Can you name at least 3 things you love about yourself? This is a question so many I meet have trouble answering. But in all honesty, a few years ago I wouldn’t have been able to answer it either because back then I really wasn’t loving myself much at all, or any part of the life I was living. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case and coming up with at least three things I love about me is actually a good exercise in practicing more self-love.
I find the most important thing I love about myself nowadays is that I’m not engaging in ANY addiction to make myself feel better. Up until the beginning of 2012, I had at least one of them ruling my life on just about every level. What that meant for me was how almost every one of my thoughts, words, and actions were focused on how to feed that addiction. These past two years I’ve forced myself to walk through many bouts of pain and fear without one single addictive numbing agent to curb any of it. While it hasn’t been easy, it has helped me to love myself a lot greater.
The second thing I’m finding I love about myself these days is how I do my best to look for the positive in everything. There were several decades of my life though when that wasn’t true and where my world was only consumed with negativity and stinking thinking. Then, I saw every glass as perpetually half empty instead of half full. And while my life still has plenty of frustrating moments, I am choosing to look at each of them now as spiritual lessons I can grow through rather than a pit of quicksand that’s dragging me under.
The third thing I love about myself today that I think is definitely worth mentioning is how I’m not allowing unacceptable behaviors in my life anymore nor am I allowing anyone to disrespect me either. The reality is that I used to let far too many come into my life and walk all over me. I also used to let way too many use me and abuse me too. I love myself enough now not to allow anyone like this to remain a part of my life at all. Where codependence once ruled my life with vast numbers of these unhealthy individuals, independence and freedom from that bondage have taken their place.
These three things are really but a drop in the bucket of the growing list of things I love about myself these days. Some of the others worth at least mentioning are my devotion to living at a higher vibration, the growing compassion I feel for everyone on the planet, and the respect and care I have for my inner child. It truly seems as if the more I dedicate my life to my Higher Power, the greater things I discover I love about myself. So hopefully after reading this simple exercise in self-love you might take some time now to ask yourself the very same question…
Can you name at least 3 things you love about yourself?
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
I love that I am able to *be* openly loving to others these days, without expecting any love back. The quid-pro-quo expectation of getting love in exchange for giving it is one of my more insidious and destructive behaviors, and one of the easiest to fall back on in times of weakness.
I love being able to recognize the blessings in my weaknesses. I don’t always enjoy those weaknesses – it seems I am still capable of kicking my own ass from time to time – but being able to see the lessons and grow from them is something I never had before.
I love the gift of imagery I’ve been given. I seem to think, communicate and retain concepts in images and story – and to share those with others. I am blessed to be able to be a blessing in that way.
And I love knowing that I am, in fact, a work-in-progress. I am the clay, and my Higher Power is the Potter. I am being constantly reshaped – sometimes doing things that smash myself down into a lump on the Potter’s wheel, and sometimes being lovingly drawn-up into a thing of beauty and grace. (There’s another one of those images…)
Love the potter image. Used to go see this evangelical preacher in the Boston area when he visited… he’d made something with clay while he preached… quite amazing stuff.