Pam's Daily Wave....

Hello and Welcome to Tuesday from a rather cold, but now sunny Hatteras 😊

So, the storm that started early yesterday, continued all day and through the night causing quite a bit of flooding.

Front of the Inn yesterday afternoon

Today at the old Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Beach

This morning I'd have to have waded through some water to reach my beach, so I had my "me time" at home today, which, was kind of awesome, as I was in my big comfy chair with a huge fleecy blanket and limitless hot coffee 😁 And...the weather forecast for later today is sunny!!!

I recently found this poem, that I think speaks well to learning to accept and love yourself, and I thought it would be a great way for you to begin your day....

Love Yourself

Love starts with you and has no end

It begins when you love your life’s best friend

Look in the mirror and who do you see?

Hopefully, you’ll smile and wink proudly

You and your ego will be so much nearer

When you love that smiling face in the mirror

If you can’t say “I love myself” humbly

Then you can’t love others genuinely

Self-love isn’t selfish nor is it vain

Self-love is the foundation which will sustain

Our selfless feelings for our fellow man

To help through our life as best we can

What do clouds feel if you haven’t flown?

You can’t reflect love if you can’t feel your own

You can’t enjoy that book on the library shelf

If you’ve never learned to read yourself

Nor can you appreciate a foreign tongue

Without learning words from it’s very first rung

Hearing but not knowing a word. So, it is with love

Avoid abandoning it with an emotional shove

First learn what it is; Understand how to use it…

Start with yourself and no one else will lose it

by Gregory Huyette

For many, it is so much easier to love others, than to actually love yourself. You can see the best qualities in other people - you see their worth, their talent, their beauty, their gifts to the world....

But, when it comes to looking inward....to yourself, the first things that come to your mind are - your faults and failures, your imperfections, the things you aren't good at, your perceived ugliness.... How sad that these are the first things that automatically appear in some of our heads 😌

There are many reasons, people react in this way when thinking about themselves - insecurity, peer pressure, family and "so called" friends' opinions, body image issues, toxic work environments, the media, bullying, toxic relationships with partners...the list goes on and on.

The good news is – that there are techniques we can use to change our thought patterns, to accept and love who we are 💗

Allow me please, if you will, to get a bit "sciency" here....

"Patterns" of behavior are "learned behaviors" - we learn them from past experiences, and from others around us. Unlike innate behaviors, which are genetically hardwired, and can be performed without any prior experience or picking up from others.

The more often you perform an action or behave in a certain way, the more it gets physically wired into your brain. This amazing adaptive quality of your brain is known as "neuroplasticity".

More good news - research has demonstrated that the brain continues to create new neural pathways and alter existing ones in order to adapt to new experiences, learn new information, and create new memories.... So, we can create new neural connections, new neural pathways - or to put it another way, we can create new healthier more positive patterns.

Okay, sciency bit over (unless you want to research some more, then there are literally thousands of papers on neuroplasticity available online😊)

So, all we have to do is break our old habit of belittling ourselves and form new habits of acceptance and love of ourselves....Well that's easy....isn't it?????

For a few, learning and understanding the theory behind the science may enable them to do just that, break their old patterns and create awesome new ones - but for most it will take much more than that.

Here are a few tips to get you on the right track:

• Start small - Willpower is much like a muscle and yours may be a tad weak. So, what do we do when we need to build muscle.... we start to exercise it gradually and regularly. If we go all out and try to push it, we end up tired and frustrated. By starting small, and practicing as part of our daily routine, we can build up the willpower to help change our embedded negative thought patterns.

• Pay attention - Try to catch yourself when you feel a negative thought about yourself coming to the surface. If you can pinpoint what you were doing or thinking just before your negativity began, you will have found one of your trigger points. Knowing what your trigger points are will enable you to remove or eliminate some of those events that are the triggers. For those triggers that you can't remove from your environment, with your strengthening willpower, you can engage overriding positive thoughts, that will help you to ignore your triggers. Also, when you're not paying attention, you automatically revert to your old learned thought patterns.... and until your lovely new positive neural pathways are formed and strengthened, these old ones will be your brain's default setting.

• Try to surround yourself with positivity as much as you possibly can:

- Pictures and Photos of things that make you smile or feel inspired (positive visuals work exceptionally well for me, as do words)

- Books, poetry, quotations - print them out, stick them on your fridge, next to your laptop, in your journal.... anywhere you like (My Fave 🥰)

- People - This does not have to be someone in the same location as you, it can be on the phone, zoom, joining a club or a support group.... there are more options that you may think (try to interact with as many positive minded people as possible, and avoid toxic relationships if at all possible)

• Celebrate small victories - every time you over-ride a negative thought about yourself and replace it with a different, more positive thought.... Congratulate yourself - You are well on the way to creating a healthier, mindset that is accepting of yourself....and that's a Huge step in the right direction.

There are many other ways to help you in this journey to self-acceptance and self-love, but hopefully this will give you something to enable you to make a start.

Until Next Time...

Take care, Stay Safe and....please remember, you can't love others fully, until you love yourself 💗

Love and Hugs,

Pam

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