How To Love Yourself In Three Simple Steps As I thought about what I wanted to share with you all today I was at a loss.  I just spent a wonderful weekend with 20 women all working on themselves and putting their authentic selves out on the line for everyone to see and hear.  It was amazing; incredible doesn’t even begin to describe the positive energy generated by this group.  How do I describe what occurred over the 3 short days we were all together:  Exercising, eating, shopping and working together as a group to lift each other up to the point where we walked away knowing we had made a difference, not only in our own life, but in the lives of others.

As one of the facilitators of this group a common theme as we dug deep into why we self-sabotage our weight loss surgery journeys was “I don’t deserve it”, “I am unworthy of it” and statements to that effect.  “It” being whatever we saw as our ultimate vision of who we wanted to be. 

How To Love Yourself In Three Simple Steps I hear this time and time again throughout the weight loss surgery community as well as in every other area of life.  To me, the big secret is learning to love and believe in ME first, in my ability to do it - whatever it may be, and in the knowledge that when I put myself first I can and will attain the goals I set for myself AND have enough left over of ME to provide and care for the others around me.

It has taken me years to acknowledge that I really am worthy of loving myself, just as I am today.  Until I was willing to begin, in a tiny voice, to tell myself that I deserved to be happy, I deserved to be healthy, and I was the only one capable of making that happen nothing changed in my life.  Well, one thing did change- I just kept insulating myself from reality by putting on more pounds of protection.

It hasn’t been easy to let go of that insulation, it hurts sometimes, really hurts.  The other side of that pain for me has been FREEDOM…the amazing freedom that comes when you shed hundreds of pounds of excess baggage both physically and metaphorically. 

How To Love Yourself In Three Simple Steps I now can step out of the shower, look at my body in the mirror and choose to see the imperfections and self-criticize or choose to see the amazing changes I have managed to create with my hard work day after day after day for the past 11+ years.  It’s really not much different than choosing what to eat for dinner.  The results are the same.  My choice of attitude either propels me further on this incredible journey that is my life today, or like eating a bag of potato chips creates chemical changes in my body that will leave me feeling poorly physically as well as emotionally.

There are days that it is difficult to have that positive attitude; however I must say that they rarely occur on the days I begin with looking in the mirror and smiling and then getting my fitness on, and they linger now, not for weeks and months, but merely for hours.  I am truly enjoying my life day by day, making each day the very best one it can be.

How To Love Yourself In Three Simple Steps Oh, so you want to know what the 3 simple steps to loving yourself are:

This may not be the answer for everyone, but it sure is a darn good start for anyone.  Remember, YOU MATTER!