Inspired Living
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4 Ways to Grow in Self- Love
By Martha Eleftheriou Happy New Year to all you wonderful, hardworking mothers and caregivers to our most precious commodity: our children! As I sit here reflecting on 2016 and all the lessons I have gained for myself personally and professionally, I want to share one of my biggest life lessons I've experienced this last year: that is the lesson of self love. I believe we are here on this planet to do two things: primarily learn to love the divine souls we really are and, secondly, find our purpose/gift and share it with the world. Here's the thing, you cannot get to #2 if you don't have #1 down pat! Lack of self love keeps us stuck in negative patterns that sabotage our relationship with our Self. These patterns generally manifest themselves in our relationships. These could be any types of relationships bringing us pain, discomfort and generally bad feelings about ourselves. I've learned a few things from painful relationships and I'd like to share what I've really learned this year with you with the intention that 2017 could be your year for an amazing life that you really absolutely love living! Here are 4 tips to help you love yourself and appreciate the amazing being you are! 1. Take 100% responsibility for your life! This means stop blaming others for letting you down! Stop blaming your past, your childhood, your parents, your spouse or your children for letting you down. Understand that in blaming anyone else, you are completely disempowering yourself. Take 100% responsibility for your life starting today! You are responsible for your own happiness and fulfillment. If you're feeling unhappy with someone else understand that it's because you aren't giving yourself what you need which is unconditional self love! If someone is mistreating you in any way, it's because YOU are allowing them to do so. Don't allow others to treat you like a second class citizen but understand the only reason they are treating you that way is because you are treating yourself that way! 2. Commit to the most important journey you will ever take- the journey within. This is going to be the difficult part. This is the part where you need to feel all your pain, all your sorrows and all the hurt from your past. Do not feel embarrassed or ashamed of your past. We ALL have stuff to work through whether we admit it or not! So commit to allowing your self to be broken open. Let your heart pour out all the pain it has been holding onto all these years. Let yourself bawl your eyes out. Let your heart open fully in order to heal. I highly recommend not doing this alone. Find a trusted mentor, coach, group, program or friend that will hold your hand and walk you through this. Ask for help, get the help and feel it all in order to heal it. I promise you you will be so thankful in the end that you took responsibility and healed yourself! 3. Take a careful inventory of your relationships and sift out the people who don't uplift you, encourage you or want you to be better. I've learned that not everyone in our lives will be happy with our healing and journey inward. Some people will be angry or resentful. Some people will be hurt. Some people will take your growth personally and think it's about them when it has nothing to do with them. That's okay. Send them love and refocus your attention back onto your feelings and your self-love and self -acceptance. 4. Accept the changes that will occur as you delve deeper into self love. Accept that you will change. That's the point of life! To grow, to evolve, to heal so that we all can become the best version of our Self! Your circle of friends will probably get smaller. You have to get okay with this! You must understand that your purpose isn't to be liked or loved by a lot of people. Your purpose is #1 to fall in love with yourself and #2 share your gift with the world! That's it! In the meantime, you will attract or keep the right relationships in your life and lovingly let go of the wrong ones. So in moving forward into 2017, commit to the most important relationship you will ever have: the relationship with your Self! Remember, we are all just walking each other's souls home in this lifetime. Let's commit to loving ourselves so authentically that we can't help but love each other just for who we are: Beings of divine love and divine light! All my love, Martha |
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Martha Eleftheriou is married and a mother to two beautiful daughters ages 8 and 1 years old. She is a transformational and spiritual Life Coach, a certified elementary school teacher (OCT), Reiki Master and Yoga Teacher (RYT). Aside from passionately working with people in helping them to uncover their dreams and purpose, she loves reading, writing fiction and non-fiction, as well as taking regular nature walks. On the inside, she is an eternal soul seeker. She loves to question, ask, learn, un-learn, re-learn and live her life as true to her core values of love, compassion, honesty, and service as best as she possibly can. She lives with her family in King City, Ontario, Canada.
www.marthaeleftheriou.com |