{"id":3858,"date":"2013-01-05T09:01:45","date_gmt":"2013-01-05T14:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/?p=3858"},"modified":"2013-01-02T22:50:42","modified_gmt":"2013-01-03T03:50:42","slug":"3858","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/3858.html","title":{"rendered":"Building Self-Appreciation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Today is Day 2 of my 31 Days of Self-Love posts to celebrate Self-Love Month<\/a><\/strong> with suggestions for jump-starting your own self-love and joining The Self-Love Movement<\/strong><\/a>\u2122.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m delighted top have self-love ambassador Friedemann Schaub<\/strong><\/a> MD., Ph.D., the founder of Cellular Wisdom<\/a><\/strong>, back as my guest today. He works with people to help them improve their health using both inner tools and his medical background.\u00a0 He’s also the author of, The Fear and Anxiety Solution<\/strong><\/a>, which is full of suggestions for taking control of any fear or anxiety you might have. Today he shares how to develop the habit of appreciating yourself more.<\/p>\n

How to Develop the Habit of Self-Appreciation<\/strong>
\nExcerpted with permission from the book \u201cThe Fear and Anxiety Solution\u201d<\/em>
\nby Friedemann Schaub<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s a strange phenomenon. Although gratitude and appreciation are natural emotions, expressing them doesn\u2019t come naturally to us at all. When, as a child, I was feverishly unpacking the fabulous toys my aunts and uncles gave me for my birthday or on Christmas, saying thank you wasn\u2019t the first thing on my mind. Actually, it was somewhat of a buzz kill when my mom made me write thank-you cards or call up my relatives to express my thankfulness. But at the same time, I always enjoyed it when they expressed their appreciation for the cookies I baked or the little gifts I made for them.<\/p>\n

Appreciation is not only a polite gesture, but it\u2019s also a reward or gift for what we done for others. Imagine you work for someone who expects you to be there at all times, but takes you for granted. Worse, instead of appreciating you, your boss either criticizes your efforts as not good enough or completely ignores you. Sounds like drudgery, right? But don\u2019t we often treat ourselves the same way?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, for most of us, self-appreciation is a highly underdeveloped skill. Early in our lives, well-intended messages such as \u201cDon\u2019t show off,\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t feel too good about yourself,\u201d or \u201cPride goes before a fall\u201d cause us to believe that praising ourselves only leads to arrogance and complacency and, consequently rejection and failure. Plus, because, in general, we put more stock in the opinions of others than in our own opinions, self-appreciation seems like a complete waste of time.<\/p>\n

Case in point: I routinely ask my clients to write down every day three reasons for why they can feel good about themselves. Most of them either forget that I gave them this assignment or dutifully write down everything they appreciated about their days?except for themselves. Now, don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014I\u2019m big believer in the power of routinely acknowledging all the gifts and blessings in our lives. But for the purpose of building your confidence, trust in yourself, and love for yourself, you need to acknowledge the gift and blessing you are. Here is an exercise, which can help you to establish a routine of daily self-appreciation.<\/p>\n

Every night, write into a special notebook at least three things you appreciated about yourself on that day.<\/strong> Here are three things to keep in mind as you do:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Be specific<\/strong>. Rather than affirming that you\u2019re smart or friendly, write down (at least the Cliff Notes version) what particular incidents made you realize this today.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Make it mainly about \u201cbeing\u201d you<\/strong>. I\u2019ve seen people scribble pages of self-appreciation notes listing all the things they\u2019ve done for their careers, their families, and their communities. Although this is a step in the right direction, if you value only your contributions and accomplishments, self-appreciation can easily turn into conditional acceptance, which obstructs your goal of unconditional acceptance. And your \u201cdoing\u201d doesn\u2019t necessarily reveal who you are. Pay attention, for example, to the aspects of yourself that the light of your essence revealed to you, the qualities that make you a unique and brilliant human being. Acknowledge your sense of humor or your creativity. Recognize when you are compassionate and kind or when you take the time to stop and enjoy the beauty of a moment.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Be open<\/strong>. Reflect on your day with an open mind and appreciate both those qualities of yourself that you usually take for granted and those you weren\u2019t really aware of until you paid attention to them. Open your heart to truly feel and savor the gratitude for yourself, because appreciation without feelings is like a gift that\u2019s never been unwrapped.<\/p>\n

Every day you appreciate yourself, you add another layer to your growing foundation of self-love and confidence. According to Yogi Bhajan, who introduced kundalini yoga to the Western world, \u201cIt takes 40 days to establish a habit, 90 days to confirm it and 120 days to master it\u2014and everybody will know it.\u201d Isn\u2019t the habit of loving and appreciating yourself, and thus, inspiring others to find the courage to embrace and love their own truth, something you would want to be known for?
\n***************<\/p>\n

Join The <\/strong>Self-Love Movement\u2122<\/strong><\/a>! Take the 31 Days of Self-Love Commitment<\/strong><\/a> and get my book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways<\/a><\/strong> for free at http:\/\/howdoiloveme.com<\/a><\/strong>. Read my 2012 31 Days of Self-Love Posts HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Please leave comments under my posts so we can stay connected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is Day 2 of my 31 Days of Self-Love posts to celebrate Self-Love Month with suggestions for jump-starting your own self-love and joining The Self-Love Movement\u2122. I\u2019m delighted top have self-love ambassador Friedemann Schaub MD., Ph.D., the founder of Cellular Wisdom, back as my guest today. He works with people to help them improve…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[576,27],"class_list":["post-3858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-self-love-acceptance","tag-friedemann-schaub-self-appreciation","tag-self-love"],"yoast_head":"\nBuilding Self-Appreciation - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/3858.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Building Self-Appreciation - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today is Day 2 of my 31 Days of Self-Love posts to celebrate Self-Love Month with suggestions for jump-starting your own self-love and joining The Self-Love Movement\u2122. I\u2019m delighted top have self-love ambassador Friedemann Schaub MD., Ph.D., the founder of Cellular Wisdom, back as my guest today. He works with people to help them improve…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/3858.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lessons from a Recovering Doormat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-01-05T14:01:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-01-03T03:50:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/files\/2012\/12\/Self-Love-logo-300x64.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Daylle Deanna Schwartz\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Building Self-Appreciation - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/3858.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Building Self-Appreciation - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat","og_description":"Today is Day 2 of my 31 Days of Self-Love posts to celebrate Self-Love Month with suggestions for jump-starting your own self-love and joining The Self-Love Movement\u2122. I\u2019m delighted top have self-love ambassador Friedemann Schaub MD., Ph.D., the founder of Cellular Wisdom, back as my guest today. He works with people to help them improve…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/3858.html","og_site_name":"Lessons from a Recovering Doormat","article_published_time":"2013-01-05T14:01:45+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-01-03T03:50:42+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/files\/2012\/12\/Self-Love-logo-300x64.png"}],"author":"Daylle Deanna Schwartz","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/3858.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/3858.html","name":"Building Self-Appreciation - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/3858.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/3858.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/files\/2012\/12\/Self-Love-logo-300x64.png","datePublished":"2013-01-05T14:01:45+00:00","dateModified":"2013-01-03T03:50:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/#\/schema\/person\/4250884f68a588907744baa491f9df35"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/3858.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/3858.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/3858.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/files\/2012\/12\/Self-Love-logo-300x64.png","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/files\/2012\/12\/Self-Love-logo-300x64.png"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/3858.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Building Self-Appreciation"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/","name":"Lessons from a Recovering Doormat","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Daylle Deanna Schwartz","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/#\/schema\/person\/4250884f68a588907744baa491f9df35","name":"Daylle Deanna Schwartz","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/83b\/83ba6e1423377712fe408a5fab971bfax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/83b\/83ba6e1423377712fe408a5fab971bfax96.jpg","caption":"Daylle Deanna Schwartz"},"description":"Daylle Deanna Schwartz is a speaker, self-empowerment counselor, best-selling author of 15 books, including Nice Girls Can Finish First (McGraw-Hill), All Men Are Jerks Until Proven Otherwise and founder of The Self-Love Movement\u2122 where she's giving away her 13th book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways, a She's appeared on hundreds of TV and radio shows, including Oprah, Howard Stern, and Good Morning America and has been quoted in dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Marie Claire, and Men\u00b9s Health. After being a consummate People Pleaser who felt unworthy of getting her own needs met for many years, Daylle found a path of self-love that enabled her to build her self-esteem and reinvent herself into a dual career. She learned to get taken seriously without being overtly assertive when she became one of the first women to start an independent record label (on a dare!) and learned to play ball nicely and successfully in an industry dominated by men. To help independent musicians empower themselves, Daylle writes music business books for Billboard\/Random House, including the very popular Start & Run Your Own Record Labe and I Don't Need a Record Deal! Daylle's books have been translated into over 10 languages and are popular around the world. She speaks for colleges, organizations and corporations. Through her company, Project Self-Empowerment, Daylle creates programs and materials to help people empower themselves. One goal is to raise the money to self-publish her book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways and give it away for free in colleges and through organizations, to give thanks for all her blessings. Daylle uses her writing and speaking to help others find the kind of contentment and empowerment that she has.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/author\/dschwartz"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3858"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3862,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3858\/revisions\/3862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}