{"id":5088,"date":"2014-01-02T12:01:11","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T17:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/?p=5088"},"modified":"2014-01-07T21:13:28","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T02:13:28","slug":"from-thinking-i-was-a-piece-of-crap-to-loving-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2014\/01\/from-thinking-i-was-a-piece-of-crap-to-loving-me.html","title":{"rendered":"From Thinking I Was a Piece of Crap to Loving Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Self-Love<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Someone had to drag me to a mirror and make me really look at myself to notice that I have pretty green eyes\u2014not hazel\u2014green. I didn\u2019t know it, just like I didn\u2019t recognize my beautiful smile that others complimented me on. I was twenty-eight years old and didn\u2019t value myself at all! Since childhood, I was fixated on what was wrong with me, which distracted me from what was right, and kept me from feeling too guilty to say, \u201dno\u201d to people\u2019s requests.<\/p>\n

Having a poor self-image is common among women. My friends picked themselves apart and I joined in. It felt normal. Growing up, girls who thought well of themselves were labeled conceited, and worse. Modesty was touted as a good quality. And above all else, I needed to be liked by everyone\u2014another unfortunate mindset that many women take into adulthood.<\/p>\n

I had lots of love at home growing up but I couldn\u2019t love me. People said I was pretty but I didn\u2019t believe them. Being tall for my age and a teeny bit chunky motivated me to become a people pleaser to make up for feeling not good enough. I saw myself as too big. The petite girls were the most popular and favored by teachers. The rest of us tried hard to win their favor.<\/p>\n

Appreciating my green eyes for the first time was a turning point for me. Now I know they really are pretty! As I began to treat myself with a little more kindness, I noticed I felt happier. The more I did for me, the better I felt about me. The better I felt about me, the more I was motivated to do things that made me happy. Each bit of self-kindness changed how I felt about me a tad. When I began to say \u201cno\u201d to things I didn\u2019t want to do, it began to feel loving instead of wrong or scary.<\/p>\n

Slowly, kind act by kind act, I developed self-love. It didn\u2019t hit me what it was at the beginning but I knew it felt good, and I felt better about me. I began to recognize and appreciate my good qualities. Seeing myself through the eyes of love instead of a ruthless critic was kind of like waking up as a new person. I began to smile when I looked in the mirror instead of looking for things to hate.<\/p>\n

Even with all the love I got from my caring family and friends, this was the first time I knew what love was. Self-love made me protective of my happiness and well-being. I became conscious of how much I beat myself up and did my best to stop. The meaning of contentment became clear as I languished in self-acceptance and gratitude about finding me.<\/p>\n

Self-love makes you want to take care of yourself. It gave me the confidence to reinvent myself to build a satisfying career. And it feeds my strong desire to express gratitude for all my blessings. Now I wake up smiling every day, knowing I\u2019m my true best friend and will always take the best care of me. I want everyone to have it but self-love is in very short supply. Clients come to me and point out flaws I can barely see with all the good they have because they don’t love themselves.<\/p>\n

Even people with great looks, a prestigious career, etc. often still focus on what\u2019s wrong with them instead of loving themselves for who they are. Years ago I heard Nicole Kidman put herself down to Jay Leno on the Tonight Show. Jay immediately raved about her looks but she kept refuting his compliments. He wondered how she could feel that way and she said she didn\u2019t think anyone really loved themselves and asked him to show her one person who truly did. I screamed at the TV\u2014ME!<\/p>\n

While insecurity used to motivate me to please people, now self-love makes me want to help others because I feel so blessed. That\u2019s why I took my book,\u00a0How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways<\/a><\/strong> back from my agent, officially registered January as Self-Love Month and am giving the book away for free, along with a 31 Days of Self-Love Commitment<\/strong><\/a>\u2014a pledge to do something loving for yourself for 31 days.<\/p>\n

Every bit of kindness you give yourself\u2014from buying the more expensive coffee or lotion you love, to cutting yourself slack about mistakes, to saying \u201cno,\u201d to breaking a bad habit\u2014is a brick in the foundation of self-love. Building it increases confidence. Loving yourself also makes you more attractive. Without it, I\u2019d still be an unhappy people pleaser instead of enjoying the wonderful life I created! I still have cellulite and am getting some wrinkles but every day I love me more. I invite you to join The Self-Love Movement\u2122<\/strong><\/a>.
\n**************<\/p>\n

Join The Self-Love Movement\u2122!<\/strong><\/a> Take the 31 Days of Self-Love Commitment<\/strong><\/a>—\u201cI commit to do my best to do something loving for myself, however big or small, for the next 31 days<\/strong>.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0and 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 2013 31 Days of Self-Love Posts HERE<\/strong><\/a>. Join the Self-Love Movement\u2122<\/strong><\/a>! on Facebook<\/strong><\/a>.<\/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 Someone had to drag me to a mirror and make me really look at myself to notice that I have pretty green eyes\u2014not hazel\u2014green. I didn\u2019t know it,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nice-people-can-finish-first","category-self-empowerment-confidence","category-self-love-acceptance"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom Thinking I Was a Piece of Crap to Loving Me - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From Thinking I Was a Piece of Crap to Loving Me - 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 Someone had to drag me to a mirror and make me really look at myself to notice that I have pretty green eyes\u2014not hazel\u2014green. 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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\/5088","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=5088"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5140,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5088\/revisions\/5140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}