Have you ever lost weight, changed your hair colour or style, treated yourself to a make over at the beauty salon and said to yourself “I thought it would make me love myself, but it didn’t ” ?
Why would it ? All you really did was go down the “if only” or “when I”…. then I, rabbit hole (If only I lose weight then I will love myself more, If only I change my hairstyle, then I will have more confidence, When I have a facial, then I will feel better)
The truth is that what you are lacking is self love, so changing your external appearance isn’t going to cut it. Add to this the fact that the world doesn’t honestly want you to really love yourself because then you wouldn’t be an avid consumer of lotions,potions, fashion, food trends etc that you are overwhelmed with daily through the endless advertisements that are everywhere. Which at their grass roots are meant to make you feel bad about yourself so you buy the advertised product, gadget or what ever they are bombarding you with because you have been convinced it’s going to “fix” you.
Here’s a heads up, you are fine just as you are, you are not broken, there is nothing to fix. A few tweaks and changes to your mindset and the way you think about your world is all it takes. Easy for you I hear you say, it has taken me years of changes, tweaks and learning, in the early days with my mentor until I felt safe enough to follow my path on my own. So I know that sometimes what we need to start the process, is someone to show us the way.
When you try to make changes from a place of negativity, it is just exhausting, overwhelming and keeps you stuck in a negative mind frame. What truly leads to self love is a positive attitude.
Start now with a few little things like 1) making a promise to yourself to stop trying to fix yourself, concentrate on what you like about yourself. 2) Be very aware of your self talk, say kind things to yourself, 3) make a conscious effort to eliminate the negativity from what you say about yourself to others. These little acts of kindness will go quite a way towards you being more accepting of yourself
When you feel you are ready to take the next step towards completely changing the way you think about yourself, getting the help of someone who has experienced uncertainty, lack of self confidence, and self dislike. Someone whos journey has been a long, and at times a difficult one, which truth be told is not at its end. Someone who at a ripe and wonderful age has gathered many tools, and knowlege to be able to guide you through your journey of self love and acceptance, if you wish. P.S. whatever you choose, remember this
Decide that you are enough, and watch what happens
Elyse Santilli
