Self-Love 7/20/11

Lately I’ve been trying to think of all the things that could help me to live a life of self-love and high energy. Some of my ideas have been about adding practices into my life, but a few days ago I thought about taking things out of my life, a few of them being:

• self-criticism
• not caring about what other people think (usually stemming from self-criticism)
• letting go of high expectations (feeling like I don’t meet them, when I do. Or setting them too high, thus setting myself up for failure.
• Negative, “I can’t” thoughts.

The three above things add stress and self-doubt into my life, which isn’t the direction I want to go in.

Why I took so long to start running again, something I love to do:

• I put it in my mind that I had to be great from the start, when I haven’t ran for a while. I need to let go of my high expectations and be okay with where I am right now with my fitness.
• I’m worried about other people’s thoughts, the “they”, about how my slow running would look like.
• I told myself it would be too hard, too hard to get back into running.

About a week ago, I wondered what my life would be like if I started to let go of self and societal expectations, but was still driven by my passion and motivation. From that, I was able to let go of a lot of high expectations and was able to relax a lot and enjoy my self a lot more.

A few days ago, I decided to not let the thoughts of “They” hinder any of my actions or decisions in life, and I realized that the thoughts of “They” really stem from my own insecurities and self-doubt. When I made that decision to let go of self-criticism, I began running again, and hard. I pushed myself, physically and mentally. I learned how to let go of the thoughts that came into my mind when I was running, and learned to relax my mind. I’ve only been running for 3 days, but I feel amazing. My energy, productivity and overall happiness has increased ten-fold.

How would your life change if you let go of self-criticism and were less hard on yourself?

Emelina Minero writes for Curve Magazine and EDGE Media Network. She’s working on launching her own progressive LGBTQ publication. She’s a Connection Connoisseur, Networking Maven and Self-Love Enthusiast. She founded Community Bucket List and co-founded the Love Warrior Community. Find her on Twitter, @CommKr8veWriter.