BlogHer Life Well Lived: Unconditional Love

Valentine's Day is almost here and the two things on peoples minds are love and chocolate.  And maybe love of chocolate.  BlogHer is talking about love too.  But not romantic love or even love for your friends and family, but loving ourselves.

As women we are notoriously hard on ourselves.  I remember sitting in a conference given by Julie Hanks and hearing something that would forever change the way I thought about myself.  She asked us to imagine we were looking in the mirror and, in our heads, say all of the things we would typically say to ourselves.  Tell ourselves how old we looked or how much weight we needed to lose, how bad our hair looked today, etc.  Then she told us to imagine our best friend was standing in front of us and repeat all of those things to her.  I think there was an audible gasp in the room.  None of us would would EVER treat another person the way we treat ourselves.  So why should we treat ourselves that way?

It is so important to take care of ourselves.  To eat healthy and exercise, get enough rest, and it is just as important to learn to love ourselves.  To think of the things we want to change as goals and not as reasons to hate our own skin.  All of the energy we spend worrying can be put to so much better use.  Walking, smiling, even taking care of our family and friends.  I find when you focus on those things, you start to love yourself a little more too.

Dr. Ayme has a great post on BlogHer about loving yourself.  Check out Love and Happiness: How Love Can Keep You Happyand make sure to leave your thoughts in the comment section.  It is a great place for conversation! 

And you can also enter the Life Well Lived Giveaway and enter to win a Kindle Fire and a $50 Amazon Gift Card!