Are You A Brute or A Lover?

Valentine's Day is upon us and so have been the seemingly endless prompts to shower our sweeties with goodies. Perhaps you take the time to honor your loved one(s) on this day but my thought for the week is what do you do to honor and love YOU?



It seems selfish to turn the focus onto ourselves and I'm not talking about the "it's all about me, tell me what do you think about me" type of attention. What do you do to truly nourish yourself on all levels of who you are...body, mind and spirit?



Can you bring to mind somebody in your life who really pushed you to do more and be more? The person who had the nickname of "the drill sergeant", "Genghis Kahn" or "G.I. Jane"? Perhaps you've seen celebrity personal trainers on their knees with contorted expressions pounding the gym mat and screaming at the reality show contestant to "give it all you've got...more, more, more...".



Or does your drill sergeant live inside of you and masquerade as your own personal self-critic? That voice that is telling you to do more and be more because you're not good enough and you'll never amount to anything.



Either way, the inner or outer brute doesn't necessarily yield better results. A recent study showed that people who were self-loving and compassionate were able to change whatever behavior they were focussing on better than those who called on the unforgiving, "push them till they drop" person to act as motivation.



What? Self-talk that is compassionate and not harsh? That seems nearly impossible! Well...it is impossible if you never practice speaking kindly to yourself. To understand change we need to understand that love is greater than everything and making ourselves feel belittled and lousy will likely lead to burn out along our own evolutionary path.



If you have a goal, coach yourself as a loving parent would speak to a child when learning something new...say "good on ya" or "yay for me" more frequently. Berating ourselves simply feeds the cycle of low self-esteem. Once you begin to hear the "drill sergeant" pipe up, notice who it is and ask them to keep the noise down. Breaking the cycle of beating up on ourselves begins with awareness and grows into understanding not only how human we are, but also how amazing we are.



Now that you're nicer to you...you'll be nicer to others as well. Try it out and let me know how it goes!