Do you love yourself?
Can you look at yourself in the mirror and love yourself unconditionally? I know that it has taken me a very long time to get to the place where I can smile back at myself in the mirror and not want to turn off the lights and walk away in disgust.
And I'm not yet to the point where I can see my extra skin on my belly and not be ashamed of letting myself strrrreeeeeeettttcccch my skin unbelievably out of proportion to the point where it now sags. I know I need to change that "stinking thinking" about myself. I have to love myself unconditionally before I can turn that love to someone else and love them unconditionally and expect myself to be loved wholly in return.
The monthly challenges have, in the past months, always included some sort of fitness and weightloss goals and I hope you will challenge yourself in the weightloss part this month if that is what you're hoping to achieve. But this month isn't about how much you can lose, it is about how much self-appreciation you can gain!
February is the shortest month of the year and the challenge will start on Sunday, February 6th. Please take your calendar and mark off 20 days the you'll commit to exercise or walk or get some sort of fitness in for at least 30 minutes. You don't have to do 30 minutes at once if you're not able to (I wasn't always able to at one point so I know how hard that can be to truly commit to!)... but do commit to 10 minutes 3x daily for the 20 days of the challenge. That leaves us with only a couple of free days on the calendar and on those days - once a week for the three remaining weeks of the month - we're going to sit down with pen and paper (or on the pc) and write down reasons we love ourselves.
I just heard someone groan, didn't I? *grin* I would have groaned a few years ago. I was FILLED with self-loathing. I mean it. FILLED to the brim with reasons to hate myself. And then I decided I was worth the time and effort and needed to rediscover the "me" hidden within all that self-hatred. And I did. And I know YOU CAN, too! Be POSITIVE!!
Do you have a job that you're good at? Then write on your "I love me because:" list: because I have the skills to do a great job for my company. Can you make a great, healthy meal for yourself? Then you have a reason to think you're a creative cook who can prepare healthy food! Do you have a great smile? Write it down to yourself in your list! Do you have strong legs that can walk 5 miles a day? Great reason to love you! How about a body that birthed babies or a mane of hair that people compliment you on? How about great shopping tricks? You have a multitude of reasons to write down a list why you should love you!
I know many of my followers and friends don't have a sweetheart that they'll be celebrating Valentine's Day with. I didn't last year and I still lived to tell the story! ; ) If you're alone on Valentine's Day this year, I want you to know, you're not alone... you don't need to buy into the advertisements and commercials and tweets that say being a twosome is the only way to be! I've been with someone on Valentine's Day and in a false romance and - let me tell you - THAT is lonely! This year, if you're alone or if you're with a Valentine, let's all do this one thing - let's love ourselves, because - friends - we're all pretty damn AWESOME!
Happy beginning to the February Love Yourself for Who You Are (#hlgU4U) Challenge! You're committing to 20 days of fitness and writing yourself a list of reasons to love you once a week during the three weeks of the month remaining!
Thanks for joining in, friends!
Dream. Believe. Achieve.
Jan/HealthyLoserGal
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