed, until they become part of your default thinking.
Affirmation Wallpaper: [Self-Love]
Today’s affirmation wallpaper, for download:
Download (right click and save): [1366×768] [1600×900] [1920×1080]
Further Reading
For further reading on today’s affirmation topic, check out the following:
- Are You Sabotaging Yourself? How To Stop Self-Sabotage
- Be a Better Me in 30 Days, my premium 30-day character transformation program to discover and become one with your highest self
Share Your Results!
Share your results, check out other participants’ responses, and interact with each other in the comments section! Remember, this challenge is a community effort: by openly engaging in the discussion, not only will you help others, you’ll also help yourself.
If you think today’s affirmation has benefited you, do share it with your friends and family.
Once you’re done, proceed to Day 3 here: Affirmation Challenge, Day 3 [Ability]
(Images: Flower, Heart shape in sand)
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I almost wait whole day to see the day 2 challenge. It’s amazing to see this self love affirmation. I just experience this during the day.
I always very hard to myself, push myself,get myself hurt carelessly. I always feel I am not confident. Although lots of people comments that I am looks like confidence.
I shared with my Mentor during that day about the self-doubt,
and self confidence problem. Back to the story I created for myself,. It’s that
my family wants a boy instead of the girl; I am not what they want. They only
love me when I met their expectations, I didn’t experience unconditionally love
when I was young, even today. I can keep telling this story and find supporting
data to support myself as evidence. My junior school teacher told me to be
good, then my family will love me and my parents won’t fight anymore. Thanks
for the support and caring the teacher provided in the past, I should end the
old story and created a new one.
Now, no matter what happened in life, and
what I experienced in the past, as a 30 years old woman, and a mom for a boy, time
to stop the story and create a new story about self love.
If I can’t give unconditionally love to
myself, experience that, how could I give this to my son? The ones I loved?
A person can’t give others what he/she doesn’t have.
(Celes: More of Vivian’s task results: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_a2fd0f5f0102uwvy.html)
Am very upbeat just two days into the challenge already! The system seems to be in work already and I know this 15 days of affirmations shall let me come out of my cocoon to allow me to freely walk on my path to personal excellence!
Self Love! First of all, I’ve fallen in love with these 2 words and shall write them up on my wall!
1. Identify any self-hating thoughts you may have: My despair in myself lies in my perception of beauty….my self-hating thought would be “I wish I had beautiful eyes or I wish I had a better figure”
2. Identify the reason behind this self-hate: There are not one but two reason behind this, and I know if I delve deeper I shall find more experiences of the past that led me to this self-loathe! But to sum it up,
I believe I only deserve love if others love me, so when there have been periods of my life where I may not have received love from those around me, it led to me thinking that maybe that’s what I am worth…not receiving love from those around me!
Till now, I had not considered ME! I probably didn’t even know the meaning of SELF-LOVE!
3. Change your self-hating thoughts: Simply put:
I don’t need to be any different to love myself,
I am smart, positive and beautiful!
I love that I have such wonderful qualities!!
4. Identify your action step(s) to love yourself today: I bought a wonderful book on my kindle that helped me change my view on myself.
I also read Celes’s article on “The Beauty of Self” it’s a wonderful piece which I’d recommend everyone on PE to read! What is wonderful about Celes is that she is in this journey growing along with us, we see what she has achieved and it gives us the motivation and push and belief in ourselves!
And why let this day’s challenge be limited to the day, in fact, why let any of the affirmations be for the day only? I practiced both yesterday’s and today’s affirmations today! I also booked a pedicure for Friday, I shall never stop loving myself now that I have started
5. Hug myself:: This is a new feeling! It’s reassuring at the same time emotional, for I see myself today as a different person!
I LOVE MYSELF UNCONDITIONALLY!
Hey, ASLO, could you share the name of your wonderful book:) I like reading.
Awesome idea to expand the challenges!
Hey Vivian, I like reading as well, I treated myself to a book by Wayne Dyer “Being in Balance”.
Speaking of the love of reading….I “treat” myself to a little bit of reading every day, be it a bit of a book am reading, or subscriptions in my email, or the wonderful snippets of articles on PE….the love of reading is as close to self love as I was before Celes sort of rejuvenated me in this second day of the challenge….
ASLO. It’s amazing. I just found Wayne when he did talk with Oprah long time ago about the book Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao. Look forward to hear more sharing from you about the 9 principles. Wish you in balance.
speaking of the love of reading, it’s a best time i have everyday for reading. believe you understand.
I have read all his books and heard all his talks…
It is these wonderful people like Wayne, Oprah and it would be unfair not to mention Celes and PE too that help us recollect and get onto our path of personal excellence..
I just finished the book today and it falls so rightly with the challenge we are undertaking! It mentions how what we wish for, what we “affirm” is what the universe gives to us….
True, I understand……it is the very best time of my day too
Great to hear.my wish is to read all his book and listen the audio. If i only read 3 books from him, what will be your suggestion?thanks.
Woow !! Just realised that I hate so many things and I didn’t notice that EVER. I was just accepting myself and say “it’s fine” but I deluded myself somehow.I Identified a big number my self hating thoughts “moment of illumination I say :D” … and what on top of list is HATING MY FEARS !!! I’m always afraid of failure and success at the same time! so limiting myself is the best choice to prevent any self criticism if I failed, OR any stress if I succeeded. Gaining knowledge , doing research , working hard and when it comes to practice what I’m doing to achieve my goal!!! NO ! I limit myself and redirect my whole being into another “unrelated” thing because I’m afraid to face the result … and then I do not accomplish what I want and fall into regret,set around myself in grieve, complaining, speaking negatively, and think I’m wasting my life …. etc to depression !!!
I think it’s all about calculating the results … I do not just do the thing and let it go ! And even if I couldn’t do it it’s ok and if I did it then I can keep going and no prob. If I took my time to take any further steps !!!
That’s my answer so far , as I’m still shocked from the many “hidden” self hating thoughts I wrote in my journal !! I will review them again because I felt like ” oh my God, Who is that? Who am I?” Hahahaa :D
Sarah, good idea on the journal, I looks like a different tiny one in my journal.
Yes exactly Vivian and it makes you more aware of what’s happening inside without your mental voice that distracts/manipulates you all the time :)
I don’t like the idea that I “hate myself” but when I pay attention, I notice that there are negative things that I say about myself. I frequently compare myself to the way I was when I was younger, and wish that I were different, that I had more energy, that if only I did things differently (e.g. eating more healthy food) I would have that energy. It translates into thinking that I am lazy!
I started to write about the reasons why — I have that in my personal journal — but decided it was too long and complicated.
Instead, I’ll just say that I got a lot of recognition and praise for “doing so much” and that life was really fun and exciting then!
When I thought about it, though, I realized that I am still very active — but my activity is mental rather than physical.
I have long blamed the lack of energy/physical activity on my sleep problems, so yesterday’s activity — where I concluded that “My past problems with sleep do not define me. I take care of my body and my body takes care of me.” — was serendipitously useful for me in relation to today’s affirmation.
I have three loving actions for today!
The first is doing stretches when I first woke up. Because I take care of my body and my body takes care of me!
Second, I began earlier this week reminding myself that I am a woman of dignity and worth, and asking what can I do in this moment to reinforce this understanding? One of the answers was to look at today’s affirmation.
The third thing is that I decided to buy myself that salad that I have been craving! Because I love myself unconditionally, and a way that I can show myself unconditional love it to respond to the needs of my body.
Vicki, I read your post this morning, when I doing stretches.I like what you said, take care the body then body will take care us. btw, wish you enjoy your dream salad:)
Powerful affirmations through this two days. Looking forward to the rest of the affirmations that must be powerful and life-changing!
Identify any self-hating thoughts you may have.
1. I hate my appearance
2. I’m such a careless person
3. I’m never loved
4. Compared to others, I’m of lower class
Identify the reason behind this self-hate.
1. Scars of bullying in the past
2. Being complacent in stuff I ‘think’ I’m good at
3. My family not providing me any love in my younger years
4. Speaking up my thoughts may cause me to lose friends
Change your self-hating thoughts.
1. I love myself
2. I’m smart, caring and giving to others. I love that I have such wonderful qualities and I’m proud of myself having them.
3. Appearance is not everything as long as my Attitude and Character are far more beautiful than my physical appearance.
4. Speaking up allows others to understand me
Identify your action step(s) to love yourself today.
1. Give myself a warm hug
2. Thank you God for everything you have given me.
3. There are no challenges in life, only adventures to conquer
4. Sharing a positive story of the day with me.
Jun Xiang, i like your idea on share a positive story of the day with yourself. and wish you had a good story to tell everyday. :)
I know there are deep buried fears and doubts that keep me from expressing myself as I wish. I hope to work with the affirmations, do the exercises and gain fearlessness and clarity about who I am and what I can be hereafter
It’s great to see the responses to the challenge! Below is a summary of my day 2 blog entry, which can be found at http://livingwithaltitude.wordpress.com/2014/07/08/unconditional-love/
A slower start to the day makes me lazy and unproductive. A school career spent struggling with French grammar means that I am absolutely never going to be able to learn another language. Yet as soon as I tell myself this, it’s immediately a self-fulfilling prophecy. I am lazy and unproductive-so pass me the biscuits and kittens on Youtube, here I come. I will never learn a foreign language, so as soon as an irregular verb rears its head, put the Rosetta Stone book down and retreat.
My own response to day 2 is relatively straightforward. I can choose my pace for my own day, I am not scared to persevere in learning anything I choose. Like any human being, my value and dignity are innate, not something to be given from outside, depending on my view of how I’ve spent my time or whether I can negotiate a discount in Russian.
Already on day 2 I am faced with a very difficult challenge. If I had my way, this would be challenge # 15. I have real body image issues, issues with expressing affection and verbalization issues. Why the heck else would I have signed up for this challenge. So now, on Day 2, I’m supposed to tell myself that I love myself unconditionally and I’m supposed to give myself a big old warm self hug. I don’t think so.
Yet, I know that I have to do this for my own good. Notice that I said “my own good”, not for the good of my loved ones. Why is this going to be an uphill battle – one that I’m finally willing to face?
Read my blog for the whole story: http://wnysinger.blogspot.com/
My results:
1. Identify any self hating thoughts that you have.
A) I wish I didn’t play so much computer games during my youth. It caused my eyesight to get worse and worse. I wish I had the self discipline to stop.
B) I wish I had the courage to study what I really wanted back before my university started. I wished I was strong enough to face up to my true desires instead of hiding behind a fear of security (ie giving up a scholarship).
And many other thoughts (the letters of the alphabet probably won’t be enough – HA!), but I’ll stick with these for now.
2. Identify the reason behind this self hate.
A) My self hate is based on a refusal to accept what is, and a clinging on to what could have been. Accepting what is hurts, because my ego or sense of worth is based on an unattainable ideal of perfection. So the real reason is that I base my sense of worth on an unrealistic ideal.
B) I am beating up myself for lacking courage in the past – “You knew what you should have done but you didn’t do it.” Again, my sense of worth is based on the ideal of being able and courageous enough, and (B) is essentially the same as (A).
3. Change your self hating thoughts.
So why do I base my sense of worth on meeting an unrealistic ideal? I think it was because in my youth I was a model student scoring good grades. My parents/teachers/everyone praised me for topping the class etc, and this made me feel proud and like I was better than everyone else. So repeated incidents of this nature made me associate a sense of worth with doing well and meeting the ideal of perfection.
Let’s challenge this idea.
Does not meeting an ideal make you less worthy? Criminals who mass murder, rape, shoplift, poison, lie and import chewing gum (in Singapore – LOL!) are still subject to basic human rights* in the legal system such as the right not to be tortured, the right to have a lawyer and fair trial, etc etc. If they fail to meet the ideals of virtue, then why are they still worthy of all these considerations? Because they are humans.
*Depending on the country, and depending on its definition of “rights”.
So everyone is deserving of at least basic worth simply by virtue of being human.
In that case, am I not at least equally deserving of worth?
Dogs love people unconditionally. When I was in Thailand recently for some school fieldwork, I stayed in a Karen village. The owner’s dog trusted us very quickly and in a matter of days, would jump for joy and play with us when we returned to the home.
So the dog loved us simply for who we are, without even bothering to know our history or what we have done.
So this means that the nature of unconditional love is that it does not require any thing for the object of love to be counted as worthy of love. So, I do not need to be “good enough” to love myself! I can choose to love myself regardless of what I did or who I am.
3. Change your self-hating thoughts
“I accept myself unconditionally. I love myself totally.”
4. Identify one action step to love yourself today.
I will give myself a hug which is also step 5.
My results on my blog: http://samuelimyongen.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/affirmation-challenge-day-2/
Incidentally, a very relevant video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtXaKsd7jm4
This was a difficult one for me today. I’ve struggled with self love for pretty much my whole life. The worst part is that it’s been difficult to identify exactly why or how it started, and this makes it all the more of a battle. Over the past few years I’ve been through various situations that have compounded my negative beliefs about myself, and I frequently catch myself thinking that I’m a failure at everything, that I’m much too awkward to make friends, or that nobody likes me and I could forget about being loved.
I’m trying to change my thoughts about myself to more positive ones:
– I have a unique set of talents and abilities with which I can carry out my purpose in a way that nobody else on this earth can.
– I am caring, kind and compassionate; a loyal friend to those who take the time to get to know me.
– I am worthy of my own love, no matter how many mistakes I make.
A challenge today’s one was indeed, although I did enjoy giving myself a hug :) You can read more here: http://hopeafterheartbreak.blogspot.com/2014/07/15-day-affirmation-challenge-day-2-self.html
My outcomes:
Identify any self-hating thoughts you may have:
1) I wish I could have thicker eyebrow & lovely hands.
2) I hate to be underweight & it was so hard to gain weight, sigh….
Identify the reason behind this self-hate:
1) I have the belief that person with ‘ideal features’ is beautiful, which influenced by those beauties
in TV shows & magazines, followed by self-created ideal beauty standards.
Change your self-hating thoughts:
1) I love myself.
2) I don’t need to be different to love myself. I can love myself now and strive for betterment all the same.
Identify your action step(s) to love yourself today:
1) Be grateful for being given a complete body instead of upset with “non-ideal features”, I have no rights to feel upset on this as successful persons such as Nick Vujicic, Stephen Hawkings, etc, they never let their body disabilities to hinder them from doing great things. Internal-beauty matter the most.
I wish i could have lots of things too for my body. Totally agree with you that should be grateful for being given a complete body instead of upset with the wishes. Thanks.
Todays affirmation is very important to me. I have had issues with accepting myself, so this is a great way to kick start the journey to deeper acceptance. I loved giving myself a hug…it something that we don’t do often enough as a society. I have struggled a bit with saying the affirmation regularly, but guess that I will get better as the challenge goes on. Looking forward to tomorrow’s challenge. Happy challenge everyone :-)
Kae, I closed my eyes and gave myself a hug after reading your sharing. in fact, i realized that my body is resistant for my hug. I have a long journey to go to really accept myself and let my body allow me back.
Hi Vivian
Your post touched me deeply. I feel the resistance in the same way you do too. It will take time to get beyond this but we can do it. :-). Warmest wishes.
“I feel very very guilty”. I have encountered these thoughts before and it really sucks.
The reason for these thoughts could be that, since I was small I have constantly been reprimanded for smallest things. Even though the actions were pretty much neutral or even if it was somebody else’s fault. I was constantly taught to been on par with the societal expectations. In my opinion society is actually consists of individuals like and us. At least I don’t see any logic in putting our own selves down so as to respect so called ‘Society’!
“I release my guilt to the universe. I free of all the negative baggage which was there in my head.”
I am planning to meditate on the above given affirmations today.
Alia, I can’t access your blog to read the whole sharing. I just want you know that i can relate when you said you struggled a lot with self love. I am on the journey as well, It already great that we are in PE now:)
Thanks for reading my comment, Vivian! :) I’m not sure why you couldn’t access my blog, though! I hope it works now :) It’s great to know that we are not alone on our journeys and that there are others struggling alongside us to get ourselves to a better place! I wish you all the best on your self love journey :) It’ll definitely be a challenge for both of us, but one certainly worth trying for :)
Samuel, I have problem to access your blog, may be blocked by the internet. I do appreciate the dog story, I see the dog in joy. What I learned from your sharing, is that we as human, can learn from dog, love ourselves unconditionally. Glad that i was born in dog year:)
Hey Vivian! Could it be that wordpress.com is blocked in China?
Hey Tina, i want to let you know that when i hug myself, it’s not warm. I feel so scared and almost cry. I hug myself again today, it getting better. Just need give time for our body to experience our love. Like what my mentor told me, experience your skin, love it.
I always look happy in front of everyone. Most of my friends praise for my smile when they got to know me. However, I have self-hating thoughts too…
1. I hate to be a girl – I always feel that girls are troublesome. Girls have many problems, such as period time, anemia, weak, being looked down by guys, has no right of speaking in a conservative family.
2. I’m not a good girlfriend – I always do something silly and make my boyfriend worry about me. Although he has a very good temper, but it makes me feel even worse when I do something wrong.
3. I’m not a good teacher – I concentrate on those annoying students while those good students are actually those who wish to study. I should put my concentration on good and weak students more.
4. I’m fat and hard to fit into nice clothes… – Every time I look at those nice dresses / clothes, I try out and ended up putting them back to the place. I can never fit myself in.
However, most of the time, I love being myself too. I’m positive in many ways, and I’m loved by my family and boyfriend. I’m greeted by my students whenever they see me outside of school, I’m respected by my students, and I have good relationships with my students too. I just bought a skirt that I finally can fit into, and I believe that I can get other nice dresses / clothes too!!
In fact, I’m doing a self-declared project. I’m posting a positive message each day to state what are the happy incidents / thoughts I have every single day. Today is the day 92. My initial target was 100 positive days. And, if I’m able to continue after the 100 days, that would be good! To me, this is a good action to love myself. No matter how bad I feel in a day, I know there’s definitely something that is good to me, and I want to record it down as a cherish for myself. :)
I love the idea of writing down the positive messages each day! I agree that there is always something great to cherish — and 92 days in a row, wow! That’s incredible!
Thanks, Calae. :) I have started a self-declared project: A cherished picture a day. But I failed the project because whenever I was happy about something, I forgot to take pictures. Haha. Thus, I re-started this as a new project: A cherished message a day. :)
Girls and weak? I dare to disagree ;) Sure, we can’t lift as much as men but for really heavy things, it’s mostly done by machines anyway. day-to-day lifting tasks can be done by women too :)
Period time should be less of a problem with a Mooncup (it fits more than a tampon).
Jade, yup. I’m now slowly learn to be a good lady from the bottom of my heart, learn what is good about a girl, a lady. I have to admit that my boyfriend guided me a lot. :)
Oh, I was headache with my period because I had period only once or twice a year previously. My period circulation improved a lot ever since I successfully reduced 5kg of
weight a few years back. That’s the reason I feel that I should continue
to reduce my weight. ^^
I agree with JadePenguin. Women are stronger than men, not physical but mental. Most women on the world go to work, take care of the children AND husbands and they are cleaning, cooking, do laudry, go to the store….Women are strong but this strength is subtle ;) So be proud that you are a woman (I know I am :)), because we are special ;) Good luck with the project!
Yes, I always feel that women are strong, but not me. I admire my mum a lot to stay so calmly in such a conservative family, but I couldn’t be like my mum. I felt that my mum has low existence level in my family, and that was why I hated to be a girl.
Since the moment I started my romantic relationship, she taught me how to be a good girlfriend, good wife; how to improve relationships with my boyfriend’s family; how to get attention from my boyfriend, etc. Now I know why my mum can stand in that way in my family. All she wish to have is just the love from my dad. Because of the love, she does whatever she can. I can feel the warm whenever I’m loved by my boyfriend. And so, I hope that I can be like her, always. :)
And, thanks for your encouragement!
I like how you initiated the positive message per day and even until now! I highly recommend you to recording 3 good things that have happened to you or 3 good things that you are grateful for each day. It works wonder. It makes me cherish all the small little things in my everyday life which can be so easily be neglected. :)
It took a long time to love myself. My reasons are written all over my blog and I don’t need to dwell on them anymore. I can use those experiences to relate to others with the same issues, but they aren’t a reason. It’s more like a groove in a record. I’m used to it, so sometimes I go back to it. I still have my self depreciating thoughts. But, I have learned to do things I know will make me happy. I focus on me and don’t call it selfish. I practice one task a week that is just for me and practice it or focus on it.
via The Being Artemis Project http://wp.me/p4dpPO-6P
I was particularly excited for today’s affirmation, and I was super excited to get home and really think/write about it after work…only for my power to go out.
My area recently has been experiencing brief but damaging storms. This is the second time in the last five days I’ve lost power for the evening — thankfully each time it’s come back on by the morning. Hopefully, there isn’t another power-outage any time soon, but I digress!
For me, this comes with a struggle of never feeling good enough. I would not say I hate myself by any means, but I usually feel like I “need” something before I can be “truly” happy with myself, like I need to work harder, be healthier, make more people happy, stop procrastinating, be more confident…
I’m always assigning myself a new time at which I’ll truly love myself and be happy. In fact, just in typing this out I realized the irony in one of my thoughts: I’m waiting for the right conditions to occur so I can feel I truly love and am happy with myself, yet the flaw is assigning your self-worth to such symbols — accomplishments, physical things, whatever they may happen to be. Truly, the only thing preventing unconditional self-love is assuming self-love is conditional!
For today’s affirmation, my new thoughts are:
I don’t need to wait for anything, I love myself now. I’m worthy of love now. I don’t need to meet any criteria to be valuable. Improvement is a journey, there is no destination at which my happiness is waiting. I feel love, worthiness, and happiness right now, and take these with me as I move forward.
Pretty excited about this one, can you tell? =D
As for my next steps to demonstrate my new self-love? I think tonight I’m gonna settle-in early and cuddle up with my Kindle and a nice cup of hot cocoa or tea. =)
For anyone that may be interested, I’m posting about the Affirmation Challenge at my blog! Day 2’s post is here: http://hackmyheart.com/affirmation-challenge-day-2/
That is awesome. I can tell your excitement about the new belief. Me too. Someday will never come, the perfect position, perfect timing, will never come, we just need to enjoy the break between 2 breaths.
Nearly all of my self-hating thoughts center on my weight. On any given day, I am constantly
hearing a voice inside my head saying something like, “I hate my arms/stomach/butt/thighs! I am so fat.”
I’ve never been able to really identify the reason that I tell myself this. I am very hard on myself
and would never treat someone else this way, so why do I do this to myself? As long as I can remember, I’ve struggled with my weight. I forget to focus on the fact that I’m not THAT overweight, and according to the “numbers” (cholesterol, blood pressure, etc.) I’m healthy. It’s mainly a disappointment because I’m very aware of the fact that my beliefs about my appearance have a measurable impact on my interactions with others. This affects me at work, at home, and in my
interpersonal relationships. I also believe that these beliefs I hold about my appearance are THE primary reason that I’ve not dated in quite some time. If I can’t love myself, who else will?
My goal is to work on changing the dialogue in my head. I want to focus on things I love…and there
ARE things about me that are loveable, even at my less than ideal weight.
Starting today, I am going to do the following for myself: get a bit more exercise, make conscious
healthy choices (eat more veggies, take the stairs at work, meditation, taking a break to read/decompress, etc.), and be aware of the negative thoughts when they creep up, so that I can change the message I’m sending myself.
My new affirmation: “I am enough. I love all that I am. My body is mine and mine alone, and I am proudof it. I am smart, kind, strong, healthy, capable, and beautiful.”
Well, I skipped this yesterday after getting rejected from a job I really wanted and being very miserable for the whole day :(
So here’s to make amends:
1. Identify any self-hating thoughts you may have.
Coming straight out of yesterday: “I’ll never get an enjoyable job because I don’t have enough experience. I’ll forever be making surveys or picking up recycling because that’s all I can do well enough to get employed.”
2. Identify the reason behind this self-hate.
I’ve been rejected from software jobs for lack of experience for as long as I’ve been applying to them. The current count stands at 5/5, with some more where I wasn’t really expecting a reply but they count as rejections anyway. There seems to *always* be someone with more experience and hence it seems impossible to get into it at all.
3. Change your self-hating thoughts.
“If I keep trying, I will find someplace that will take me even without prior experience.”
“Even if not, it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me. Maybe there just isn’t that much work that needs to be done in this area and I should work in a field where I’m actually needed (and possibly very valued).”
4. Identify your action step(s) to love yourself today. What is ONE action (or more if you desire) you can take today to express self-love? For example:
Before I fell asleep yesterday, I decided I would contact the company and ask if I should apply again when they’re recruiting again in September and what I could learn in the meantime to have better chances. I *know* can learn and become good at this job, so I deserve this chance to prove myself. I’ve done that now so hopefully they’ll give me a few pointers (C language pun not intended) and will still be interested in me when they’re recruiting again.
Meanwhile, I’ve applied for Jobseekers Allowance. Which means I can safely look for jobs for 6 months and not have to resort to taking some unskilled job just to pay the bills. Because I love myself too much to allow that to happen to me ;)
Hi Jade, I’m sorry to hear about the job rejection. At the same time, you’ve handled it so beautifully. You really should be proud of yourself! In particular, this new belief that you’ve created is very powerful: “Even if not, it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me. Maybe there just isn’t that much work that needs to be done in this area and I should work in a field where I’m actually needed (and possibly very valued).”
Sounds like a catch-22, not having the experience not allowing you to get into your desired job, hence perpetuating the lack of experience. Is there any way or any place you can start building experience, in your own way? Also like you said, it may be a matter of looking for the jobs which don’t require you to have prior experience — after which you can then build your experience from there!
My bf offered to get me involved in some project of his and teach me things. I’m sure that would count as experience even if it doesn’t become the next big thing :)
The problem with my “not much work” statement is that the economic system expects everyone to have a job, even if all work were to be already done by someone! That’s one reason why I’m interested in alternative economic systems. And campaigns for lowering working week length. Society so often lags behind technological advancements!
Something that someone wrote about not treating a friend the way she treats herself sparked this thought: what if you do for yourself what you would do for a friend? If a friend needs a hug, would you give them one? If a friend was hungry, would you make sure they ate? If a friend wanted to lose weight, would you support them and encourage them to choose healthy food?
Can you be a friend to yourself?
Your sharing is awesome. If I love myself unconditionall ,I am the best friend of myself. One realization after having my son is to maintainthe balance of my work ,my life and myself. Good reminder.
Hello everyone. I.managed to do one thing to hug myslf and speak loudly how much i love myslf unconditionally. It felt so good and in that moments i realised that even though i have known myslef to love me uncoditionally its not in.line with my feelings! So jst that excise brought me closer to myself! And immediately i felt a rush of joy and a deep smile of content wth myslf!
I could nt associate any self hate within myslf hense i choosed to do the activity.
I’ve felt more hope since I started this challenge. I know it takes constant repitition to change my negative perceptions and that is the hardest part for me. I gave myself a hug yesterday and was shocked at how unfamiliar I was with my own body. I exercise constantly yet I don’t always see the results (since I see myself everyday). While hugging myself I realized I was much firmer and more muscular than in the past and it let me know the exercise was paying off (even though the scale confirms weight loss I didn’t realize how tone I’d become). This encourages me to keep going.
My next big challenge is to improve my confidence when interacting with others, especially the opposite sex. I always feel like no one likes me (though most people seem to). I plan on using the affirmations to help my confidence so I can have better relationships and hopefully find someone to share my life with. Thanks for doing this Celes!
Thankfully I’m not very self-hating. I do judge myself, and I’ve higher expectations of myself. I’ve lot of appreciative friends around who make sure that I know my strengths, and that I’m continuously reminded of them. So that helps to keep most of the self hate away.
I feel however that I’ve a tendency to try to be great at whatever I do (which is great of course). And I would like to do many things. So when I’m not able to meet my own expectations, I tend to be unhappy about it. Especially if I could have handled the situation better and I didn’t because I was lazy for sometime back then. If I’d procrastinated. If I’d just not given my best.
In spite of anything, I deserve to be loved. I’m worthy of it. And there’s nothing I need to do or need to be, before I start deserving more. It’s good to aim for being better. But that’s the whole thing about being on a journey. Life’s more interesting because I’ve challenges and because I’m headed somewhere. The fact that I’m failing sometimes and the fact that I’ve not ‘reached’ are good things – they spice life up. So let me embrace them :).
Today I’ll not allow myself to feel bad. There was a work assigned to me and I’d to finish it by last night. I tried my best but it didn’t get done. But my (temporary) failure doesn’t in any way govern what I deserve today. I’ll take it in my stride and continue my work and try to finish it today. I’ll explain to people why it’s taking more time. I’ll separate my actions and results from myself. My actions are lifeless things that are getting done. I am who I am irrespective of them. So I’ll work joyously and let go of my happiness being dependent on my results.
A warm hug to myself and to all you lovely people :)
The self-hating thoughts I have….”I was the ugliest girl in primary school because
I was too skinny!” (according to my peers).
“I talk too much!” (according to
my estranged husband). “I am not a good
mother!” (according to my daughter and
often myself). “I am not good enough” (my dad asked what happened to the other
3% in my math test when I achieved 97%!)
1.
The reasons behind my self-doubts are related to
feeling inadequate as a child, not living up to expectations or achieving as
well in school as my dad felt I could have achieved. I then married Tony and felt that he was
upset when I earned or out-achieved him.
I made some errors in judgement, irrationally, in my early mothering and
with the regrets have self-hated, leading to depression. After being hit by my husband, I felt that
perhaps I had caused his actions.
2.
To change my self-hating thoughts I have chosen
to replace them with the following statements:
a) “I am enough! I have done
enough! I am an ok mother! I don’t have
to be perfect. I may have done some
things in the past that were not the most sensible, but with more information,
guidance and support, I know they will not be repeated, and that my future is
rosier!”
Leanne, i can relate what you said, especially the expecatation from parents. I like your new belief I am enough, and i am ok. I used to care what others say about me, how they feel, how they …I should love myself first. then i have space for others to love me.
ame back from a Cruise to Alaska While I’ve been following you I’ve discovered I can achieve great things
I just came back from a Cruise to Alaska
Thanks for sharing your BEAUTIFUL photo, abjgaviota! :D So lovely and hope you enjoyed your cruise! Alaska sounds wonderful and I hope to visit there someday!!
This is the result I came to for Day 2. This is taken from my blog post.
“I actually found great difficulty to say the affirmation. I may not
hate myself, but I’ve never loved myself before. I do however love God,
and I know in my heart of hearts that He loves me. He must know
something I don’t know…
I’m still not able to say “I love myself unconditionally” but I can
say I accept myself for who I am this very moment, flaws and all. I’ll
let you all know when I can say I love myself.”
You can read the whole post here: http://dementeddelights.tumblr.com/post/91328378308/affirmation-day-2
Thanks again Celes for these tasks and the challenge overall. It’s been so eye-opening and its only been two days! I can’t remember the last time I dug into myself this far to fix my life. It’s actually quite refreshing. =0)
I love myself doubtfully …
Oops, Celes, read your ‘Call to share’. You’re right of course and you’re putting in a lot of effort for free, so the least we can do is give back to the community.
I’m having fun doing your daily challenges. Although I did Personal Power II by Anthony Robbins (which I also can recommend) it is a continous process and you have a different approach. Also you give a bit more explanation and nice examples of your own life, I can understand it better.
While familiar, I’m learning new things. Especially your piece on procrastination was very enlightening.
I’m keeping a dialy log: a word document with the daily assignments and an excel for the results. If it gets big with lots of branches (i.e. limiting belief statements) I help myself using a mindmapping tool. I use Freemind and Freeplane. I do this so I can keep my notes all in one place. I prefer paper, but you soon get swamped, different notes, different places, and I like to read back my thoughts and progress. OK, this for the technical/operational side. But maybe somebody can benefit.
Day 1: Asking Why-why-why on your statement gave very nice insights in root causes. I’m not sure I’m there yet, but significant improvement especially on the subject of allowing yourself to pursue happiness and investing in yourself.
Day2
Very enlightening were the ‘self-hate’ thoughts. Not really that strong for me, but limiting and degrading at the least. Very nice to verbalize that I did some pretty good stuff over the time that others hadn’t achieved or didn’t even try. But because my aims and expectations were higher my unconcious self-assessment always was in the range of “Needs (significant) improvement”. While by other standards you could give yourself ‘exceeds’ or ‘outstanding’.
The latter is a very sure way to put yourself down with ‘I haven’t achieved anything in my life’. Thank you!
Lacking discipline and your piece on procrastination was a nice view to help yourself much more effectively. From relative riches to rags at the moment, I’ll definitely buy your book as soon as moolah is flowing my way again.
Bob, you sharing about the technical side is very helpful. i love write down in paper, but it’s messy and no results when i have lots of hand writting all the place. Can you share more about your excel results? How you track that? I tried excel for daily tracking for hundreds of times, but all failed. Hope you can give some suggestions.
Hi Vivian, nice to hear you can benefit from my post. Don´t read too much into my Excel usage. I use it primarily to organize & link data in columns for myself. Like limiting thoughts, and the subsequent why’s and connected actions if any.
For Anthony Robbin’s PPII I used it to make a summary of each day. Important issues, techniques, assignments, results. You can do this almost as easy in word using tables, but as excel is one big table it is faster. Excel is also quite good for to do lists.
My tracking is by rereading and deciding if I’m going in the right direction. All manually.
What would you like your tracking to be? Then I can make further comments.
In general, for jotting down notes and reminders, I can heartily recommend Evernote, as it immediately shares to your smartphone, iPad and PC.
If there was an easy way to have spreadsheet functionality I would use it for these challenges.
If using a cloud spreadsheet would fit your needs, then try google drive. Brilliant.
But first let me know what you would like to be able to track…;-)
Bob
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