Coaching with LDS values

Episode 89 Unconditionally Loving Yourself I'm Bonnie Lyman, and you're listening to the podcast, Loving on Purpose. This is episode 89, Unconditionally Loving Yourself. Welcome to the podcast, Loving on Purpose. I'm your host, Bonnie Lyman. If you're having trouble navigating through your relationships with your adult children, if you are struggling to connect with them, or having specific challenges, you're in the right place. Hello, my friends. Some of my most fa vorite of all time people that I know. I feel like I know you. Welcome. Welcome to the podcast. And thank you for those that are joining for the first time. And I hope that as you go through this transition, this navigation of being a parent to adult children, that some of my previous podcasts will So today we're going to talk about unconditionally loving ourselves. It's something that we kind of avoid doing. We almost feel like it's wrong to do. So I'm going to give you some benefits of loving yourself. I'm going to give you some ideas of how to love yourself and how Loving ourselves makes it easier to love those that might be difficult to love. It's just, we're just full of love. And love, like I said, is always an emotion when we feel it, when we show it, when we extended to others that it, it actually rewards us. We are re rewarded by loving others, even if others don't accept our love return our love. or even if they reject it. So first of all I want to start out talking about a little bit about the definition of unconditional love and I got these from several articles that I read. One was from Psych Central and they say unconditional love is when you love someone no matter what they do and have no expectation of repayment. It means you love someone for who they are with no strings attached. And that has a lot of meaning with the clients that I have worked with. To be honest, I have worked with some clients of course I'm not talking to the adult children I'm only getting one side of the story but they feel entitled to be loved by their children. That is a choice of theirs. For whatever reason, right or wrong, we can't make somebody love us. But they're not entitled to love us. Just for an example, it's interesting. the different perspectives we have in relationships. I had one client tell me that she felt like she had to walk on eggshells when she was around her kids, that if she didn't act just so that she would kind of set off a time bomb, she would upset them. And she said she sat down and had a conversation with her kids and they told her they felt the same way. when they were around them. So remember, all we have control over is ourselves, not somebody else. And if we can become a kind, loving person, and I think one of the ways of doing that is by loving ourselves, then we show up as the mom we want to be, and we live with no regrets. I read another article under I don't know if it's a magazine, a blog, but it was called Everyday Power. And they said, having self love involves having warm, positive, worthwhile, caring feelings toward yourself. So that. was the definition of unconditional love for yourself. It's about valuing your specialness, not because you're superior to other people, but because there never will be another person quite like you on the planet. And I made that same reference. In an email that I sent about your children, about how unique and extraordinary they are, well, you are just as special and as unique as them. Everyday Power went on to say, your uniqueness comes from your being to make you a one of a kind. Self love means believing in your worth even when you make mistakes, or you fail, or you do a terrible job at something. Most people feel that in order to be lovable, In order to love themselves, they must achieve or excel at something, and I say self loving does not come from our achievements. It comes from realizing that we are extraordinary. We are all a child of God. The feelings that you have about yourself, you generally mirror back to show how you feel about other people. So a lot of times, if you're not loving yourself, you come across as being resentful or maybe even jealous toward other people, even people that you Want to love and have a good relationship. If you are always comparing yourself to others, let's just say how your kids turned out. That probably means you aren't thinking well of yourself, especially as a parent. Unconditionally loving ourselves is one of the few things that we do have control over in our lives. It doesn't mean that we're. Any better than anybody else, or that we have no flaws. It's loving your complete human self. It's loving the good and the bad. Be aware that you are great. and wonderful, and at the same time, you also are flawed and not your best self at many times in your life. It's believing that you're basically a good person who just messes up time to time. To love oneself doesn't mean you're being prideful. It's being grateful to God for a body and a brain that work so magnificently together. We can't control or depend on validation from others. So we have to get it from ourself. So you better remind yourself every time you do something right, and forgive yourself every time you do something wrong. We live in an imperfect world amongst imperfect humans with which we are a one of those. But there is no reason not to love yourself. So here are some of the benefits of loving yourself. Loving yourself Lowers your stress level. You don't worry about what other people are thinking of you. Loving yourself is a way to tell God, Thank you for this, My, but His beautiful creation, Creation of you, And all the things that you can do. Not everyone is going to like you. But you know what, they don't know you. Like you know yourself. Loving ourself keeps us emotionally healthy. When we love ourselves, we don't take everything so personally. Meaning it is something negative about us at what other people say that don't even mean to say something negative about us, but we just don't take things as personally. When you love yourself, it's easier to make decisions, because you, you trust yourself that you make good decisions. And if you don't, it's not the end of the world. Anything can be repaired. When you love yourself, you also become more resilient. In other words, you Bounce back faster after a set, setback or some disappointment in your life. And that kind of goes back to not taking things so personally, especially when your adult children say something that you feel is critical or they're making fun of you. Self loving yourself unconditionally. Self loving yourself, and remember that means you, you love the good and you accept and you love the bad. Like I said before, it causes us to not take everything so personally, especially meaning something is wrong with you or blaming yourself. That you are the reason your relationship with your adult child is not what it should be. So those are some of the benefits which I think are huge in our life in getting along with other people. So how do you in general talk to yourself? Do you compliment yourself often, or do you find yourself criticizing yourself more often? So here are some things to do to unconditionally love yourself. You need to consciously dedicate time to focus on yourself and what you are doing right. and what your strengths are and what you're offering your family, your community, your world. Number two is show yourself more kindness. And this goes back to talking to yourself and how you talk to yourself. Does it feel like you love yourself? Or does it sound like you doubt that you have any value, much value at all? We were all born with value. And just like a hundred dollar bill that you re you rip, you crumple, it is still worth a hundred dollars. Nothing can take The value away from you, there is no mistake you can do. So love yourself and have compassion for yourself when you're not, when you recognize you're not being your best self. Number three is to love and embrace all the aspects of you. your strengths and your flaws. Journaling might be a helpful practice for you because it's like having a one on one conversation with your own thoughts. Another thing you can do to increase having unconditional love for yourself is do a thought download about what you think of yourself. And a thought download is just whatever you're thinking, you write it all down on paper. Then go back and look at the negative thoughts and change them into positive thoughts. Here's an example. I never remember to compliment my husband often enough. That thought doesn't make me love myself. That makes me beat myself up. But the thought, I maybe don't compliment him enough, but I'm really good. at fixing him dinner almost every night. Number five, don't go as far to needing to always believe you're exceptional, and instead, accept that you're occasionally outstanding and sometimes a bit of a mess. But don't forget to recognize that sometimes you are outstanding. You're not only good, but you're outstanding. And say, good job, Bonnie. You plugged through and you went out there and got those tomatoes picked. Or if you'd gone one more day, the freeze would have gotten them. And you weren't in the mood, and you were tired, and your back hurt, and you had three other things that had to get done before dinner. Good job for doing that. Decide. Number five. Oh no, I guess this, I've got these numbers wrong, I think, here. I'll just go back. Number six is decide to make the choice to love yourself. Regardless of your shortcomings, like I said earlier, this feeling mirrors how we treat other people in our lives, especially when they are exhibiting their shortcomings, but we don't expect them to be flawless, and we often give them the benefit of the doubt far more readily than we do to ourself. When we have our shortcomings, number seven, if you possess and will work on having the ability to be patient, compassionate and loving toward yourself, despite your imperfections. You will be able to easily apply that same kindness to others whenever you desire to do so. Remember, if you are prone to have negative feelings, that is because you're thinking negative thoughts about yourself. Wink at yourself every morning. Congratulate yourself. Thank yourself. Praise yourself. I promise you, you won't feel arrogant. So many of us have been taught, lose ourself in the service of others. That we forget to recognize the value and what a great gift we have been given to be our unique selves in this life. Loving yourself helps you love those that are difficult to love because you understand that we all have imperfection. Your children's imperfections are just different from yours. But we all have them. Loving your complete self helps you understand that we're all here just trying to figure out life the best we can. Unconditional self love means we can always be better tomorrow. I hope you have a great week, and I can't wait to meet back with you next week. If you like this, this episode, And you felt it was of benefit to you, I ask you to share it with somebody that perhaps it could also benefit. But if you're still feeling kind of stuck, in that you don't know how to apply what was talked about, or where to start, on on changing your thoughts, on changing your perspective, on bettering your relationship. Get on a call with me and we can have a discussion and I can tell you how to apply it and where we start. And then you get to decide what you want to do. About this relationship that maybe you're struggling with with your adult children. There is no reason to go on the rest of our lives struggling with our relationships with our adult children. Let's assume the best. Let's assume that we all love each other and we're just trying to figure out how to maintain our own boundaries. and respect another one's. But I can help you with everything. So just go to bonnieleiman. com and book a call. I can't wait to hear from you. .