The Art of Self-love

 

Self-love opens the way to forgiving yourself for the mistakes we all make as human beings. Forgiveness is not only something you give to others; it is also something that you need to do for yourself. Something that you may need to give to yourself when you feel as though you have betrayed someone you loved, or if you have overstepped a boundary, you thought you’d never cross, or even when you have intentionally inflicted harm upon yourself or another. Many of us have said yes to one of these actions. It doesn’t make you a bad person to have done these things, it makes you human. You are definitely not alone. Many of us have been there in differing degrees. This however doesn’t excuse anything you have done; self-responsibility is crucial. At the same time hating yourself won’t make anything better. Is it time you gave yourself some forgiveness?

How to give yourself forgiveness

Self-forgiveness is forgiving your past wrongdoings. It means changing how you perceive yourself and what happened by looking at it compassionately and with self-understanding. When you come to a deeper understanding of why you did what you did, then hold yourself in the selflove, you can start to let go and forgive yourself.

When you understand why you did what you did you can prevent the same mistake from happening again. Learning how to forgive yourself is vital as self-forgiveness can bring a new meaning to your life. It will help you to grow, change, and transform in a positive way.

It’s good sometimes to feel guilt and shame up to a certain point. It’s important to grieve, regret and repent in some way your behaviour, in order to learn and change as a person. Self-forgiveness will help you to stop dwelling in the past, and begin living in the present moment. By forgiving yourself you will gain more hope for the future and also find it easier to forgive others. Developing self-love and understanding will increase your energy and motivation helping you to become an even better person.

Handling guilt and shame

You may sometimes feel haunted by a thought or intention that you have secretly carried, but more importantly it is the things we have done that will bring the most guilt and shame. Some of these things may include bullying someone, cheating on your partner, spreading rumours, stealing, physically hurting a loved one or destroying people’s property.

It is important to have a certain level of guilt and shame after hurting yourself or someone else because without guilt, you would sociopathically ignore the impact of your behaviour. If that happens with lots of people it would cause havoc in society. However, too much guilt and shame can become toxic and fester inside you. You need to be able to let go of what you have done and move on because it will create a negative and unrealistic picture mentally for yourself.

If you need help with self-love, guilt or shame give us a call, email or text and we will set up a time to speak with you and help you with that. It only takes one step to begin to fulfil your journey.

Why women need more sleep than men

Women need more sleep than men during the night due to the complexity of their brain. Studies have shown that women generally need an extra 20 minutes sleep every night so their brain can do all the extra processing that a women’s brain needs to do.

Although 20 minutes may not seem like a lot of extra sleep it impacts the brain in a very positive way. A women’s brain is structured in a way that they are able to juggle a few tasks at a time where as the male brain can struggle with this, however we are not saying that all men cannot multi task or that all women can, this is just the findings of a study on the average brain.

One of the most important reasons we all need sleep is to repair the brain and give it time to recover and sort through all the thoughts, memories and issues from the day just gone. This is why women tend to need more sleep because multi-tasking tends to use more of the brain, which in turn requires the brain longer time to repair. A man who does a lot of decision making and thinking at work through the day may also need to sleep longer than the average man.

If you happen to be a poor sleeper and a woman than you may find that you struggle with your emotions and experience greater psychological distress such as hostility, depression, and anger which can cause you restlessness but these same findings were not found in men who slept poorly.

Usually we need around 6 to 8 ours sleep a night for the brain to complete its restoration process however you, as an individual, may find you need a little more to keep you feeling fresh and relaxed. Regardless of whether you are male or female if you are having trouble sleeping you can try setting yourself a routine just as we would for a young child so that the body and mind know that it is sleep time now and start to help you wind down from the day. Also, meditation and yoga can be helpful for relaxation and helping give your body that nudge it needs to fall asleep quicker. Try some aromatherapy oils, some natural sleep supplements in the short term only or simply a cup of chamomile tea may do the trick.

So, if you are finding that you are not getting enough sleep it could be simply because your brain has not had enough time to restore itself. When you are having troubles getting to sleep try the above-mentioned relaxation strategies and see if they help or you could talk to your health care practitioner who could recommend a natural melatonin tablet to help get your sleep pattern back on track.