Fall In Love With Yourself

Let me remind you of just how delightful you are. It's very hard to attract what you want if you do not feel irresistibly attractive to yourself - your whole, deep, authentic and wonderful self. The definition of the Law of Attraction is that like attracts like. If you judge yourself, berate your shortcomings, feel unconfident about your talents, choices and desires or feel remotely unworthy of love and the other things you want, guess what you will attract? More stuff like those feelings and the disappointments that go with them. No matter what you want, what you look like or where you are at this moment in time you are truly and entirely entitled to love yourself (even your weaknesses which will be the subject of week 17). I could go on and on about this because I am so passionate about helping others to recognize and embrace their greatness and unashamedly (remember principle 7 last week) put yourselves out in the world as the delightful creatures that you are. Don't worry if you are not fully at this place yet. The principle is about the process of falling in love with yourself. Look for things to love, ask others what they love about you and accept what they say as truth. Even if you can only find one tiny lovable thing about yourself it is enough to start the ball rolling. You will benefit tremendously from embracing this principle as will all who come in contact with you.

It often helps people get started if I explain the difference between self-love/acceptance/esteem/confidence and arrogance. These two concepts are often confused in our minds. Love yourself the way you love others. Conjure those feelings. They are not arrogant. They are a deep compassionate abiding sense that this other must always be well and be connected to you and you would do anything to ensure their well being. Arrogance is about "I'm better than you" where love is about "I'm happy you're so wonderful and part of my world." Imagine your life if, instead of making comparisons and judgments, you felt a deep compassionate sense that you must always be well and happy and all your actions supported that belief? How would that feel? The practical results of becoming irresistibly attractive to yourself are that you will gain clarity on what YOU actually want in life (vs. what you think you should want or "know" what others want of/from you), you will attract other happy people to you and have no room for negative judgmental people, you'll discover the junk that's been in the way for a long time and have a reason and the ability to handle it once and for all and, most importantly, you will feel happier and more joyful each and every day. As your love for yourself grows, life gets better, easier and more joyful.

How do you get to this place? Start where you are. Don't judge how far you have to go or anything you have done to get where you are at this moment. You are already remarkably lovable even if you don't see it yet. Then, try the following:

*Do something that makes you feel good about yourself. It doesn't matter what it is or if it would be important to anyone else.

*Do something that makes you feel proud of yourself. It doesn't matter what others think or whether it's even practical.

*End a habit or practice that doesn't make you feel good about yourself.

*Admit something important that you haven't, but need to.

*Take yourself on a date to get to know you better.

*Give something away that you would normally charge for (adding value for the joy of it-week 5).

*Do something good for someone who doesn't deserve it (affecting others profoundly-week 6).

*Identify a quality that you don't currently have that you really want to have and then take 30 days to develop that quality.

*Make a list of all the wonderful things about yourself - ask others for help with this.

*Make a list of all the things in your life for which you are grateful - make a Thanksgiving game of this.

*Learn a skill that has previously intimidated you (like programming your DVD player). Ask someone for whom this task is easy to help you. People like to help and it removes the possibility that you will "fail" and beat yourself up about it.

Avoid making falling in love with yourself into a chore or another opportunity to blame yourself for any shortcomings. It is meant to be a joyful experience - just like falling in love with someone else. Go out of your way to see the best in you and be glad of it, it's your birthright!

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