How To Self-Love

"First I would like to thank all the loyal readers for the empowering feedback, anonymous or who know me personally. Now that my ships already sailed I would like to move forward and write in the Wisdom /Wellbeing category. To inspire those who are going throw similar experiences."

I am glad that I am one of the people who recover fast from whatever life throws at them. Coming out of co-dependency, the healing process starts first with acknowledging the problem and ends with regaining self-love and rebuilding self-image. It's important to set boundaries and find happiness as an individual. Set new balanced relationship goals that satisfy both parties. It's also important to spend time with friends, travel, do hobbies of your own. Separate and use certain periods of time to create a healthy dependence on your own. Have emotional balance, mastering your own emotions, If you been there like me and done it all effectively, you’ll know you’re back on track when the following traits become part of your personality:

You nurture your own wants and desires and develop a connection to your inner world. You see yourself as reliant, beautiful, loved, smart, and capable.
You are done with emotional games/manipulation, become emotionally mature, stable, safe and secure.
Becoming clear about what you want and what you want to feel, as you narrow your options and get drawn to authenticity and people you can be yourself with without ego and submission or try to "fit in someone's box" pressure.
You say goodbye to abusive behavior. Awareness, change, and growth are necessary for you new relationships to overcome unhealthy relationship habits of the past. Caretaking and enabling behavior is acknowledged and stopped.
You establish an unshakeable, unremovable, unchangeable irrevocable fixation on knowing what/who you want, which is a mature authentic connection with an adult whom you can trust.
You respond instead of react. Setting clear, firm boundaries means that you don’t automatically react to everyone’s thoughts and feelings. You tolerate other people’s opinions and do not become defensive when you disagree. You recognize that your reaction is your responsibility. You adopt a healthy skepticism regarding what others say about you (good or bad), and your self-esteem doesn't rise and fall as a result. You say no, and you accept hearing no.
Know and believe that you are the ONLY one responsible for your own happiness, and no ones else's.

How To Self-Love

1. Mindfulness: Having an open, curious, non-judging attitude; not overidentifying with negative stories about the self.

2. Self-kindness: Treating yourself kindly, rather than harshly. Extending the same care and support to yourself that you would to a good friend or loved one.

3. Common humanity: Allowing yourself to be human, to make mistakes and learn from them. Knowing that as humans we are not perfect, nor should we be expected to act flawlessly.

4. Challenge your negative story about yourself: If you can't feel compassion for yourself because you feel undeserving or “bad,” try to think about this as an old story. Notice the old story of why you are bad. Now find a way to challenge this interpretation. If you acted in an unhealthy or irresponsible way, ask yourself if there were circumstances that influenced your behavior. Perhaps you experienced past trauma, or you were caught in a stressful situation. Now make a commitment to try to learn from the experience, rather than beat yourself up over it. Other ways to challenge the story are to ask yourself if you’re seeing things in black or white, if you’re being too judgmental, or if you’re seeing the situation from only one perspective. Are there other, kinder ways to view the situation? Are you expecting yourself to be perfect, rather than allowing yourself to be human?

5. Use write or self-talk to encourage yourself: You may say something like, “It doesn’t help to beat yourself up,” or, “Everybody makes mistakes sometimes.” You may want to acknowledge yourself for trying, even if you weren’t successful. You may tell yourself to focus on the positive aspects of what you did as well as the negative ones, or that behavior change is a process, and you need to keep trying.

6. Be a life coach to yourself: Rather than punishing yourself with negative thoughts, gently guide yourself in a positive direction. You may ask yourself what led to the destructive behavior, whether it’s really what you want to be doing, and what the consequences are. Tell yourself that you have other choices, and it’s never too late to change. Then think about a concrete step you can take right away to move in a more positive direction or get up and try again. If someone else was mean and you let them get away with it, think about how you can set a limit or boundary to stop this from happening again.