This week I wanted to focus on me. I mean you. I mean I want each of us to focus on ourselves. I want us to practice some gratitude towards ourselves.
Appreciate ourselves.
I want you to think of how hard you try so much of the time. How you give it your best and sometimes you fall short and sometimes you hit the mark, but each time you try. How you love wholeheartedly. How you fill the dishwasher and empty it and do the laundry and cook and clean and put make up on and fit into clothes that hurt a little bit or shoes that hurt a lot just to look a bit better. How you smile sometimes when you want to scream. How your patience is tried day in and day out but you still give the baths, read the stories, hug, kiss and love.
Maybe you don’t have kids but take care of your mom. Or do both. Maybe you have a sick friend. Or a high maintenance lover. Maybe you work too hard at a job where you’re not appreciated enough. Maybe you study a lot and still get mediocre grades. Maybe you try and try and try and don’t always make it.
Maybe you don’t have as many friends as you’d like. Your art is not as amazing as you wish it were. You would like to read more. Eat less. Exercise. You’d like to keep in touch better. You want to write that novel already. Or take that course. Visit that country. Quit the job. Start your dream business.
You have dreams. You have frustrations. Ups and downs. Don’t we all? Even the happiest among us has hard days and the saddest among us has good ones.
That’s life. And while you work everyday to make it better for yourself. Or even while you’re wallowing in your ice cream in front of the TV, just cut yourself some slack today. Pat yourself on the back. Take the day off. Wear the comfy clothes, grab a book you love or a TV show you’ve been looking forward to and allow yourself the pleasure.
Stand in front of the mirror and take a good look at yourself. Give yourself a hug. You deserve it.
You really do.
Just for today, make sure you really appreciate yourself. I have a friend who always told me that if I said enough bad things about myself, others would start seeing me that way and I really believe her. It all starts with you. If you don’t appreciate yourself, how can you expect others to?
The following is cross-posted from the Weekly Gratitude Blog. I will post there every Tuesday and decided to post those posts here, too. For those of you who read both blogs, I apologize in advance. Some weeks the content might be different and other weeks, exactly the same.
K-
This is genius…stuff for a GOOD book. I would buy it. It’s easy for me to tell others this same thing but so hard for me to believe it about myself sometimes.
thanks for sharing
Boy, you really hit it right on. I think these same thoughts, feel these same emotions, but I have a hard time putting it to words. You have such a gift for that.Mostly I feel guilty for any time I take for myself. It is a self imposed guilt, as everyone in my family is very encouraging. Why do we do this to ourselves? And why do we have abundant compassion for others, but are so hard on ourselves? Hmmm. I think you have me thinking.