What does it really mean to value yourself?

By: Sherrie Campbell, PhD

What does it really mean to value yourself? What it means to me has nothing to do with ego or an inflated sense of self. When we value ourselves we accept ourselves as human but love ourselves enough to do our best to handle life's challenges with dignity. 

Dignity is an internal sense of who you are and what you mean in the world...what your value is. If you are accepting below value treatment by letting others treat you poorly or unfairly judge or scapegoat you then you are not valuing yourself. 

To have high value is to have a soft, sweet but powerful sense of who you are. You have a love and exuberance for what you have to offer and the quality of love you are capable of giving and receiving. 

You then have to be sure you are giving this love to people who can receive it and have a high enough value within themselves that they know they deserve it and are capable of giving it in return. 

Many of us have had to learn the hard way that there are truly people who are "love allergic." They see love and maybe they haven't ever seen it before and instead of that love making them feel good it makes them angry, empty and hateful. This is because they have never been taught they are lovable. This is something that love from another cannot fix for them. It will be their life's journey to try and mend that within themselves, to learn to love themselves. If you have high value and you love yourself you will be able to accept you cannot save those people, but you can wish them well on their journey and hope they can find the remedies to their "love allergies" on their own. In the meantime get out of there and Love Yourself...the good is always on its way and being self-loving is a powerful attractor for all that good.

Dignity

By Sherrie Campbell, PhD

 

What we all have ownership over, if we love ourselves, is our dignity. When we have our dignity in our hands and hearts we trust always in the abundance and goodness of the Universe. We know that there is always enough love to go around and therefore, we believe in solutions. We never settle for less than we deserve and we always walk in silence from situations in which we are not valued. 

 

We know when we are around those who do not love themselves because they believe completely in lack. They believe to have one thing they love they must give up other important loves. This is truly the sickness of not believing in love and abundance. This is the belief in negativity. This is the fear that we cannot have all we deserve, desire and want. 

 

Non-self loving people come from this place and create chaos in their lives and in the lives of others. In fact, if they experience true love they demean it, take it for granted and do whatever they can to destroy it because after all they must not deserve it. 

 

There is no peace in this thought system because it is ruled by the mind and not the heart. If the shutters are closed the light cannot come in. We must accept there are many like this and accept we cannot help them to see all the abundance which is there if they are unwilling to believe. Just take a moment...and embrace all the goodness and love available if we just simply...love ourselves.

Hurting is Healing

By Sherrie Campbell, PhD 

Life is about healing. When we are hurting we have to remind ourselves that we are not hurting...we are healing. 

 Life is about change and change almost always involves some type of loss. It is often hard to see this loss not as a loss but as a new beginning. This just takes time. 

Every loss is a new beginning but we cannot skip over the loss part of the equation so we must enter into a time of healing. Here is the thing about healing, we do not usually get to decide how long it will take and most of us would love to push the river. When we are healing we are on "healing's time" (I discuss this in my book in detail). 

Healing's time is Divine time. We should never want to cut our healing short because if we do we lose essential growth opportunities. However, we must also be mindful not to stay stuck and suffer needlessly over our own suffering. Healing is about growth and growth is about movement so as you heal and nurture yourself, do it actively so there is movement forward involved. 

Everything outside of us that we are attached to is temporary so when there has been a loss do not get in denial about it. Accept it. It is real. I has happened and you must deal with it. I see so many people who resists this process. We must not resist, but allow ourselves to surrender. The good is ALWAYS on it's way so as you are healing and growing keep this in mind. The Universe has a need to fill up all empty spaces and if you are focused on loving yourself your empty spaces will be filled up with more love. If you are focused on resisting the Universe will not be on your side and your empty spaces will be filled up with more pain to give you the opportunity to surrender. Doesn't this make loving yourself and accepting the reality of your healing to be the best choice in the direction of improving your self worth? Accept and surrender.

Real Love

Sherrie Campbell, PhD

No one can ever love us enough to fulfill us...not our children, not our partners, not our friends. When we have emptiness inside and we go looking for love we will only find more emptiness. 

What we create in our outside world is simply a reflection of what we feel on the inside about our worth, our rights to love and happiness and what we believe we deserve. 

When we can change and let go of any and all negative thoughts and stories about ourselves then our lives will change to reflect that. 

People who do not offer us love cannot offer it because they don't have it to give. If we are searching for them to give something they do not have then we will have emptiness. 

If you believe you deserve a higher level of love then you must become that within yourself. The value of loving yourself is immeasurable and the greatest gift of it is when losses come in life you will always have yourself to fall into. There is not a greater safety than that. 

Remember real love doesn't leave, real love doesn't lack. Real love is about solutions and patience. Real love must first start with loving yourself. Have a beautiful Sunday!

___

Get Your Own Advice

By Sherrie Campbell, PhD

If we love ourselves then we will know who we are and who we are not. When we do not have an inner connection to ourselves we are like a kite floating on the unpredictable weather of life. When we are not internally connected we are making fear based decisions, making decisions based upon what other people tell us what is right for us, and making decisions that we think will get us what we want. 

We can never get what we want out of fear. We can never get what we want by someone else telling us what to do. We can only get what we want when we check within. The power to run our lives effectively exists within all of us, but so many of us allow the outside world to dictate our direction and we often give up or get rid of the very things in our lives that we really need because they are healthy for us. 

Fear creates reactivity, impulsivity and regret. These are three things which then bring upon great loss, depression and self-doubt. When we love ourselves, we know ourselves. We can listen to and consider the advise of others but only after we check in with our own compass, weigh the options from a place of health compassion and self-love and then we will always know what is truly best for us. Like the good witch said "She had the strength within her all along." 

Check within before you make decisions and in doing this you will not risk making decisions which only serve to make your life more empty.

Seekers of Love & Approval

By Sherrie Campbell, PhD

 

Seeking love and approval can be one of the most devastating quests we go on if we are searching for it from others. Regardless of what someone shows to the world their emotional and mental states cannot be concealed. Each person is experienced directly and/or subliminally by the outside world. If we feel unworthy of love then people will pick up on that. Likewise, if we feel worthy of love, people will also pick up on that. This is why loving yourself is so vital. 

 

Loving ourselves can be easy to lose, hard to pick up some days but committing to it and trying again is always something you can return to. It really doesn't matter what people think of us, or what slander they put out in the world if we are ok with who we are and we know we have done our best in whatever sitatuation life has brought to us. 

 

Life isn't about being perfect or being what other people want or need us to be. It is about evolving personally. If we are stuck in needing the approval of others or needing them to like us we are out of alignment with the Universe. If we love ourselves then we are in alignment with our Universal evolutionary impulse to grow. In this way we can look at our mistakes and see them as opportunities to grow. When we see it this way, we can stop self-abusing. 

 

We are all human. Each of us. We are all doing our best. Love and approval need to come from within so we can shine that light out into the world to keep the darkness away.

Self Love Beyond Pain

If your SELF is filled with pain, you may reject that pain (not wanting to feel it) and along with it, you reject parts of yourself. Think about it. Your emotional pain is attached to--bound to--parts of YOU. Have you ever considered that the emotional pain you hide, deny and reject actually consists of some good stuff too? Like a dirty shirt that just needs a good washing...

Inner discomfort is attached to parts of you that you need. Parts of you that need you. When you run from pain, it's like refusing to clean your house. Pain is not as scary or bad as you imagine. Your feelings of hurt are often a signal that there is something you're ready to face, to heal from and to overcome.

You may try to medicate your pain with addictions. You may run to anything outside of yourself... drugs, alcohol, another person, love, sex, gambling, work, the internet.. Anything to distract you and to keep your mind off the nagging pain at the pit of your chest. The pain which is, in fact, your True Self crying out for attention, time and understanding.

Only YOU can answer the cry of your heart. It may feel like the pain will resolve once you fulfill your fantasy of wholeness that your pain has projected like an oasis in your heart, but that is a lie. The only way to stop the pain is by facing it, feeling it, processing it and letting it go. Once you do, you find pieces of you that the pain was holding onto. Pieces of you that are valuable. Pieces of you that you need. Pieces of you that deserve your own honor, attention, respect and love. Forgotten pieces of your very own self that you've left by the wayside because it was intertwined with pain.

Pain is anything other than complete Self Acceptance. Anything other than joy and jubilation at the thought of your existence, your day, your life. Pain is anything that interferes with fulness and wholeness. That pain must be cleared out, accepted, acknowledged and grieved. Stuffing your pain down only leads to depression and physical symptoms. It's only by being honest with ourselves, and brave enough to face the truth of our own discontent, that we can begin to reconcile ourselves inside.

Pain will not be denied.

J. Ryan
July 2013