Yesterday I was on Dialogues With Dignity again with my friends Dan Hays, Ellen Brown and Stash Serafin. I love being a guest on their radio talk program. The title of this program was "Learning To Love Ourselves."
Here is the link for the dicussion:
http://dialogueswithdignity.podbean.com/2012/01/18/learning-to-love-ourselves/
I hope you will listen to the program and leave comments on Dialogues With Dignity and then come back here and leave a comment. Let us know if you liked the discussion. Thank you to Dan, Ellen and Stash for having me back for this discussion.
When I was getting ready for the show, I printed out a few of my past articles on learning to love yourself as a healing tool. Then I sat down and made a list of 22 ways to love yourself. Here is that list:
1. Reconnect with and pay attention to your body and what it tells you.
2. Forgive yourself for being that child who got abused. Know that you didn't cause the abuse and you couldn't have prevented it from happening. You were a child.
3. Feel whatever feelings come. Don't stuff or deny their existence. That is how addictions start.
4. Learn how to take care of your needs and wants. You do have them. You deserve to be nurtured.
5. Learn to trust yourself and your intuition.
6. Do things that make you feel good emotionally and physically. Do something that is fun that your inner children will enjoy doing.
7. Use affirmations to build your feelings of self-worth.
8. Know that your value comes from within you, not from others.
9. Know that you deserve to be loved by yourself and by others.
10. Let go of your abuser's love - it isn't love and you don't need it when you love yourself.
11. Work on taking back and building up your personal power. (My next post due on Jan. 22 is about personal power.)
12. Move. Exercise. Diet if you need to so that you can improve your health.
13. Make a dentist appointment or doctor's appointment if you need it and keep it. Don't let your fears and shame keep you from taking care of your body.
14. Find a doctor that you trust.
15. Hug a special teddy bear to nurture your inner child. Sleep with it if it comforts your inner child and makes her/him feel safer at night. As silly as it may sound for an adult to sleep with a teddy bear, it helped my inner children to start to trust the adult me.
16. Use meditation to calm and ground yourself. Become aware of your breath and your connection to your body. Many incest survivors are totally disconnected from their body and the hurt that it experienced when they were children.
17. Take small steps in healing. Pretend that you love yourself and watch others who show that they love you until you can start to love yourself.
18. Surround yourself with people who love you and support you in your efforts to heal and to become functional. Let go of those people who don't support your healing.
19. Recognize that change is scarey and it is a choice. Face your fears and change any way.
20. Be willing to be vulnerable and open your heart to those you love.
21. Love yourself today by accepting you right where you are today. With acceptance comes awareness. Accepting yourself is the first step to loving yourself. See your inner children as a product of your childhood and love them any way.
22. Loving yourself means not allowing you to hurt yourself. It also means not allowing others to hurt you. Say no to abuse in any form.
It is my belief that loving yourself is the foundation of all healing. You deserve to heal and to feel good about yourself.
Don't forget to check out our talk at Dialogues With Dignity. I wrote this list before doing the show and you will hear me mention most of this in my part of the conversation. Again, thanks to Dan Hays, Ellen Brown and Stash Serafin for having me on Dialogues With Dignity.
Patricia
Here is the link for the dicussion:
http://dialogueswithdignity.podbean.com/2012/01/18/learning-to-love-ourselves/
I hope you will listen to the program and leave comments on Dialogues With Dignity and then come back here and leave a comment. Let us know if you liked the discussion. Thank you to Dan, Ellen and Stash for having me back for this discussion.
When I was getting ready for the show, I printed out a few of my past articles on learning to love yourself as a healing tool. Then I sat down and made a list of 22 ways to love yourself. Here is that list:
1. Reconnect with and pay attention to your body and what it tells you.
2. Forgive yourself for being that child who got abused. Know that you didn't cause the abuse and you couldn't have prevented it from happening. You were a child.
3. Feel whatever feelings come. Don't stuff or deny their existence. That is how addictions start.
4. Learn how to take care of your needs and wants. You do have them. You deserve to be nurtured.
5. Learn to trust yourself and your intuition.
6. Do things that make you feel good emotionally and physically. Do something that is fun that your inner children will enjoy doing.
7. Use affirmations to build your feelings of self-worth.
8. Know that your value comes from within you, not from others.
9. Know that you deserve to be loved by yourself and by others.
10. Let go of your abuser's love - it isn't love and you don't need it when you love yourself.
11. Work on taking back and building up your personal power. (My next post due on Jan. 22 is about personal power.)
12. Move. Exercise. Diet if you need to so that you can improve your health.
13. Make a dentist appointment or doctor's appointment if you need it and keep it. Don't let your fears and shame keep you from taking care of your body.
14. Find a doctor that you trust.
15. Hug a special teddy bear to nurture your inner child. Sleep with it if it comforts your inner child and makes her/him feel safer at night. As silly as it may sound for an adult to sleep with a teddy bear, it helped my inner children to start to trust the adult me.
16. Use meditation to calm and ground yourself. Become aware of your breath and your connection to your body. Many incest survivors are totally disconnected from their body and the hurt that it experienced when they were children.
17. Take small steps in healing. Pretend that you love yourself and watch others who show that they love you until you can start to love yourself.
18. Surround yourself with people who love you and support you in your efforts to heal and to become functional. Let go of those people who don't support your healing.
19. Recognize that change is scarey and it is a choice. Face your fears and change any way.
20. Be willing to be vulnerable and open your heart to those you love.
21. Love yourself today by accepting you right where you are today. With acceptance comes awareness. Accepting yourself is the first step to loving yourself. See your inner children as a product of your childhood and love them any way.
22. Loving yourself means not allowing you to hurt yourself. It also means not allowing others to hurt you. Say no to abuse in any form.
It is my belief that loving yourself is the foundation of all healing. You deserve to heal and to feel good about yourself.
Don't forget to check out our talk at Dialogues With Dignity. I wrote this list before doing the show and you will hear me mention most of this in my part of the conversation. Again, thanks to Dan Hays, Ellen Brown and Stash Serafin for having me on Dialogues With Dignity.
Patricia
