Act of Rebellion
“The act of self-love is an act of rebellion” Shelby Lawson
My friend Daniel messaged me this week about a training he had been in for work. The trainer was a woman named Shelby Lawson. He told me “you will love this quote from Shelby…the act of self-love is an act of rebellion”.
Self- love.
Self-love?
That, most definitely, is an act of rebellion.
We have been conditioned to want,
to need,
to desire
perfection in ourselves. Perfection doesn’t exist. We are all a work in progress. Learning to love ourselves through the journey is significant.
Because I talk about loving ourselves in my classes and workshops, I utterly love this quote. It took years for me to love myself unconditionally, to believe in myself and to accept myself. I spent years feeling like I needed to change something to be loveable. I believe we have to love ourselves before we are able to love others completely. My self-love has always been tied to my body image, how I have felt in my body. My poor body has been talked down to, ridiculed and forced on every diet imaginable. When I stopped torturing my body and decided to treat it like I would treat a friend, I learned how powerful self-love can be.
What do you need to do to be able to love yourself?
I believe acceptance, gratitude and a positive attitude help guide you on the path to loving yourself. Acceptance is the foundation of self-love. When we learn to accept ourselves and recognize that our imperfections are what make us who we are, we see our uniqueness for the beauty it is. Gratitude helps us to see the wonderful things we have to offer the world. Being grateful for who we are encourages us to recognize our gifts and talents. When we change our attitude towards our self, we help to send the negative self-talk out the window. Attitude is in our control; we get to choose how we react to things around us and how we treat ourselves. Changing your attitude can change your life. When I was growing up, my mom had a quote hanging in her vanity closet that said, “you make me feel this way or that way is a self-imposed illusion…I alone make me feel anyway”. That has always stuck with me. The way we see ourselves and look at things is reflected in our attitude, in our behavior.
Self-love looks a lot like joy to me. Being able to like yourself is great. Being able to love yourself is priceless.
