Love Myself
Below are ideas of how to love God through yourself with actions, words, and gifts. There is no particular order. We focus on small acts that make a big impact! Please note: DO MORE THAN EXIST is constantly adding and expanding on each gesture. Simply click on each one for more details.
Depend on God.
Pray
Loving yourself is taking time to pray. It’s okay to pray for yourself. Remember God wants to have a relationship with you. Talk with Him.
Prayer is the MOST important part of your life! Let me reiterate, prayer is SO incredibly important. The more you know God personally, the better your prayer life will be.
Pray before a crisis happens, pray in the morning before your day starts, and pray at night before your body, heart, and mind rest. Stand firm in Christ.
When you pray, find a place that is your secret place to pray, where there are NO distractions. A place where you can be your total and true self. Your prayer place is a place where you can cry, sob, yell, and sing without the world looking at you and judging you.
Invite the Holy Spirit to come and guide your prayer. Playing soft instrumental music in the background helps me welcome the Holy Spirit.
To close your eyes or keep them open? It doesn’t matter. I do both. The Bible doesn’t say you have to close your eyes.
To go deeper in prayer, memorize scripture and recite it back to God in your prayer.
When I pray I like to go in this kind of order:
- Praising God and telling Him how great He is.
- Thanking Him for everything big and small that comes to mind.
- Confessing my sin and asking for forgiveness, getting right with God.
- Asking for the Holy Spirit to come into my heart and help me pray.
- Asking for protection over the Enemy, and using God’s armor to stand firm next to Christ.
- Other prayer requests, praying for people, situations, and myself according to His will.
- Asking all in Jesus’ name. Sealing the prayer in and through Jesus. For instance, I end the prayer something like this… “Thank you Jesus, I ask all this in your name, in Jesus’ name, Amen.”
Sometimes, on challenging days, my order goes out the window and I simply talk to Him, lament, cry, and get it all out. He is full of truth, love, mercy, and hope. He is the only One. Pour into Him, trust Him. Ask Him. Love Him.
Here’s a post on prayer to check out. Ask, Believe, Recieve.
Forgive yourself and others
This is a HUGE topic. It can be an extremely complicated process based on the level of hurt involved. First and foremost, I am sorry for the pain and trauma that someone caused you or that you have even caused yourself. Secondly, you are not alone. We all have our wounds, and because we are different, we are affected by those wounds differently. Thirdly, your healing begins today, right now, in this very moment.
We are commanded to love. “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.”Romans 13:8 (NIV) Love is a choice.
There is no clearer way to explain forgiveness as my Pastor did. He said it like this: Forgiveness is giving up the right to get revenge. He went on to say, forgiveness is giving your anger against them to Jesus and letting Jesus deal with them. The sooner we give them to Jesus, the sooner we heal and move forward in the love of Jesus.
Let me make something very clear. Forgiveness is not trusting again. Forgiveness is putting Jesus between you and that person and meeting in the middle.
As for forgiving yourself for self-infliction, ask Jesus to come into your heart with the power of the Holy Spirit and give him your anger. Bless your body, mind, heart, and soul. And rest in His arms. He will make your paths straight according to His will.
Give yourself permission
Permit yourself to take some time for self-care. Loving yourself is doing something for yourself. Pursue your passions, take a step towards your goals, try something new, just do something for yourself that makes yourself better. You gotta start somewhere.
Loving yourself is also taking care of your body, mind, heart, and health. Set boundaries and give yourself some time each day to lay in the sun, read a book, take a hot bath, go for a walk, or listen to music.
Buy yourself flowers
This is such a beautiful way to love yourself by buying a vase full of God’s love to sit on your kitchen table. Don’t wait for someone to give you flowers because they might never get around to it. Just buy them yourself.
Flowers are not only beautiful to the eye but they bring a presence of God into your home.
Protect yourself from distractions
Protect yourself from distractions! Distractions are where the Enemy lurks, he prowls around looking for YOU to devour. He will devour you by distracting you from being connected to God.
God has something beautiful to give you, to show you, to bless you, to heal you. BE AWARE of His, the Lord/Jesus/Holy Spirit, presence around you. Distraction impairs your awareness. Pay attention!
“The less distracted we are, the more aware of God we become.” – William McDowell
Here’s a post on how to fight off spiritual warfare, it has some tips you don’t want to miss. Claim Your Life Back: 7 Steps
Speak positive to yourself
Romans 12:2
Stop comparing
Take care of your body & health
This is not only about eating cleaner foods, it’s about giving yourself permission to go to bed early and sleep, and to take a five minute break and step outside to enjoy the sun, beauty, and breeze pressing up against your face.
Eat better foods for optimum health
What you put into your body affects how you feel and how you think, not to mention, your choices too. Choosing less processed foods is a good start. Pay attention to your food combinations as well if you’re experiencing indigestion and digestive issues. Here’s a post about Food Combining.
Be sure to check out these recipes!
Go outside
Put on the Armor of God
Fight off the Enemy and his forces. He (Satan) prowls around you looking for a foothold and an open door. Don’t put up with that *#it! Use the tools, weapons, and the power that the Lord gave you to stand your ground next to Jesus. Jesus didn’t die on the cross for you to be a doormat, put down, abused, and held in bondage. Stand firm. Call the Enemy out and command him and his warfare to leave in Jesus’ name. You must say “in Jesus’ Name”. To learn more please visit this post on How to Fight Spiritual Warfare.
Study God's truth about you
Memorize scripture, you'll need it
Memorizing scripture is a tool to pray with and a weapon against the Enemy. The Bible tells us there is power in scripture. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (NIV)
Scripture welcomes healing. I see it as a divine hug. If you desire healing, here are some verses to get you started. Bible Verses for Healing
More to come.
Put good things into your mind
Respect yourself and your space
Take care of your body
As 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, our body is a temple for the Holy Spirit, we are to honor God with our bodies. How do we do that? The obvious is helpful: drink more water, lose weight, eat clean simple foods, detox your body, and exercise. Below are some blog posts that offer simple tips with big effects!
Solitude with God
Spend time with God without distractions. Jesus went to be alone with the Lord to pray all the time! Rest in His arms by intentionally spending time with Him.
Reducing stress is a HUGE part of loving yourself. Stress is the number one cause of chronic illness and pain. Stress! That blows my mind because more than half the time stress is something we can choose to control. Get some big tips on how to reduce stress in this blog post.
Create with your hands
Don't be so hard on yourself
We all do this. Why? Simply put because of the world and how it judges others…broken. Below are some blog posts I suggest digging into to experience freedom.
5 Important Ways to Measure Success Without Numbers
13 Ways to Naturally Help the Winter Blues
9 Easy Ways to Learn More About Yourself
Take responsibility
Take responsibility for your actions and choices. It’s crazy how much better you’ll feel knowing you are staying accountable for yourself. For starters, manage your money better and eliminate your money problems. This one is huge.
What do you mean by “love myself”?
Let me first tell you what it doesn’t mean. Loving yourself doesn’t mean selfishness, narcissism, or arrogance. Nor is it pride or thinking you’re better than anyone else. Loving yourself is taking care of your body, heart, mind, and soul; including getting to know God more…after all, He knows more about you than you do! Get to know your Creator to know more about yourself. You’ll notice the little things you learn about yourself are what make a big impact in your relationships. Do more than exist friend. Read more about how to love yourself in a healthy and inspiring way below.
Check out these other great blog posts!
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