The Journey Toward Self-Love

Learning to love ourselves is not an easy process.  In fact, many people spend a lifetime trying overcome self-hatred, but are never successful.  Valuing oneself or having a healthy sense of self-worth is an important componant when trying to function in this world.  Husbands and wives deserve a spouse that loves themselves.  Children deserve to have parents that value themselves.  Bosses and companies deserve to have employees with a strong sense of self-confidence and competance.  We owe it to ourselve and those around us to love ourselves.  Here are some tips to help you get started:

Identify and process your strengths.  Understanding what you are good at and why you are good at it is an important step in your journey toward self-love.  Too many times we are so focused on the negative aspects of our being that we don't recognize the positive characteristics of our existance. 

Understand your weaknesses.  Althougth we want our strengths to be our main focus, we still need to have a better understanding of our weaknesses.  Having this all-around understanding allows us to better prepare ourselves for the tasks and challenges life presents to us.

Forgive your shortcomings.  The realilty is that we all fall short from time to time.  We live as imperfect beings; and in that imperfection we often say or do things that we regret.  We cannot allow our shortcomings to define us.  We have to learn to forgive ourselves. 

Let go of the past.  Not only do we need to learn to forgive ourselves, we also need to work toward forgiving others.  When we hold on to the hurts others have caused us, we end up harboring bitterness and resentment.  When we do this, the only person we punish is ourselves.  Thus, forgiving others is as much or more about our healing than the one how has sinned against us.  Anywho.....I believe it is necessary in moving toward self-love.

Keep in mind that loving yourself doesn't mean you have to be self-absorbed.  Loving and serving others should always be a high priority for you.  However, I find it hard to believe that we can effectively love and serve others if we aren't loving ourselves first.  God obviously valued us enough to send his son to die for us.  It is about time we start seeing ourselves in that same light.  I hope these tips will be a blessing to you in your journey toward learning to love and value yourself.  God bless.