How to Speak to Yourself Like Someone You Love
At my recent Breathwork and Self-Love Circle at Wuum, the topic of the evening was self-talk.
What is your inner voice like? Are you speaking to yourself the way you would speak to your best friend or someone you love deeply?
This is something I am always working on. I catch my thoughts going in all sorts of crazy directions throughout the day and continually choose to replace any negative, discouraging, or critical thoughts with more loving and empowering ones. I am learning (over and over again) that we must gently and firmly love ourselves back into alignment.
As Louise Hay, the queen of self-love, taught, “It’s only a thought, and a thought can be changed.”
So let’s get to work!
Louise Hay created the 10 Commandments of Self-Love, a list of her core principles for cultivating a loving relationship with yourself. We explored these together and then created our own 10(ish) Self-Love Commitments.
Here is Louise Hay’s list:
• Stop all criticism.
• Forgive yourself.
• Don’t scare yourself. (Stop terrorizing yourself with your own thoughts and anxious mental images.)
• Be gentle, kind, and patient.
• Be kind to your mind.
• Praise yourself.
• Support yourself.
• Be loving to your negatives.
• Love your body.
• Love yourself NOW.
If we can practice just one of these consistently, there is a noticeable shift in the way we feel. Love feels good, and the more love we pour into ourselves, the better we feel. I’m talking lighter, more peaceful, greater energy, more joyful, and more free.
In one of our sessions, Michiko used the metaphor of our mind as a garden. We must consistently care for our garden and gently pull the weeds of negativity. So, which seeds will you water this week?
For fun, here is my list of 10(ish) Self-Love Commitments:
• Breath and posture ~ meditation
• Forgiveness ~ Ho’oponopono
• Stop all criticism ~ cultivate a nonjudgmental attitude
• Play every day! Joy and creativity are a part of who I am.
• Live my values!
• Drink water.
• Be intentional.
• Do one thing every day that scares me. Faith over fear.
• Begin again and again.
• Smile, breathe, and go slowly.
• Practice positive self-talk.
• Take good care of my body, my mind, and my spirit.
I invite you to pay attention to your self-talk this week. When you notice that your thoughts aren’t feeling so good, gently and firmly replace a negative thought with one that empowers you. Notice that when you choose loving thoughts, you feel good. And that is the direction you want to go.