Don't Be Perfect - Be You

"Don't be perfect

Be you

Don't be what you think they want you to be

Be what you know you are

Don't look outside yourself for anything

It's all within.

~Jackson Kiddard

A great reminder that being perfect won't make us happy, even though we may have been conditioned to believe otherwise. There is no perfect person and there is no perfect life. 

When we try to be perfect, we reject who we are. As a result, we don't feel good about ourselves or maybe even ashamed. When we accept our imperfections, we embrace ourselves as we are. It doesn't mean that we stop growing or changing - we just don't withhold our love for ourselves until we reach some future state that may never arrive.  We can feel good about ourselves right now and as a result, we become happier. ♥ 

Manuela loves helping others bring more happiness into their lives!  You can visit Manuela's Website for Personal Success Coaching and check out her upcoming “Secrets to Happiness” Workshop!

Cherish Yourself

 

"You are beautiful. You are capable. You are strong.

Cherish Yourself...so you can cherish others." ♥

~Manuela

Guess what? We don't have to wait for someone else to tell us! We just need to remind ourselves, so we don't forget. The beauty is, we can take responsibility for our own happiness. :-)

Manuela empowers women to bring more love and happiness into their lives! You can visit Manuela's Website for Professional Life Coaching and Personal Growth Workshops.   

 

You Are Flawed And Beautiful

"You are flawed, you are stuck in old patterns, you become carried away with yourself. Indeed you are quite impossible in many ways. And still, you are beautiful beyond measure. For the core of what you are is fashioned out of love, that potent blend of openness, warmth, and clear, transparent presence."

~John Welwood

Accepting ourselves completely is the first step toward loving ourselves. 

We are all works-in-progress. We all have weaknesses. And we are still beautiful, loveable, and wonderful. 

Once we can accept ourselves fully, with our strengths and virtues as well as our flaws and limitations, we can love others more fully, too, including their imperfections and weaknesses. 

You do not have to wait until you are perfect to love yourself.   ♥


Manuela is helping smart and creative women bring more love and happiness into their lives! You can visit Manuela's Website for Professional Life Coaching and Personal Growth Workshops. 

Any time I am in resentment I am not taking care of myself

"Any time I am in resentment, I am not taking care of myself. I am blaming someone else for something I need to do."

~Anon

It's so easy to see the faults in other people and react to what they have "done to us." But if we stay in resentment, we are now continuing to hurt ourselves. 

Let's not hurt ourselves. Let's love ourselves. By choosing love, peace, joy, serenity, kindness, compassion, generosity and faith over fear, greed, jealousy, anger, bitterness, negativity and anxiety.

By respecting ourselves, by being compassionate with ourselves, and by giving to ourselves what we need.

By learning from the past and making new choices for the future.    ♥ 


Manuela is helping smart and creative women bring more happiness into their lives! You can visit Manuela's Website for Professional Life Coaching and Personal Growth Workshops.

Are You Feeling The Love?

It’s February! The month of love! It’s my birthday month as well. And month 2 of my intention to make this a breakthrough year for me and everyone who wants to join me! There are so many things to celebrate.  =)

While I am really looking forward to this month, the truth is that I haven’t  always been happy about my birthday in the past. For some reason, my birthday would bring up a sense of dread. I wouldn’t feel happy about it. And I couldn’t really explain why.  When I think about it now, I believe it was because deep inside I was carrying a belief that people didn’t really care or that I wasn’t really loved. So when people did show their love or caring, I would appreciate it, but I didn’t really believe they meant it. And because of that belief, I thought that my birthday was somehow just a phony display. Of course I wouldn’t tell anyone how I felt, except a couple of closest friends.

I finally realized that if I wanted to make a change, I really needed to find a way to love myself. And so I began to research and practice. And I realized that I was not the only one who was dealing with this challenge. I began to see how difficult our relationship with ourselves can be and how hard we can be on ourselves. As I found ways to have a more loving and caring relationship with myself, I wanted to help others with what I had learned and discovered. And so my “Fall in Love with Yourself – Fall in Love with Your Life” workshop was born.

It’s been 5 years since my first workshop and I can honestly say that I am looking forward to my birthday this year. I can’t wait to celebrate and spend time with friends. And I want to share my happiness and excitement with others!

Loving myself is still a daily practice, but it has now become a habit and it feels natural. Knowing that there are many of you out there who are practicing as well continues to give me the motivation and inspiration to go on. Thank you to everyone who has been with me on this journey of loving ourselves! I know for sure that we are not meant to go this alone!

Happy February! Happy Valentine’s Day! Happy Love Yourself Month! ♥

Oh yes, and Happy Chinese New Year as well! =)

You can visit Manuela's Website for Professional Life Coaching and Personal Growth Workshops.

Isn't Loving Yourself Selfish?

I get asked this question from time to time, so I want to address it here. Many people are interested in learning more about loving themselves, but are somehow feeling guilty about it at the same time. 

Is Loving Yourself Selfish? The answer is No, It Is Not Selfish. In fact, it is one of the most generous things you can do for others.

Here’s why:

If you don’t love yourself and just take care of others, sacrificing yourself, denying your own needs, and suppressing your wants, you might start to build some resentment. This resentment might come out in different ways: you might feel less patient or less compassion for others. You might become angry. You feel unhappy, making it harder to stay positive. If you continue on, you might get sick, and now you are really not able to take care of or be there for others anymore. On the contrary, others will need to start taking care of you. I have seen people get very ill (physically as well as mentally) by trying to sacrifice themselves. So what started out as a good intention ends up not helping, but adding a burden to others.

Loving yourself does not mean that you are full of yourself, conceited or don’t care about others. Self love means that you accept yourself, are compassionate with yourself, and empower yourself. If someone is arrogant or conceited it is often because they don’t have enough self love.

Taking care of yourself and loving yourself is one of the most loving things you can do for others. When you take care of yourself, you are increasing your capacity to take care of people you care about. You are able to be more patient, more compassionate, more present, have more energy, be happier and more positive. By taking the time to really nurture yourself and fulfill your needs and follow your passions, you are better able to motivate, inspire, spread joy, and share happiness.   

You are not just doing this for yourself. You are doing this for your loved ones, for the people you care about, for everyone you touch with your life.  It benefits everyone.

So if anyone around you wonders whether it is okay to take care of themselves by taking time to rest, saying ‘no’ to a request, spending some time away from their children or husbands, practicing a hobby, or taking some time off, please tell them that is not only okay, but it is important they do.

You need to take care of yourself first, so you can be there for others. 

By loving yourself, you are able to bring more love to others.

Loving Yourself and Self-Esteem

The following question keeps on coming up from time to time, so I figured I’ll address it here: What is the relationship between Loving Yourself and Self-Esteem?

Self-Esteem is not only about being confident in our ability to cope with life's challenges. It is also about believing that we deserve to be successful and happy and asserting our needs and wants. And this second part has everything to do with loving ourselves.

I often talk about the 3 key components of Loving Yourself:
1. Self-Acceptance
2. Self-Compassion and
3. Self-Empowerment.

Dr. Nathaniel Branden, who is hailed as one of the foremost experts in his field, has identified 6 key components of Self-Esteem:
1. Living Consciously
2. Self-Acceptance
3. Self-Responsibility
4. Self-Assertiveness
5. Living Purposefully
6. Personal Integrity

It often takes a lifetime to reach and maintain a healthy level of Self-Esteem, and the same is true for Loving Yourself. Once you reach a healthy level, there s no guarantee that you will stay there. Different events will happen in your life that will affect it, which is why you must nurture it daily. It’s just like exercise – you can’t just go to the gym once and be done with it. Yet it is so important, because Self-Esteem and Loving Yourself are fundamental to your happiness, satisfaction, and living a fulfilling life.   

Sometimes it may be hard to talk about Self-Esteem, because we feel it’s something that we “should” have. And if we feel that we don’t have enough of it, we may think we need to hide that fact. But the truth is, it isn’t something that we “should” just naturally have. We all need to nurture it every day, so we can lead happier and more fulfilled lives.

I will cover more details about the different components for Self-Esteem in the coming weeks, so stay tuned… =)

Will you love me unconditionally?

All of us are looking for love. Whether we are single and looking for a partner or in a relationship and want to feel more love from the person we are with. And what we want most of all is unconditional love: Feeling loved for just the way we are, even when we are not at our best. So we seek this unconditional love and are disappointed when we don’t find it. Yet how often do we give unconditional love, especially to ourselves?

How do you treat yourself when you don’t finish something on time, make a mistake, or act in a way you didn’t want to? Do you love yourself unconditionally or do you criticize and blame yourself? 

And how about when a loved one is late, does something to annoy you, or acts in a way you didn’t want them to?  Do you love him or her unconditionally or do you criticize and show your annoyance?  

I believe that it all starts with ourselves. If we don’t love ourselves unconditionally, forgive ourselves, and treat ourselves with compassion and understanding, it makes it difficult to do the same for others.

So I invite you to bring more unconditional love into your life by being kind to yourself. Forgive yourself.  If you have a pet, a friend, or a partner who is showing you love, return the same love not only to them, but feel it also for yourself.  Love yourself, so you can love the ones you care about. ♥

Don’t Take Anything Personally

If you have read Miguel Ruiz’s “The Four Agreements”, “Don’t Take Anything Personally” is the second agreement he encourages us to adopt.  He explains: “Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.”  That sounds great, but it’s easier said than done. How can we stop taking things personally?

I believe that it all comes back to loving yourself. If you truly accept and love yourself – your body, your mind, your soul – then nothing anyone else says can hurt you. If someone says you are too big or too short, it doesn’t matter - because you know you are perfect the way you are. If someone says that you are stupid, clumsy, too much, inconsiderate, or too different, it doesn’t matter – because you know that there is nothing wrong with you and you love yourself the way you are. The only reason something hurts us is if we believe that it is true.

“But if I think that I am perfect the way I am, then I will never grow and I won’t improve! And I know that I have ‘flaws!’”, you may think.  Yes, of course we all have things that we may want to work on. And that’s ok. But don’t hold out on loving yourself, just because you haven’t reached a certain ideal yet. If we love ourselves, it doesn’t mean that we stop to grow. It actually makes it easier to change because we are being compassionate with ourselves and are using positive reinforcement as opposed to criticizing and blaming ourselves and using negative reinforcement. (You can look at my post from last week to read more about self-compassion.)

So invite you to continue to practice loving yourself, so you don't take things personally. If someone says something to you and you notice that you are starting to take it personally, take a deep breath and be kind to yourself. What are you believing that makes you take this personally? That you are not good enough, not perfect, not a good Mom, or not a good person? Be kind and compassionate with yourself. It's ok. Everyone has something to work on. You are still a good person. You are still loved. ♥