Loving myself

I am really focusing on changing my thinking and last week's episode of Half Size Me was really timely.  I would highly recommend everyone listen to episode 162 of the Half Size Me show.  It's called "The Key to finding happiness with Trish Blackwell".  She talks about how the hardest and most important thing to overcome is body hatred and self hatred.  You cannot be successful on this journey and be happy if you hate yourself.  What I love about this episode is that she talks about how to start to overcome body hatred.  She says the first thing she does with her clients is come up with a list of 10 physical things they love about their body.  At first it is really trivial things, but as you continue to change your thinking and retrain your brain you realize that you really do love your body and eventually it turns into self love instead of self hatred.  So I decided to give it a try.  It took me three days to come up with 10 things I love about my physical body.  But here they are

1. The freckle on my toe
2. My nose
3. My belly button
4. My fingernails
5. My hands
6. My toes
7. My wrists
8. The veins and tendons on the back side of my hands
9. My elbows 
10. My Hair color

I figured if it was good to come up with a list of 10 things you liked about yourself physically it would also be good to come up with 10 things you like about yourself.  Here is what I came up with.

1. I love my children
2. I am willing to change and try to be a better person
3. I am Honest

That's it.  I could only think of three things over the course of three days.  That is how negative my thoughts are towards myself as a person and who I am.  I've hated myself for so long that to give myself compliments and to say that I actually like something about myself  was really hard.  That is why I have been so stuck.  That is why I haven't been able to overcome binge eating or to overcome emotional eating.  Because deep down inside I still hate myself, and I will not be able to continue in my journey until I change my thinking.  I am trying very hard to retrain my brain to think positively.  In the app I mentioned a few posts ago called "Way of Life" you can make notes for each day for each habit you are trying to create.  I have three positive thinking slots and one self esteem slot where I have to tell myself something good about myself for that day.  I make notes each day, four times a day.  The best thing is that I can go back and read all those notes at once to remember the good things that are happening in my life.  To remember my blessings, to know that I am loved and that I am worth loving and there are so many good things going on in my life and also to remember all the good things I am doing and all the efforts I am making.  There is good in the world, there is good in my life, and there is good in me.  I just have to be able to see it, bring it into focus, and throw all the bad mumbo jumbo out of my head.  Tell Satan to take a hike because I'm reclaiming my happiness and he can't keep me down any longer.

I do plan on finishing my list, even if it takes me months to do it.  Hopefully it won't take that long. I am going to try to think of one good thing about myself per day.  One good attribute that I have, and hopefully I will be able to think of many more than 10.  I hope you do to.  I hope you make a list of things you like about yourself, about the good you do, and about the good in you.  It's time to stop berating ourselves for not being whatever ideal we think we need to be.  It's time to do the best we can every day, dwell on the positive things and tell the negative things to take a hike because they aren't worth our brain space.

Source