Soulshine

What does it take to be happy with yourself? What does it take to love the person God created you to be? TOTAL SELF-ACCEPTANCE. Complete, unconditional self-acceptance is the doorway into self-love. Self-acceptance opens the flood-gates and it allows self-love to flow in and naturally fill-up your inner-emptiness. Self-acceptance means we have to become aware of, dismantle and let go of all the judgments we have made against ourselves over the years. It also means that we have to begin living our lives authentically, which requires us to throw-out all of our “SHOULDS.” Shoulds and negative self-judgments go hand in hand and they cause of to feel shame and guilt about our natural selves. They force us into living through idealized, false selves that betray who we really are and make us feel even more inadequate. “I should look like this” (You look just fine as you are!), “I shouldn’t act like that” (People who really love you will see beyond your behavior and love you anyw...

It’s never too late to learn to say to yourself “I love you.” I recently uncovered some old photographs from my days working at the Kentucky Court of Justice. They brought back wonderful memories of many friends I haven’t seen in a long time. But they also awakened something new in me. As I looked at myself in these photos I thought “Wow! I was really cute!” Never before have I looked at an adult photo of myself and thought anything positive about me. It’s always been “Oh, I look so fat!” Or “Oh, my hair looks horrible!” Or “God, look at that nasty acne!” But that wasn’t the case this time. When I looked closer at myself in these pictures I did see the redness in my face, the zit on one side of my nose, but it was OK. These horrors of the past, which had kept me from loving myself when I was in my 20s, didn’t keep me from seeing past them this time. I was able to see past them and recognize the beauty that was underneath them. I was able to see a nice face that I liked ve...