ROBERT J.R. GRAHAM: Celebrating You

“I am Fabulous”: Embracing and Celebrating You

by: Shelley Riutta MSE, LPC

“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire Universe, deserve your love and affection.” Buddha

“And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

Marianne Williamson

You are Fabulous! Yes YOU are. How do you feel when you hear that? Do you respond, yes that is right, I am Fabulous. Or do you have a reaction that blocks you from taking this statement in fully. If you are like most people you may not be able to take this in whole heartedly for various reasons. One, it may interrupt your inner litany of you telling yourself all the ways that you are less than fabulous—all the ways that you are messing up in some way, falling short of yours or other people’s expectations. You may have trouble taking in “I am fabulous” because you fear if you do that other people will think your arrogant and self-centered.

Why Self-Love is So Important

1. Seeing your own beauty and light allows you to see others more clearly. The fear that people have when they first start working on self-love is that they confuse it with being self-centered and arrogant. We all have within us an essence, a radiant Spirit that is filled with love, joy, creativity, compassion and beauty. When you really get that and are able to see this within you—you are able to see it within everybody. You can see beneath people’s protections of fear, negativity and anger and see the truth of who they are—the light of who they are.

2. Seeing your own Magnificence allows Good things into your Life. If you love and value yourself you will want good things for yourself and you will take action to bring these good things into your life. An example is if you are in a job that you don’t love—if you cared about yourself and your happiness you would take action to find a job or career that you really love. You wouldn’t allow yourself to be in an unloving situation in any area of your life. All the things that you would want for a person you deeply loved, you would want these things for yourself too.

3. Seeing your own Fabulousness allows others to see that in you too. People tend to see us and treat us how we see and treat ourselves. If you really value yourself and treat yourself kindly other people will pick up on this energy and treat you well too. An example of this: Do you know people you would never say anything disrespectful to because they emanate a sense of self-confidence and self-respect—it is so clear you can feel it.

4. When you see your own Brilliance you become a role model for people to see their own Brilliance. Our own self-love has a positive ripple effect on others—by providing a role model for healthy self-love and also energetically opening a space for people to love themselves just by being in our presence.

Ways to Love Yourself More

Take responsibility for seeing your own worth and lovability. Do you realize that your worth and lovability is intact and unchanging? Nothing you can do can ever take away from it—it is your intrinsic worth and can never be diminished. There is nothing to be improved upon and enhanced—you already are brilliant and magnificent just as you are. The real you, your Authentic Self, is here to just express itself fully and completely.

There is a distinction made between your Essence, who you really are– and your protective parts, your Ego. When you are in worry, judgment, fear, anxiety, depression, trying to control—these are all protective parts of you. If you are operating out of your protective self most of the time, you won’t feel the beauty of your essence and neither will those around you. Once you know that you really are your essence, this beautiful light—self-love is a natural consequence and you can relax and let this light shine!

Eliminate Self-Judgment and replace with Self-Supportiveness and Self-Appreciation. Your level of self-love will be dependent on the kind of internal dialogue you are having with yourself. We are all having inner conversations with ourselves throughout the day—these conversations are either loving and supportive or critical and unloving. The following are ways to shift to a more positive inner dialogue:

A. Think of statements that you want to hear throughout the day and write these on a 3X5 index card. They could be statements like “I love you just the way you are” “Just be you, you are wonderful” “I love you no matter what” “It’s OK to make mistakes, I will still love you” “Let go of what others think of you–I think you are amazing” Use these statements with yourself during the day.

B. Mirror back loving statements to yourself about who you are and how you handle things throughout the day. Examples of these statements are “I love the way you handled that situation” “You are so loving and kind” You are so creative!” “You are such a good listener” “You are brilliant” “You are sweet”. Mirroring back the positive will help you reverse the pattern of being critical with yourself for every little thing you do.

C. Talk back to the Critical Voice and bring in the Truth. If you catch yourself being critical respond back with a loving voice. If you say to yourself “I’m so stupid, I can’t believe I just said that” you can respond back by saying “It’s OK, you’re not stupid, what you said was just fine, just relax and be yourself, let go what that person thinks of you, I love you no matter what.”

D. Write 5 Appreciations about yourself each night in your journal. This can be ways you handled certain situations, how loving you were with others, your creativity, the special unique qualities that are YOU!

Start a “Celebration of Me” Journal. Get a beautiful journal that you can collect sweet notes and cards you receive from others. When the people around you have their hearts open and are sharing love with you—they are seeing the beauty of your essence. These loving cards and notes are reminders of who you really are and it can be helpful to have these in a lovely journal. You can even jot down loving comments people make to you and you can add these to your journal.

Take Loving Actions on your own behalf. If you tell yourself you love and care about you but you treat yourself poorly—your self-esteem will stay low. You must take actions that reflect a deep love for yourself. If you were to show love to yourself, you would exercise if you needed to lose weight, you would get to sleep early if you needed more rest, if your life was chaotic you would create balance, if you needed to leave an unhealthy relationship, you would leave it. Taking these loving actions can create a major shift in increasing your self-love significantly.

You are Fabulous—it is a given—and it is up to you to see it for yourself. By doing this you will radically improve the quality of your life, your relationships and even pave the way for others to see their own Magnificence too!

About The Author

Shelley Riutta MSE, LPC is a pioneer in the Holistic Psychotherapy field. She specializes in Transformational individual counseling, Presentations and Workshops. For her free Workbook “What Do You REALLY Want: Finding Purpose and Passion” and free monthly tele-classes visit her web-site at http://ift.tt/1jWYlGQ