HOW CAN I LEARN TO LOVE MYSELF?
Most people go to their grave never really knowing how to love themselves. Sometimes it can be a catch 22 situation. You find yourself in a particular situation and you react instead of responding. It has caught you “off guard.” But how did you get caught “off guard?” You have not done your homework. It is hard to accept ourselves when we continually are disappointed with outcomes. We “decide” we are going to do better but find ourselves in the same rut and responses again and again. The main reason we are not able to change is that you can’t accept yourself as you are, in the beginning. It is a merry-go-round experience. The only way you can change is to first love who you are and accept yourself with all your faults and shortcomings, knowing it is who you are and then you can learn to change by loving yourself. Until then you are going in circles.
Do you think that because you are not measuring up to your own ideals that you are not acceptable to your Creator? Not hardly. We really do not get it! God’s love is so deep for us but we find it difficult to look at ourselves in the mirror and love the reflection. We strive and worry and become anxious about the most trivial things and do not trust God. How can we trust when we can’t believe that God made us just like we are suppose to be.
One of the main reasons we do not change is that we don’t love the “self;” going a bit deeper the reason we can’t change is because we haven’t learned to accept our humanity and know that we have been accepted just like we are before our Creator. We do not have to be anything except who we are.
Tiredness, anger, perfectionism, shame, and anxiety get in the way of love. Not loving yourself can prevent you from forming healthy relationships. Insecure people often use manipulation, oppression and guilt-tripping with others. The consequences of lack of self-love are much worse when a person has children.
Proverbs says “Pride comes before a fall.” I never understood this before I became an adult. Only many years later did I see this truth. Insecurity is really a reverse form of pride. You really “can’t believe you are that bad.” Yes you are! Accept it and learn how to overcome the anger or whatever makes you feel like you can never measure up. Then once you embrace your fallen nature, you can then “Put on Christ.”
James 2:14 “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? Interesting that this comes after the author explains how we show partiality and judge our brother. So he is speaking to the one that judges and says that your works are to be attitudes and acts of love. He goes on to say, If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled<” but you do not give them what is needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it does not have works (or love and a desire to give freely as it is written, “Freely you have received, freely give.” IS DEAD! Again, the reason we judge? We have not understood that is our nature too. If we can “see” it, we would stop judging be able to love ourselves. That brother or sister is just that! Your brother or sister. They are part of the Kingdom and a creation of God, just like you are. Ask God to help you see yourself as He sees you. Completely In Christ and all your shortcomings atoned for. You will be less likely to speak evil of another, as you will realize you are speaking negatively about yourself, as we are all one Body IN CHRIST!
Now as you realize you are accepted your reason for doing things shifts. You start doing things because you desire to do it, not because you have a habit of pleasing people. Now you can decide who you really want to be or become. In James Clear’s book Atomic Habits he outlines why we need habits. Habits either make us who we want to be or they make us who we do not want to be. We can always be financially dependent on an 8-5 job or we can venture out to start our own path. Starting that path will require good habits. Sleep time, exercise time, time for reflection, time for hard work and planning the next move. These are all some of the steps you will find needed to change your life. If you don’t develop small minute habits, like making your bed, eating healthy, going for a walk, using a re-bounder (which has served me well for 15 years, or going to the gym. Habits bring you to an newfound sense of self respect and bring a sense of accomplishment in your life so you can finally say, “O this is who I am.”
So who we are is simply a plethora of habits we have chosen to operate in so that we can become the people we “are.” If an individual paints one picture, you could not say he was an artist or painter, but if he continually made a habit of painting one picture after the other, then because of his habits, we could actually say he is an artist. The same is true for any other activity or skill we would like to conquer. If I choose to practice my piano day in and day out and learn to be able to play, you would call me a pianist. It was all the habits we worked out every single day, getting up when we didn’t feel like it….making sure that all the other little things we wanted to accomplish were taken care of, then we would make time to practice. It is important we continue day after day in the same habit for any kind of change to matriculate into who we really are.