Decide to Love Yourself to Success

The following is excerpted from Solid Ground’s upcoming online course, Love Yourself to Success & Fulfillment: An Advanced Course in Creating a Joy-Filled Life. The course will be available in September!

Think about the life you really want to live, and all of the wonderful experiences you’ll have. Imagine how it will feel to be happily involved in the relationships and projects that really matter to you, to be vibrantly healthy, at peace and trusting in the goodness of life. Really let yourself feel what that kind of life would feel like. Relish the feeling. Yes!

Now, notice how utterly impossible it would be to create a life like that in the presence of self-doubt, self-criticism or self-judgment. It cannot be done. They are completely different states of being. Doubt and criticism arise from a fundamental feeling of lack, or “not enough-ness” of some kind—which is the opposite of feeling whole, at peace, and fulfilled.

Many of us, however, have been conditioned to believe that in order to really succeed in life, we have to work on ourselves. We have to buckle down, get serious and apply strong doses of willpower to overcome our many flaws. We have to be on constant watch, lest our laziness, bad attitude, or poor judgment rear its ugly head and ruins everything.

We often don’t realize that the very act of judging and doubting ourselves creates the reactions and results we see as bad and in need of correction. When we judge ourselves, we create an inner environment of conflict that literally diminishes our energy and clouds our perception.

Self-doubt has a similar effect. It dams the flow of inspiration and enthusiasm, slowing us down and eventually stopping us altogether. We become paralyzed with indecision and give up. Through our judgment and doubt, we have created experiences of low energy, diminished perception, and paralysis—all the things we were judging in the first place. And then we go another round, and another.

This is hardly a recipe for inspired living.

This course will show you how you can lift yourself out of conventional living and choose to live an inspired life instead. It’s a whole different way of being, thinking, and acting, one that arises from our true nature as magnificent beings who are inherently worthy of living joy-filled lives. It is a way of living that celebrates the abundance and diversity of this world rather than narrowing our perceptions to see only lack and limitation.

And it’s a way of being that reflects our understanding of the vibrational nature of the universe. As you start thinking, perceiving, and sensing experiences in terms of vibration, things start to make sense that didn’t make sense before.

Pause right now, and consider judgment and doubt in terms of vibration. I’m sure you can immediately sense their energy as harsh, dampening, confining, and depleting. Now consider the vibration of appreciation—particularly self-appreciation. It is relaxed, expansive, loving, and supportive. And that is exactly what you need to create a safe inner environment for the birthing of your dreams.

I’ve created this course to guide you in giving birth to the you that is ready to emerge, and in learning how to support the growth of this new you rather than trying to whip it into shape in a marathon of self-improvement.
Imagine a healthy, vibrant three-year-old child. You would never expect that child to be able to drive a car. You would understand that she’d inevitably grow and develop the skills needed to drive, at just the right time. You’d recognize that she is a perfect, whole, and complete three-year-old…who will keep evolving and expanding into endless new versions of herself, with newly developed skills and talents and passions.

Every one of us is that three-year-old, perfect and whole yet still growing and evolving. But all too often, we treat ourselves as if we should be able to do something we’ve not yet grown into, and we judge ourselves for not being able to do it. That kind of judgment is, frankly, ridiculous. And it’s not at all helpful.

Even so, we’ve been conditioned to judge rather than support ourselves, so learning to genuinely appreciate and, yes, love ourselves requires a conscious intention to do just that, and a willingness to practice new ways of thinking and acting that support our intention. In a fundamental way that’s what this course is all about, and

I’ll offer plenty of perspectives and practices to support you in making the shift from self-judgment to self-love.
Right now, it’s time to set the intention. It’s time to fully acknowledge and declare that you are worthy of treating yourself with kindness and respect. It’s time to decide you’re going to love, not criticize, yourself to success and fulfillment.

Pause now to get quiet, go inside and imagine how it would feel to accept yourself unconditionally. Imagine what it would be like to be your own best friend. Notice the levels of clarity, purposefulness, and ease you could experience if you really trusted yourself. And sense how much easier it would be to give generously to others from such a full, supported place.

It may be helpful to create a statement of intention, given how powerfully our thoughts and language shape our experience. Keep it simple, inspiring and memorable. Here are some examples to get you started:

• I am creating a life I love by loving myself unconditionally.
• I am committed to loving myself to success and fulfillment.
• I am worthy of treating myself with kindness and respect.

Play with the words until your statement feels good and right for you, but don’t work at this. If the exercise itself feels mechanical, hollow, or frustrating, let it go. Just set the intention to cultivate the deepest experience of self-love you’ve ever known, and get ready for your world to change.