What do you desire to be true instead? What would you like to be different in your relationship with yourself and, as a result, in your life after completing the adventures contained in this book? Begin with the words “As I remember how to love myself more, I will choose <<insert shift>>,” and list three things. For example: “As I remember to how to love myself more, I will choose relationships that are healthy and happy. As I remember how to love myself more, I will choose to make myself as important as everything and everyone else. As I remember how to love myself more, I will choose to give my body what she needs to thrive.”
3. What self-sabotaging blocks or habits have prevented, or will prevent, you from giving yourself this love? And are you willing to release them? It’s okay, we all have blocks. Often these are formed by the crazy beliefs we’ve acquired from what we’ve witnessed about love and self-love or from what we’ve been told by the media, our families, our societal institutions, and our social circles. The beliefs become blocks against love — we’ve learned to put up walls to protect ourselves from the very love we want. Or they become self-sabotaging habits that drive us to make choices that send us farther from love. The good news is, these beliefs have power over us only when we keep them in the dark. Bring your blocks about self-love into the light by honestly admitting to yourself — without judgment — any blocks you have that are likely to stop you from completely following this path of selflove you have chosen for yourself.
Use this sentence and process if it’s helpful: “In the past, I’ve sabotaged myself by choosing <<insert self-sabotaging choice>> over choosing <<insert self-loving choice>> for myself.” For example: “In the past, I’ve sabotaged myself by choosing to keep working over choosing to take care of my body. My self-sabotaging habit is caring for my work more than I do for myself.”
Once you have identified the habit, proclaim, “I am willing to release the self-sabotaging habit of <<insert habit>>. I choose selflove.” The first step in any shift is awareness and willingness; you don’t need to know the how — that’s what this book is for!
For some of the ME Moment and ME Art adventures, I’ve created magical, hand-illustrated, colorful templates to help you through the process in a powerful and fun way. I like to call these Loveplates! To gain access to and download these Loveplates, go to www.ChooseSelfLove.com.
Way to go! You’ve claimed what you desire, and you’ve been honest with yourself about how you sabotage yourself — how you prevent yourself from getting what you need and desire. Self-honesty is one of the major parts of self-love, because where truth is admitted, even when it’s hard to look at, there is always love right behind it waiting to give you a big hug. So let’s keep the momentum going and get rid of any other blocks that may be keeping you from choosing love again and again for your very best friend, yourself.
Are you ready to clear the way for big l-o-v-e? Ready to throw out the guilt-laden and shame-creating beliefs that stop you from flying your self-love flag, or that get in the way of your acts of self-love? Ready to release the belief that you must not think too much of yourself, put yourself first, or express your love for yourself in public? Then wave good-bye to words like selfish, vain, and narcissistic. They bear no relation to self-love. Say hello to knowing that, without a doubt, no matter what anyone else says, self-love can only be a good thing. With your self-love mind-set in place, you’ll be free and clear to love yourself openly without apology. Fearless self-love!
Over the next several pages, you will come face-to-face with some of the biggest misunderstandings and lies about self-love, beliefs that may have taken up residence in your conscious or subconscious mind, causing you to create habits and beliefs that don’t serve you. When this “dirt” about self-love is present in your psyche, you cannot do right by yourself and love yourself well, no matter how much you want to. But once you can see the dirty beliefs and mucked-up misunderstandings more clearly, you’ll gain the power to clean them up, get them out of your mind, and replace them with the truth about love. With the truth in place, you will find it easier to make self-loving choices.
This clean-up is essential. Your mind is tricky. If it doesn’t believe it’s safe for you to love yourself, and that only good can come from loving yourself, it will sabotage even your best intentions. Your heart, however, is wise and courageous, and it always knows the truth. Your mission is to put your mind at ease and in the backseat, and to rev up your heart so it can take control. Your heart instinctively knows the path to love. It has been waiting for you to give it permission to override the misunderstandings that clutter up your mind. Of course, we will do this in Madly in Love with ME style — in a way that is powerful yet playful, and daring yet practical. You, my dear, are about to take a Love Bath.
We are going to dive into four of the most common misconceptions and misunderstandings about self-love. As you come upon each one, follow these four steps:
1. Read the misunderstanding about self-love.
2. Pause for a ME Moment and answer the questions provided. Spot-check yourself to see if this mucky belief has stuck itself to your mind. Answer the questions to determine whether you need to do some cleanup. If you answer no to the questions listed, you are clear and can move on to the next misunderstanding. But if you answer yes to any of the questions, you are in need of a Love Bath, so proceed to step 3.
3. Take a Love Bath. Get your love loofah out and stop to take a Love Bath — superfun, supereasy, and superpowerful; directions below.
4. Bonus: Accept a Daring Act of Love. To get the love soaking into an even deeper level (we don’t want to leave space for that dirt to seep back in!), I recommend that after each Love Bath, you indulge yourself with a Daring Act of Love for yourself. Think of this as wrapping yourself in the most luscious bathrobe or blanket after a refreshing bath and enveloping yourself in love. Take the Daring Act of Love immediately if you can, or schedule it on your calendar — you know, make a date with yourself. After all, who better to have a date with?
Step 1. Scrub off the dirty belief.
With gusto and conviction, speak aloud while wiping off your arms, from your shoulders down to your fingertips, as if you were giving yourself a brisk loofah scrub: “I release the belief that loving myself is <<insert misunderstanding>>.” For example, say, “I release the belief that loving myself is selfish.”
Imagine, as you literally rub your hands up and down your arms, a love loofah wiping off any dirt in your mind and body cells that gets in the way of your giving yourself love in all its forms. Keep rubbing and repeating the words until you feel a release. Imagine this misbelief being scrubbed right out of your system. Rub everywhere and anywhere. Stand up and move around; get your body into it. Then blow out the belief with a huge exhale!
Step 2. Rub in the love!
Now, as if you were rubbing the most luxurious, silky, aromatic lotion onto your chest, slow down, close your eyes, breathe, and move your hand in clockwise circles right over your heart, touching your skin, repeating the new belief as a Love Mantra using what I’ve written below (or your own words) three times.
When you add a physical component to Love Mantras, they connect you to your heart through movement and touch, which gives you double the love power. When you slowly rub your hand in circles over your heart so that you can feel your hand moving over your skin, it is as if you were rubbing the truth about love right into your heart. Go ahead and test it out right now. Rub these words into your mind, body, heart, and spirit by saying the Love Mantra out loud while rubbing your hand in a circular motion over your heart:
“Only good can come to me and others from my choosing to love myself…”
“Only