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I bring you today’s topic, the power of complimenting yourself, as a lesson learned by me... earlier this month. Evan and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary together in early December. Since we couldn’t go anywhere, we opted for a celebration at home with a charcuterie board on our nicest cutting board, with cheese from our favorite cheese shop, we had a few glasses of champagne, more than a few glasses, and... I'm a whiskey gal, so I had a couple old fashions to top it off....(big mistake).
You probably know where this story is going already... the next morning was a little less than ideal. I was dehydrated, feeling run down, note quite as sprite as I like to be (to put it lightly!).
I walked into our bathroom that morning and began taking a visual inventory.... you know, starting to note all the things you need to “correct”.
I wasn’t consciously doing this, but I found myself thinking things like, “I need to pack on some moisture today, cover up those dark circles under my eyes, definitely could use some eyebrow tweezing, oh I really need to get a workout in today I look a bit bloated....” etc. etc. etc. I was in the middle of this stream of unconsciousness when I finally realized what I was doing and had this moment of reflection.
I had a moment where the Universe was like, “WHAT are you doing?” And I stopped myself to ask, “how long have I been doing this? How many mornings have I unconsciously gone through this motion?” “How many negative thoughts have I had about myself during this daily routine?” “Is this how I want to start off my morning?”. Of course the answer to all of these questions is no.
Funny enough, it is not lost on me that I had this moment of clarity while I was feeling anything BUT clear minded.
So I looked on the mirror and attempted (out loud) to get my thoughts right, “I am beautiful, I am perfect the way I am, I approve of myself, I am enough”. I sat with those thoughts until I really felt them. At this point, I started feeling proud for making another positive shift. No matter how long you work to be better, these old routines will creep up on you so you can address them. View them as an opportunity to grow. We're not perfect and never will be!
And as small as this shift was, I was proud that I was able to stop myself while going through a bad routine, correct the behavior, and work to establish a new habit.....giving myself new affirmations to replace the negative thoughts.
I read Louise Hay’s 'You Can Heal Your Life' book earlier this year and she talks about saying any version of these affirmations to yourself, thousands of times a day, every day, and on the MILLIONTH time, you will start to believe it. So aim to give these beautiful messages to yourself often.
So I’m in my bathroom going through my routine. I'm washing my face, brushing my teeth, taking time with my face oils, and then as I’m smoothing this oil over my eyes I have this thought that’s like “you know, I really like my eyes.” My initial gut reaction was guilt. Guilt for admitting a compliment to myself. Know what I mean?
My southern ladylike qualities seeped through. I could hear the words of the women in my family that came before me, “that’s not lady like”, “that’s not very modest of you”, “oh, how humble” with an eye roll for added emphasis.
I had this immediate shame around the fact that I liked something about myself. The feeling was so shocking that I had to stop and sit with that for a second. "Why in the WORLD would I feel embarrassed for admitting what I like about myself? With all the work I do and continue to do on myself, how can I still have those kinds of thoughts?"
But you know, we’re not perfect and never will be. Instead, I had to take my humbled a** over to my journal and write about this...which then transformed into a podcast episode and blog post!
I realized that there is no reason I couldn’t appreciate something about me, or even compliment something about myself. Although I was raised as a Texan woman who was beat down with rules of modesty and humbleness, these rules aren’t serving me anymore.
The Universe would never want me to dim my light or hide my positivity in any form from any one, including myself.
At this point I thought, “well why am I not complimenting myself MORE?!” And with that, I went from affirmations to straight up power complimenting myself.
F*** being conceited. Love your d*** self. Because if you can’t love yourself, how will you show anyone else how you expect to be loved? How you need to be loved? What you need to hear? You need to learn self love before you get it from outside sources. We need to complete ourselves instead of expecting someone else to complete us. This is how we equalize.
So you know what? I love my eyes. I think they’re very pretty. I also love my prematurely grey hair, my collar bone, my hands! These are weird parts of the body to like... but I do! I own it and you need to do the same for yourself.
How much positivity can we bring to our lives with more of this self complimenting? How many more people will notice my eyes and my collar bone because I notice them? Because I think they’re beautiful?
Maybe you’re way ahead of me and have already had this realization. Is there a part of your body that you love and get complimented on all the time? How much of that is a reaction to your own pride about it?!
Own your favorite parts of you. Compliment them often. Extend that positivity to the rest of you too. As an example, I always hated my nose in the past. I called it a witches nose because of some bully on elementary. Now, I give extra attention to my nose and compliment it daily too. The parts I used to hate need my love the most.
When you look in the mirror every morning. What is your internal dialogue? What are your thoughts? Pay attention to them and when needed, refer back to this post or the episode #23 of my podcast.
Once you're into this habit, expand this beyond the physical. What are your favorite things about your personality? What makes you, YOU?! Love every version of you and compliment that b**** often.
Compliment yourself as much as you compliment friends and strangers. In fact, do it MORE because by ratio, you spend more time with yourself. The math checks out, I promise, that’s why I married a math major. ;)
Replace the habit of berating yourself or talking down on yourself with compliments. This is a huge energetic difference. One is the voice of hate, and the other is the voice of love. Who could you be if you approved of every part of you? How much more complete would you feel if you have YOURSELF everything you needed to hear instead of waiting for another person or relationship to fill this gap?
Complimenting is a great positive energy boost. When you compliment yourself and others, you’re sending that message out into the Universe, and you will get more of it in return.
As Louise Hays said, "Compliments are gifts of prosperity. The language of abundance."
Allow the positive energy that comes from giving compliments, to extend into your life. Allow this energy to be another resource for your manifestations. Let this energy consume you.
Have a great rest of your week, and I will catch y’all next Monday. Until then, go out there and manifest some miracles.
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