In order to follow your purpose in life, you must first love yourself. During my life experience, I had to find this out on my own. For so long I had very low self-esteem and thought that I was the ugliest thing on the face of the earth. I used to go to the mirror and hate what I saw. My life didn’t change until I started loving myself and replacing my negative self-image into a positive image.
“Lift yourselves. Take yourself out of the mire and hitch your hopes to the stars.”—Marcus Garvey, (National Leader)
Learning to love myself didn’t happen overnight. It was a step-by-step process. Just like I did it, you too can have a positive self-image. Read on and you will see how.
The loving of self is one of the major steps that we must take in order to grow. Low self-esteem and low self worth are the major cause or reasons why people never reach their fullest potential.
My transition to positive thinking occurred when I was ready to turn my life around. When I turned thirty years old, I began to break the cycle of having bad relationships, not reaching my fullest potential, hanging out with the wrong crowd, and not being a success both inside and out.
When I decided to turn my life around, I took gradual steps to make it happen. The first step I took was to fine tuning my spiritual awareness and communicating to God. I started to meditate and pray more. I cleared my mind and spirit of negativity.
I began to cut lose of negative people and old habits. I stopped hanging around the wrong crowd. Many times, old friends would call me and ask if I wanted to go and hang out. I would tell them no, that I was busy studying for my college courses. These old friends of mine thought that I was being stuck up for not wanting to associate with them any more but I didn’t care. I knew that in order for me to improve myself, I had to let go of certain negative people in my life.
I began to let go of old habits that I had during my younger years such as being promiscuous. I decided that I wanted to stop sleeping with different men and save myself for my true soul mate. I realized that the reason why many men didn’t respect me was because I slept with them too quickly and I had very low self-esteem. I thought that the only way for a man to love me was to give it up and to have sex with him. I discovered that sleeping with a man was not going to make him love me any more.
The next step I took was to love myself. Once I stopped hanging around negative people and dropped old negative habits I began to take a closer look at myself. At Hillside Chapel & Truth Center, Dr. Barbara King often speaks about how important it is to love you. During a past sermon, Dr. Barbara King mentioned the mirror work exercise created by Louise Hay. The mirror work consists of looking in the mirror and telling yourself that you love yourself. Everyday I looked into the mirror at myself and told myself, “I love you.”
Once I started to love myself, all of the pieces in my life began to come together. My grades began to improve in college, I finished college, I left my first abusive marriage, I started theology school to get my masters degree, I am now writing my novels full time, I re-married, and I have my precious children. My life changed once I took charge, and started believing and loving myself.
If you follow these simple steps, then your life can change. Once you start taking the gradual steps to loving yourself, then you will grow. Taking little steps can eventually led to big ones.
.jpg){kind=icon}
