Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It

How often do you look at yourself in the mirror? I mean really look in the mirror and notice who you are and how amazing your body is?  I believe that our body is a gift and that it is our responsibility to love it, to honor it, and to take the best care of it that we know how.

In most of my posts I focus on ways to take care of the body by nourishing it with good, health promoting, food as well as using beauty care products that are also nourishing.  As I coach people I help them understand that it is important to take care of the body, but also the mind and soul.  These three together make us a complete and whole person.

Many think that taking care of our body means keeping it clean, and feeding it well.  To me taking care of the body means to love it not only with nourishing food but also with nourishing words and thoughts.  Oftentimes I think we have a tendency to pick ourselves apart, to recognize the flaws that we see in our body before we notice just how beautiful and amazing it is.

For several years I have been working on loving my whole self and have been teaching others to do the same.  When I began the process, completely loving myself was a concept that I didn’t quite understand, but with the help of a wonderful mentor I learned practices that removed self-doubt and nourished self-love.

Recently I came across a book that perfectly explains the magnitude of totally loving yourself.  Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It, by Kamal Ravikant.  This tiny book of just under 60 pages contains a powerful and concise message.  Love yourself!  A message that I think we need to be reminded of more often.  This book illustrates how the simple act of loving yourself chases away negative thoughts and patterns and opens up your life to more happiness, more love and more meaning.

I have found a companion book that is a self-guided 30 Day Challenge book to help you Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It.  This books helps you put the concept of loving yourself into practice by applying daily challenges.  One of those challenges is similar to one that I frequently share with those I coach, and I want to share it with you.

The Process:

To see yourself for who you truly are and to love yourself completely.

The Action:

Seeing yourself. Begin every morning by looking at yourself in the mirror. Really look at yourself, look into your own eyes.

Notice how beautiful your eyes are, notice how amazing they look, really focus on the details of the features on your face. Pick out a feature and recognize how grateful you are for that feature. (Don’t slip and start pointing out feature flaws.)

The next step might sound a little hokey but tell yourself how beautiful you are, explain how grateful you are for that particular feature and why you love it.  If you have a hard time doing this, pretend you are talking to a good friend and really give some meaningful compliments. Finally before you leave the mirror, look into your eyes again and say: “(Your name), I love you!”

This may be really hard at first. In fact, you may not even be able to hold eye contact with yourself for a very long period of time. If that’s that case, start there before you move to any other feature on your face, just get connected with your eyes. As soon as you can easily hold eye contact with yourself, look deeply into your own eyes and tell yourself, “I love you!”

Continue this process daily until you can look at all your facial features without any more judgement and say without anymore doubt, “I Love YOU!”

Next move on to a full length mirror and begin to notice all the rest of your amazing features, begin accepting and loving each and every part of your body.

When you are finally able to look at yourself, to say “I Love You,” and believe it wonderful things start to happen; you will no longer worry about the opinions of others, your self-esteem will increase and you will experience more happiness and attract more goodness into your life.

What do you do to love yourself?