lystn

Hello and welcome back to the 98th on THP podcast. I hope you’ll are taking enough time for yourself throughout the week – just by yourself! It’s important. I hope you’re not being hard on yourself because you deserve all the love and compassion that you go around pouring on other people. We often set standards for ourselves that are too high because society expects us to be perfect. We forget that everybody has flaws, even the people we perceive to be perfect. But who decides what is perfect? Who sets the standards we feel we need to live up to? Self-acceptance, self-love, and self-compassion are essential for our overall health and happiness. These attributes affect not only our mental and emotional health but also our physical health in very real and concrete ways.  While it may sound “out there” or “woo-woo”, when we don’t accept ourselves fully, we are ever so subtly cutting ourselves off from the life force energy that gives and sustains life. It happens on a very subtle level, but over time this disconnection from the full potential of life force connection can manifest with concrete health issues. Think of it another way. When there are parts of ourselves that we don’t accept, we are literally warring with ourselves internally. And when both parties in that war are actually parts of you, guess who loses, regardless of the outcome? We all have flaws – that’s what makes us human. Everybody makes mistakes – that is the only way we can learn and grow. Accepting our flaws and forgiving ourselves for mistakes, or put another way, reconciling all those conflicting parts in us is crucial to our health and happiness, and to generally achieving our greatest potential as humans. Self love is a practice, its is something you learn and implement into your everyday life. A few things that I feel like should be considered and known when it comes to self love: You are the main focus – It all starts with you and ends with you. You’re going to be with yourself for eternity. Which means, you want to operate from a place of self-loving, rather than self-loathing. You care for yourself the most – Nobody is interested in you – your well-being, health, safety, happiness, and existence – more than you. No one knows better than you, what makes you happy, or what hurts you most. No one thinks of you, or exists ready for your rescue, support or comfort. No one can make better choices for you, or give you a better opinion of what you need to do – other than yourself. No one is here for your spiritual growth – but you. You are the only person that can bring yourself up, or down – You determine your attitude, the way you react, and your outlook day to day. This way, if you love yourself, you will be mindful of the way you feel and how you feel it. What would your life be like if you loved yourself unconditionally? Take a moment to think about it. Would you live in accordance with your values? Would you feel totally comfortable in your mind and body? Would you hold compassion for yourself when you made mistakes? Would you believe, undoubtedly, that you are a good person? Would you rely on others to validate and accept you? Would you overextend yourself to please others, or would you honour your needs and politely decline? Would you feel confident in accepting a request, knowing that you would be helping others solely out of love for them? Would you feel good about yourself, either way, no matter what you chose? Listen to the entire episode here - https://open.spotify.com/episode/4CM768USayYpQw5k5HxOpU?si=y4rsLQ_UQw6MPd3bLDPdBA&dl_branch=1 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thehappinessproject/message