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.

Technology and its effect on relationships

Technology is at the heart of our lifestyle. It has changed the way we communicate in our everyday life. We now type emails instead of letters, sent instantly. We text instead of call and instead of meeting face to face we use video calls and face time.

In the past when we dated we used to get dressed up and head out to different places to meet people. Today we don’t have to leave the house. A lot of people are using technology to find love because it’s as easy as swiping right if you like the look of someone. There’s a lot of sites that cater for people who are looking for love but how is this technology effecting our relationships?

Every person has a preconceived expectation of what it’s like to be loved. Some people need to be told they are loved while others need to be hugged. Technological dating makes it hard sometimes to work out what the other person needs and can lead to issues when you finally do meet face to face so let’s look at the different ways people express and expect love sometimes.

Affection and appreciation

Does your partner respond well to loving words? If they do it might be a good idea to make that short phone call to tell them you’re thinking of them and love them. Sure it’s easier to flick them a text but going that one step further and making the call may mean so much more to them. Words of complement or appreciation also go a long way if your partner is one that responds well to loving words. Or even a gentle touch or holding their hand can express something that perhaps the heart on the phone screen doesn’t quite say in the same way.

Action

Some people would like you to show them love through your actions. This could be cooking dinner for them, giving them a relaxing massage or taking care of them when they are feeling unwell. This is one area in which today's technologies can come in handy as there are all types of apps these days to help to make things easier, cheaper and save time.

Time and attention

Sometimes all we want is for our partner to spend some quality time with us and give us their full attention. Technology can sometimes get in the way with this. Yes, you may be able to multitask but is that really quality time? Does sitting on your phone scrolling through Facebook or reading emails while having dinner or watching a movie with your partner really qualify as quality time? If this is the way your partner treats you then you may need to tell them to put that phone down and spend an evening or lunch break just with you.

Giving Gifts

Some people like to receive tokens of affection as in gifts to show love. If your partner’s love language is receiving gifts, then the importance of the gift is magnified. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, giving your partner not necessarily expensive gifts, but giving them thoughtful gifts will make them feel special and loved. Technology can make this easy with online shopping and you cannot save time finding the perfect gift while comparing prices and saving money.

So while technology can lead to many arguments about Facebook and scrolling between couples there is also an upside. You can find things you have in common online, share ideas about what movies to watch, text each other flirty messages and use it to communicate rather than communication breakdowns. Keep in mind yours and your partners preferences when is comes to how we need to give and receive love and keep the lines of communication flowing.