“How to love yourself, Step 1: Stop all criticism of self and others. 2: Stop scaring yourself—we terrorize ourselves with thoughts.  List out our fears and turn into positive affirmations—I am in charge.  One idle thought makes no difference but when we keep dripping one thought after another, [it forms a puddle] and [eventually] we can drown in negativity or float in the sea of life,” Louise Hay.  I want to add an additional step: remember that we are worthy of love without exception or qualification—innately.  We see how to love ourselves when we remember that worth and understand that we have the power to determine what this life looks like through our feelings and thoughts alone.  One of the most challenging lessons I had to learn throughout my entire life is that people are doing their best.  For a long time I never took personal experience into consideration and thought most behaviors with others were common sense.  For a long time I took my experiences and was so painfully critical of every mistake that I forgot I was human—and then I applied that criticism to others.  And soon that criticism turned into fear, thinking a mistake would make everything fail.

Love is about grace and accepting that experience is different for each of us even if we are sharing the same experience. It’s about grace to give space for learning who we are and what we need to do.  It’s about grace and space for our humanity and understanding mistakes are part of the deal.  We have the power to change our perception at any time including taking what we fear most and making it something positive.  Our thoughts will run wild if we let them, the mind’s job is to create scenarios and show us possibilities and that includes the entire spectrum form the greatest success to the most awful failures.  The mind keeps us safe by showing us what can happen and keeping us aware.  We thrive by looking at all the good, the best case scenario.  And we thrive by following our intuition and giving that space we’ve been talking about.  There is nothing to fear.  Even if we fail and fall flat on our face, we can use that as momentum to try again, to approach it differently.  We need to create the pool, the ocean of our lives and we are in control of the contents. We want depths of possibility, not fear or despair.  Our thoughts should be a respite, a haven, a place of opportunity.  Find gratitude for what we have, for our options, for what we’ve learned, and for our ability to teach others.  Take that gratitude as the spring board into hope and possibility.  Gratitude is the boat that carries us through the rough seas and hope is what gives us the courage to dive in trusting we will return safely to the surface.  Love is the space to believe we are worth taking the dive in the first place.  Trust ourselves, be grateful, and love is the result.