What Makes Life Work?

What is the most important thing we need to do to make our life work?

The late Louise Hay, spiritual teacher and author of the classic text You Can Heal Your Life noted, “If we really love ourselves, everything in our life works.” I would add that when self-love reaches a tipping point for humanity, everything in our world will work. When the world practices true self-love, conflicts will diminish, self-destructive addictions will decrease, and because we will realize that we are interconnected with our environment, we will no longer do things that harm our planet. It will become clear that to do so also brings harm to ourselves.

Here’s a key principle that will help us stay on the path of self-love: Treat yourself as you wish others would treat you; treat yourself how you want the universe to respond to you.

Just a few practices you can use to activate your self-love:

1. Appreciate how magnificent you are. One of the most powerful prayers you can say to yourself is: “God, show me who I am regardless of how magnificent it is! How wonderful it is! How awe-inspiring it is!” Know there will never be anyone like you. You have unique gifts and talents to share with the world and nobody will use their gifts the same way as you. So accept that you are the only you there will ever be and you are magnificent.

2. Smother yourself with affirmative words. Positive, affirming words spoken to yourself work. They help rewire your brain and train it to think differently. Determine the words you need to hear most and say them to yourself all day long. Do so quietly (or not so quietly) in your mind. Sing them to yourself in your car. Say them to yourself under your breath while in line at the grocery store. Write them on post-it notes and put the notes around your house or on your fridge, a mirror or your computer monitor. It can be something like: “I am one with a friendly universe. It is awesome and so am I.” The key is to say it with feeling.

3. Do what you love in life. When you continuously deny yourself the people, food, things and experiences that make you come alive, you are sending yourself a terrible message. Take an inventory of your life and see where you are letting yourself down. If you catch yourself saying things like, “I love going to live concerts” but you can’t remember the last time you did, make time and do it.

4. Don’t compare yourself to others. Have you ever done something really well and then perceived someone else doing it better? STOP THAT! When you compare yourself to others, you end up taking all the fun out of life. The only comparison you ever want to make is to your former self in order to see how far you’ve come.

5. Forgive yourself. We’ve all made mistakes. And we’ll make them again. But think about mistakes this way: When an actor messes up saying his or her lines, it is only a MISS-TAKE and they get a do-over. Feelings like shame, guilt and self-criticism are destructive forces in our lives, which is why self-forgiveness is one of the most powerful practices we can do for ourselves. As Gary Zukav, author of Seat of the Soul, notes, “Forgiveness is not a moral issue, it is an energy dynamic. It simply means we don’t carry the baggage of a previous experience.” We let the past go. Moreover, when we let it go, it lets us go.

Practice using some of these steps to kick-start your self-love and make your life work. Know that you are already magnificent. Speak affirming words to yourself. Do what you love. Don’t compare yourself to others. And practice self-forgiveness.

Peace and Blessings,

James