Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Love Yourself

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Achievement, Goals, habits, Love Yourself, self-affirmation, self-care, Self-love, Spiritual

Don’t forget to love yourself.

Soren Kierkegaard

So many of us beat the living crap out of ourselves. I know I used to. I still do today, but less frequently. I typically get down on myself when I feel like I’m just “going through the motions” and not really putting my entire self into a project.

This happened recently.

I love an automated or ritualized day. I have the same recurring tasks each day and knock them down one by one. Blogging is one of them. I also read, code, learn, journal, interact on social media, exercise, and perform my daily spiritual tasks. It really works for me, but alas, these rituals drift from purposeful self-improvement to automaton-like actions very easily.

As I tackled this feeling, I realized that I should probably take my advice. There will be days where we just don’t feel the motivation and drive we normally do. We’re human. Can I say each workout I do in the gym is 100%? Heck no. This same phenomenon applies to everything else we do. So, I realized that I need to give myself a break.

This is self-love. This is taking care of yourself. This is giving yourself a break. Who wants to live with a micromanager and tyrant? I sure don’t. So, I closed my eyes a few days ago and pretended I was staring at my 7-year-old self. I told myself that you are OK. You will screw up. You’re still an honorable person. You will be lazy some days. On those days, continue to work, but take it a little easy. The days where you’re raring to get at it will be there too. Enjoy those days as well. The days you don’t feel it, enjoy them too and give yourself a break. Just keep doing your daily tasks and you’ll be fine.

That was all it took for me. What things do you do for yourself to recapture the passion you have for your daily tasks/goals? If you have some other ideas, post them in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Remember to Love Yourself

Tags

Aberjhani, Do Nothing Day, habits, Human, Routines, Self-love, Weakness

Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay

“Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends.” 
― Author-Poet Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry

If you’ve read any of my writings on this blog, you’ll notice I am really into self-help. I enjoy improving myself. I enjoy finding hacks to make my life easier, more productive, and efficient. I am constantly testing my performance and trying to find better ways to do things.

One concept I learned a while back was the concept of self-love. Self-love isn’t selfish. It is taking care of you. It is giving yourself a break when you need to buck a routine or you fall short on one of your goals today. It is: remembering you are human and will make mistakes.

I have found over time that the more forgiving I am to myself, the more forgiving I am to other people. We are all flawed, broken, and inconsistent. So are your friends and family. They all have their weaknesses. They all try their best and sometimes they are at their worst.

If you are on a diet and you screw up—so what. You get back on the horse and continue.  Your life will not end because you blew off a workout, cheated on your diet, or slept in. You are human, not a machine. Sometimes it’s ok to take a break from your routines or your workouts or your diet or whatever you are pursuing. Self-improvement is a lifelong endeavor, not a onetime thing. You can miss a day. You can have a donut. You can sleep in. The days you take a day off from your habits and your routines is liberating. So I use a “do nothing day”.

Each Sunday I do nothing. I do not pursue my goals; I do not stick with my diet; I do not worry about sleeping in. I literally do what I want to on this day. The rest of the week I stick to my routines, my diet, my workout routine, etc. A do nothing day can be any day you want and it can vary from week to week. Your do nothing day can also include whatever things you would normally do. This is the beauty of a do nothing day—it’s your day and you do whatever you want to.

Pursuing goals plays a piece in any meaningful life. They do not rule you. If one day off a week is too much, take one every two weeks or once a month. I want my goals to be something that inspires me, not something that rules over me. If you have never used a “do nothing day” before, try it. You’ll find, like I did, that it changes your motivation levels immensely at the beginning of the week.

You are human. You are not a machine. You will slip. You will fall down. You will miss your deadlines from time-to-time. It’s ok.

Until next time…

Dave

 

 

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday

Tags

Consistency, Persistence, self-criticism, self-improvement, self-judgment, Self-love, self-support

“If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.” – H. G. Wells

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_g_wells_163592

One of my largest challenges is learning how to be non-judgmental and self-criticizing. I want to do so many things, get moving toward them, and then…You know the rest. I wanted to take a little time today to discuss the importance of “giving yourself a break.”

I am currently working through a meditation series on my Calm app called the “Relationship with Self” series. It is a series of 10-minute meditations that address things like self-criticism, impatience with self, judgment of self. Think about how many times in the last week you said, “I should…”. For me, it is beyond counting.

I have discovered over the last month working with the discrimination character trait that when you rise above the mind and realize your true nature (awareness), the negative and positive of things fades away. There is no good or bad, up or down, here or there. It all just is. It is just experience. When the mind gets involved it must label, compare, or judge. This is what the mind does—it must examine and measure to make any sense of what it takes in.

Does beating yourself up really make any difference? Not really. It just adds to your guilt, your angst, and lowers your self-esteem each time you start ranting to yourself about how you should have done this or failed to do this. This doesn’t make any sense, does it?

Instead, look at each day as an experiment. What works? What doesn’t work? Just like the quote for today, we all fall, we all screw up, we all fail. Today, we can get up, and try again.

It’s the start of another week. Be patient with yourself, be kind to yourself, love yourself. You should be your best cheerleader, not your best critic.

This week I’ll continue to work through my coding classes, my mindfulness course, writing my book, blogging, and of course, working out. I’ll also squeeze in some reading here and there and journal.

I hope each of you has a terrific week!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday

Tags

Gratitude, Looking for the Good, Saturday, Self-acceptance, Self-love, spirituality, Weekend

“Begin with the love you have. Love gratefully. This love expands your heart into a greater vessel which can hold yet more love.”—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

All of us are probably the worst self-critics. I know I am. Did you ever have a conversation with yourself that involve the statements “you should”, “you missed”, or you “screwed up”? The conversations about not being good enough, not looking right, or some other self-inflicted attack?

Give yourself a break. Embrace the failure. The more we realize how mistakes are a part of success and getting things done, the more we will be apt to tackle projects that are big, hairy, and scary. Get yourself out there, write down the things you want to do before you leave this Earth (Bucket List), and start doing them. I think you’ll be amazed by your results.

Love yourself.

The more you can accept and love yourself, the more you’ll be able to accept and love others. It all starts and ends with you.

Challenge:

When you wake up tomorrow, start your day by saying something nice to yourself. Start your day counting your blessings. Try this for the upcoming week. I think you, like me, will be surprised by the results, the change in your demeanor, the change in your mood.

Seriously, give this a shot.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote – Monday Motivation!

Tags

Monday Motivation, Self-love, Starting Fresh

“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” Eleanor Roosevelt

Everyday brings new opportunities. We are refreshed. We are renewed. We are able to utilize our independent will and thinking to arrive up on new ideas and ways of moving forward.

If you missed your workout, missed a deadline, ate what you shouldn’t have, and so on, it’s ok. Do better today!

I missed two cardio workouts yesterday because of a religious conference. I didn’t plan appropriately, nor did I have the energy to knock these workouts after my family and I returned. It’s ok. Today, was an awesome workout!

One of the points this quote raises for me is the ability to start over, to overcome, to begin anew. Remember, you cannot lose if you do not quit. So, what if you messed up your meal schedule, missed one of your self-prescribed to-dos to achieve a goal. The world did not end. You can pick up today, right where you left off.

Give yourself a break. Start again. Start stronger than you did the last time. “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”

Have a great week everyone!

Until next time…

Dave