Self-Abuse is Just Abuse

Just as abusing others is not ok, Self-Abuse is not ok either! It never was, and it never will be.

Self-loathing, self-hating, self-abusing…it is all abuse. It is not ok. Just as it’s not okay to be a jerk to others, it is not okay to be a jerk to ourselves. It causes us to be sick, emotionally drained, grumpy and eventually mean to everyone around us because what is inside is what flows out. We withdraw from life and begin drowning ourselves in distractions, trying to feel better. If we can just focus on someone else’s life we can forget about our own. We turn to the TV, the internet, scrolling through social media, drinking, drugs or whatever we can to escape our lives instead of working on fixing them. It doesn’t work. The fixing comes from the fixing the source within. All we really need is…

Love.
Loving ourselves needs to happen, every day, every minute.
We can not hate ourself well, happy, or healthy.
Love and only love.

Loving oneself is not selfish. It is not narcissistic, and it is not vain. It is not what the twisted mind of broken-hearted people say it is- not in any way. It is NOT being obsessed with your outer appearance or in lust with yourself or any other corrupt or dirty thing someone without self-love would make it seem, but we will give them grace and compassion, as they are still blind and unloved within themselves. People are so used to self-hating that self-love seems foreign and strange. People fear what they do not understand and when we are so busy self-hating, then it feels strange when someone shows us love and we block it. When we are lost, we need compassion, just as we need to be giving ourselves compassion beyond compare.

Self-Love is…
Nourishing our mind, body, and soul.

Self-love is fueling ourselves with good things so that Great things come out.  For whatever we put inside multiplies on the outside.

It IS treating our body as the gift God gave us, it IS taking care of our minds. It is CHOOSING our thoughts. It is taking responsibility. It is CHOOSING to NOT speaking against any of GOD’s creations. Self- love, self-care, self-appreciation, and self-development, are all parts of taking care of ourselves, our health, our sleep, our minds, our spirits, our bodies, our souls. It IS making the better choices, eating the better foods, reading better books, listening to better music, moving our bodies more, protecting our self with our lives.

If you want to be better, choose better!
Thoughts, actions, foods, people, places, things to fill your life with!

It is essentially us filling our cup so that IN TURN we are able to effectively fill and overflow into and help others. Haven’t you ever heard of the saying, “If momma ain’t happy, nobody’s happy?” There is actually massive truth in this statement. People who practice personal development–trying to heal inside, doing things to take better care of themselves so they can have a better future and give their children a happier life with mentally healthy parents–should not be deemed as selfish, nor condemned for having “me” time in the process. They are bettering themselves so that they can better their family. Ever.

Anxious, unhappy, unhealthy, depressed, parents make anxious, unhappy, unhealthy, depressed kids. Anxiety, depression, anger, obesity, debt, divorce or happiness, gratefulness, abundance, love, and health are passed down from generation to generation. Which legacy do you want for your kids?   How much better is a family unit all around when the parents are happy, healthy and able to love and play with their kids? How sad is it when a child has to take care of their sick mother or father on top of all the other things they have to do like grow up, simply because the parent chose not to take care of him/herself? Or how about a tired and grumpy mom or dad who is too stressed out to listen, play or snuggle over a bedtime story? Think of the beautiful times missed with our families when we are zoned out, working or not present in the moment.

As we start to treat ourselves better inside,
the beauty flows outside into others.

For it’s what’s inside flows out.

We must nourish ourselves so that we may nourish all the relationships around us. How we treat ourselves is how we treat others. The words we put after “I am” make or break us! The words we put after “You are” to others can make or break them. Words matter. They give or take away. Even words not spoken aloud, even thoughts.

Thoughts are the seeds that grow our life!

What are the thoughts and words after “I am” saying about you? When you drop something on your foot, do you yell at yourself or love yourself? Do you shout out bad words or say “I am so clumsy,” or “I am so stupid?” What can you replace there? How can you give yourself some grace, compassion, or understanding? Try “Oh well, I am human” and move on. It’s in the moment’s things go wrong that we learn to do things right. How can we make sure that we are always pouring beauty and grace into ourselves and others from this moment forward? If you dropped something on someone else’s foot, how would you behave? Apologize, make it better, clean up the mess, love on them? This is how you should treat yourself. Never worse.

If we are nasty to others, it is because we are nasty to ourselves inside.
And if others are nasty to us, imagine the war within them.
Give them love. They need it most.

What is inside is what comes out! We can only love and receive love from others to the extent that we love ourselves. Let’s go a step further: We can only feel God’s love to that same capacity that we allow Love to flow on the INSIDE. What level do you want to feel love? to feel God? What level do you want to love others? The source that provides us the love we need, the one that shows us how to love others, and how to love ourselves is God- PLUG INTO HIM- HE IS LOVE- and we are made in HIS image. He provides us with the tools and guidance we need and shows us how we should treat others. Your God may be different than mine. That is OK. You are allowed to believe in whatever you like, I will love you either way! Almost all religions are based on Love as being the main ingredient anyways. We are all far more similar than we are different. I just ask you to be open, to receive good things, to stop feeding hate to yourself, and to start loving yourself as God loves you. My God loves you whether you love Him back or not. Isn’t that a big fat HUG? Give LOVE a try and see how your life changes, not only with yourself but with others.

“Whoever gets sense loves his own soul;
he who keeps understanding will discover good.” Proverbs 19:8

We only have one mind, one body, and one spirit. We have to take care of ourselves! There is more to “yourself” than just the body. You can have a reasonably healthy body and an unhealthy mind, or spirit, or vice versa– it has to be a beautiful balance. The inner self, the spirit/soul, the mind, the body– we have to be constantly filling them with loving and caring things to help it grow. What we feel on the inside is a direct reflection of what we do on the outside.

 Self-abuse does NOT equal humility.
Self-care does NOT equal selfishness.

We have to do things to fill our cup. No one can fill it for us. Tremendous resources are offered to us to fill our cups but unless we take notice of them, use them, use the tools provided to us, and be open to receiving all the gifts this world and beyond offer us, we will completely miss the blessings. We have to look for the good in all things, not the bad! We have to put good things into action. Unless we DO THE GOOD THINGS, nothing great will happen. I believe the Bible is the BEST personal development book ever written. Even if you are not a believer, I challenge you to read it– it’s full of great stories, scandal, love, hate, wars, mystery, praise and so, so, so, so, SOOO much wisdom! It shows us how human we all are and continue to be, and the stories are in there to help us learn from other peoples mistakes so we do not have to go through hardships on our own. It is also the greatest love story ever written and is a big fat love letter to YOU.

BE LOVE(D)

We all see a lot of haters and mean people on social media, on TV, and in the world today. But I challenge you to see everyone differently. Today, I challenge you to give them compassion, knowing that they are exhausted fighting a war within themselves that is far bigger than we can understand. Give them Love. On social media I challenge you to be a LOVE TROLL-  reverse troll them back to remind them of their awesome, take up for the little guy, Call out the inner Chuck Norris in everyone you meet! I challenge you to compliment and love someone so hard that even Chuck Norris himself would be jealous!

Good in, Good out. Bad in, Bad out.

No more self-abuse. No more self-loathing. Self- abuse is not humbleness, it is abuse.  Choose good things: good foods to nurture and not poison; choose good music to feed happiness, not anger, Listen to things that build, not destroy; choose good movies and books to grow, not wreck; choose good people to enhance our lives, not hurt it. We must take care of ourselves the way God asks us to, the way He intended, the way he does. He never intended on us self-hating and self-loathing. He promised us love, joy, peace, abundance, and so much more. Why would we think it’s okay to insult ourselves if it is not ok to insult others or be said to others, then it is not ok to say to self. We should never even consider insulting any of His creations because that is insulting Him, the Creator.

Of course, GOD is ALWAYS first. He is the source of love that we must plug into.  We are to live, give and love selflessly in EVERY area of our lives, including our selves. HOWEVER, we cannot do that if there is nothing but an empty shell inside. We can’t teach others about love and care if we have none. We can’t give others things we don’t have. If we don’t fill our cups with knowledge, strength, health, love, and care, we can’t possibly be giving it out to others. I learned this the hard way. I myself had let my cup run out and became completely burned out.

If we don’t refill our cups, we run dry.

And we can NOT help the sick, broken, or hurt by being one. We can help so much more if we are healthy, strong, and filled up– especially in service, ministry, or health care. We have to be very careful as we are always refilling. Many businesses, churches, causes, organizations and even countries who were meant for good have imploded because the people served themselves empty. They never did any spiritual, mental, emotional, or physical refilling,  just giving and giving, and they ran themselves dry. We CANNOT run on an empty tank for very long, we will stall out, and stop. And it’s a shame too because so many good causes were lost in the world for this very reason. It does not do anyone ANY good if we allow run out of steam!

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31

“To love our neighbors as yourself- there is no commandment greater than these.” — not more than, not less than. “AS.” Equally. To me, it means “as well as.” We are hand-made by the most-high power in all the universe! HOW DARE US self-abuse and tell God He didn’t do a good job molding us and creating us. We are a beautiful masterpiece and we should never insult ourselves or anyone else because they’re a masterpiece too! We are ALLLLLLLLLL PERFECT!!! These verses teach us to take care of ourselves “as well as” we take care of others, not more than, not less than, it doesn’t say bless them and curse self. It says, LOVE. The more people I coach I learn that self-hate is a real epidemic. People have forgotten their worth; they forgot to see themselves through God’s eyes. They have forgotten the gift Jesus gave. They forgot that they were so special that they were worth dying for. And in this loss of looking inside, people forgot to have compassion and grace towards others on the outside. They forgot to love their neighbor and to love themselves.

Our war inside has become our war outside with others.
How can we be accepted by others when we do not accept ourselves or them?

Don’t allow the world to twist self-love into something else, something shameful. WE ARE FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE. IN THE IMAGE OF LOVE. We are handmade BY THE CREATOR OF ALL to LOVE, to live humbly in GRATITUDE, fulfill our purpose as He intended us to do. There is a hole in our souls that we were born to CRAVE to fill, and worldly things just can’t satisfy. Only in stepping into our own awesomeness, owning that we are love, becoming love to and in all things, loving others, and in my experience, with the help of Jesus, we find true joy, love, and peace in our lives.

People can be real jerks, but it’s because they’re jerks inside. “The greatest of these is LOVE.” God offers amazing and abounding joy and happiness too. Some people choose to live a life of persecution instead. Thatis a good sign that they are self-abusing; they don’t know and believe their worth, blocking good things and happiness. They need our love now more than ever. If your own self-worth is busted, I encourage you today to see yourselves through God’s eyes, through my eyes, through your loved one’s eyes. If you did this, you would see yourself as the beautiful creation of LOVE that you truly are, You are loved and perfect.

Self-worth is built by self-forgiveness.

What is it that you need to forgive yourself for? Let it go. If we can’t forgive ourselves then we cannot forgive others either.

Think about some things you need to forgive, inside and out. Even if you feel they said or did those things to hurt you, it doesn’t matter because those very people are hurting on the inside- SEND THEM LOVE. Hurt people hurt people. So stop right now, sit in this moment,  close your eyes and send them love, show them kindness, forgiveness, send them happiness and hope to spark a seed of light in their dimness. It may just change their life. Depending on the depth of pain, you may have to do it over and over until not a trace of anger or disdain is left inside of you. They feel broken, and we now know that we are whole.

We are never broken, maybe dented a little, but not broken.

I’m not saying that whatever someone did or said wasn’t a for real punch in the gut, but all these years holding onto it, reliving it, replaying it, believing it- is US GUT-PUNCHING OURSELVES- and we need just as much forgiveness as them if not more, because we chose to repeat the offense for years and years, hundreds, maybe thousands of times. Whatever they did, and we may never know the reason, we have no control over them or it, but we do have control over ourselves, our thoughts, our actions our stories around it. And we have to CHOOSE to forgive and let it go, change the story around it, smother it in compassion and love, try to understand their side, and see if there is something on your side that caused it that needs to be forgiven as well. Talk to them if you can and clear the air, 99% of the time it will be a misunderstanding and can be forgiven on both sides and all moved on. Imagine how you would feel if you weren’t carrying around all those burdens of anger anymore?!!  FORGIVENESS IS OUR FREEDOM!  It is so worth it! Stop judging, hurting, repaying and replaying things, or putting down others, Especially ourselves!

BE LOVE- TO yourself… Eat like you love yourself. Move like you love yourself. Speak like you love yourself. Act like you love yourself. BE LOVE to others: Fill your cup and overflow it into the world and love thousands/millions of people! But, don’t allow yourself to burn out, keep putting good in, taking care of the gifts, talents, spirit, and body you were given to care for. Never insult yourself or others. Never. Everyone has jobs to do on this earth; you have yours, I have mine, and all others have theirs. The good news is they don’t have to align. In fact, they’re not meant to because this world needs many things through many voices. Support each other always. Love is in, around, and through us all. Be a reminder of that. Fully surrender to yourself and the one who made you. Take care of yourself as the precious gift that you are. Take better care of yourself than you ever have before so that you don’t run out of steam before He is done with you! <3

Love is patient,
love is kind.
It does not envy,
it does not boast,
it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others,
it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil
but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects,
always trusts,
always hopes,
always perseveres.
 Love never fails.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

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