The older I get the more I realize that self love is more important than anything else when it comes to personal happiness. Yes, family is always number one but we cannot be the best link to that family if we dont first love ourselves.If I could tell my 16 year old self, heck, 18 year old self, even my 20-30 year old self anything. It would be to LOVE YOURSELF. Seems so simple but its actually hard and a talent we need to cultivate.
Society would have us believe that if we dont look a certain way, make a certain amount, have a particular career. We are somehow less important. How do we let society tell us how to feel or how to rate our feel of worthiness?
We (I) have wasted countless minutes, hours, days , months even years thinking I needed to do what society told me I should be to be successful and based my entire happiness on whatever that was.
I was so dumb! Happiness is something we cultivate from within. We are all individual and distinct and beautiful. We have endless potential and we need to celebrate our own life and be happy to be breathing air and having a body.
This is so true. We need to create our own happiness.
There are definitely things in my life that make me happy. My three beautiful daughters are everything to me. Even on the roughest days I am happy they are mine and bless me every day.
The gym makes me happy. After suffering a life changing injury, I have found my calm in the gym. It may take me longer to reach goals than others with non spinal cord injuries but it is definitely a blessing in my life.
We need to realize only we can make ourselves happy. Not your kids, not the gym, not your spouse, not your friends, not your family. YOU are the captain of your own ship of happiness.
Yes, life throws you curves and I’ll admit I’m not always happy. Sometimes I am down right angry. But then I come full circle and you know what? I’m the only one who can change my attitude and redirect my ship to being happy again.
It is okay to be angry. Its healthy. I remember going through my divorce years ago that I found myself angry all the time. Custody battle and the thought of loosing my home, items (Yes, silly now). I was miserable daily. This wasnt fair to me or my kids or anyone around me.
I remember talking to a counsellor during this time and she gave me wonderful advice. She said its okay to be mad. Be mad but only for a short time. Pick one day or evening and be mad, then get over it and move on.
Strong words that I still use in my everyday life.
When I went through my divorce I decided if I got mail from my ex’s counsel it obviously wasnt that important and could wait. Wednesday nights was my mad nights HAHA. I’d go shopping that day and get a spinach dip and bread. My favourite snack. And I’d put the kids to bed and once they were asleep I’d read all the mail accumulated from the entire week before from my ex’s lawyer.
Oh I remember being so upset. I’d run a bath and eat the entire spinach dip and an inadmittable about of Canadian chocolate and go to bed and wake up choosing to be happy.
It allowed me to feel what I needed to during my divorce but then my kids got their happy mom the next day.
Sometimes we need to pray for positive distractions during life’s hard times and choose to be happy.
How true is this? Happy people truly are more beautiful. We need to surround ourselves with happiness. Your allowed to vent and have bad days. But make sure you have more positive days then bad. People gravitate to happy people. Life is hard enough already make sure you’re the safe place to be.
Anyhow, I just felt like this was important to share. Xojoxo