Loving each other when you don't want to

Loving yourself more often can feel "selfish" , sometimes even impossible.

One of the big questions we get from people who read our blog posts, newsletters, and interact with us on Facebook is how to love each other more…

Loving yourself is one of the most normal and natural things you can do, but so often you don't feel like you love yourself when you really want to.

Here's a quick example of how loving each other played out in our lives a while back…

Susie's computer would crash and when something like this happened she would get really angry and act in a way that wasn't very loving to herself (and others) - But not this time.

This time, without thinking too much but accepting what is, she called an IT guy, he came right away and she calmly listened to her worst case scenario as well as the best that could happen as he was trying to fix it. The next day he called with a positive report and the next day he brought it back with the saved data and a new Windows operating system.

Susie remained calm throughout loading the software and rebuilding her laptop until the evening she couldn't get her Zoom to work and she had a coaching session scheduled.

Then her thinking took over how unreliable she would seem to her client if she didn't make Zoom work - and she felt stressed, blaming herself that it wasn't going perfectly.

Isn't that how it works?

Sometimes we're kind and loving to ourselves, and sometimes we're not.

When we love each other, life flows and we feel happier.

When we're not, we get overwhelmed, stressed, and often not kind to the other people in our lives.

So how can we love ourselves more when we are used to criticizing ourselves and not acknowledging our magnificence?

Here are 3 ways…

Tune in to that still, small voice inside and allow yourself to be quiet

Tuning to that still, small voice inside and allowing yourself to calm down enough to hear your own inner wisdom is the best way to start loving yourself.

This inner wisdom always tells you the next right thing to say, do, or be, which is the right act of kindness to yourself in every moment.

Susie didn't have to shut up to figure out what the next step would be to fix her computer. She just knew.

But sometimes, if you're feeling stressed, overwhelmed, hopeless and blaming yourself, calm doesn't seem possible.

In those times, if you know that the "unplugging" will occur if you turn inward, without concentrating on your disjointed thoughts, you will become silent.

Your quiet little voice may be telling you something to do, but its advice might just be "to be."

During a coaching session, when a wife fell silent, she realized she didn't love herself when she made sure to cook her husband's lunch before that they both walk out the door in the morning, while neglecting to prepare his own.

When she calmed down, her quiet little voice told her to make her lunch first since she recognized that her co-dependency issue was interfering with her relationship.

Another figured out that loving each other meant sitting quietly at her daughter's swim practice without checking her cell phone every minute.

As Susie calmed down and calmed down, she realized she had other options for connecting with her coaching client.

She could email her to see if she wanted to talk on the phone or reschedule. Without blaming herself for not being "perfect", Susie did.

Loving yourself may not seem affectionate or meaningless to others.

Otto's son was planning to drive from Southern Ohio to Buffalo, New York to see his girlfriend one weekend and the only problem was that a snow storm was blowing and 18 inches were expected of snow.

To Otto it seemed pretty crazy but his son made the trip and came back safe and sound.

For us, it wasn't a very loving thing to do for yourself, but for Otto's son, it was.

This is where the differences come in and we can't really know what someone else's inner wisdom is telling them.

So what does your inner wisdom tell you today about loving yourself?

Listen carefully and...