Live Bold & Bloom

If I were to ask you to tell me everything that’s wrong with you, I bet you’d have no problem reeling off a long list of your flaws and failures.

Even as I was typing that sentence, my brain quickly latched on to my own flaws and failures. It’s almost automatic.

Why is it so hard to love yourself?

It seems we keep an “I’m a loser list” handy in our minds ready to pull out at a moment’s notice when we wish to take a self-flagellation break. (I’m conjuring images of shirtless monks walking in a circle whipping their own backs.)

But don’t you think that’s just crazy? I mean really it’s beyond crazy — it’s kind of warped. We say things to ourselves we would never say to those around us, even those we don’t like. We berate ourselves in ways we’d never consider berating anyone else. We hang on to our failures for years, sometimes for a lifetime, and replay them over and over. Life becomes a constant struggle.

And of course, the more we do this, the more we focus on all that’s wrong with us, the more real and debilitating these flaws become. They start to define us. They hold us back from becoming who we want to be. They impact our relationships. They impact our self-esteem, our mood, and our overall outlook on life. (more…)