How do you make yourself like yourself?

[Footballman]

Milena -

Focus inwards, not outwards.
What makes your heart happy...focus on this each day. Get rid or minimise the things in life which don't fulfil your heart with joy.
Do things that make you genuinely feel good.
And then...all those other things you were worried about, the outer stuff..I think that will change for the better as a result.


Footballman.

[The Cloud]

Originally Posted by sk8joyful

sheeesh - people handing-out advice left & right; and
now "diagnosing" no less over the internet too? wow, what next!

Sorry, diagnose was just the first word I could think of. I'm not a doctor, and it's not really a disease. Perceive or notice or become aware of would probably be a better fit. Thanks for not letting me get away with that.

[lemjau]

Originally Posted by The Cloud

People say what they want to be true, but the way they say it often reveals the actual truth. Are the truly confident people the ones that boast about themselves most loudly? From their words, one could assume that they are very self-assured. But everybody knows that their boisterousness stems from insecurity, not courage.

It's one of the trickiest kinds of validation to diagnose, because it seeks validation through apparent independence. Marinik has created the facade of independence, of being pretty great without caring what other people think. A facade that she has a powerful urge to point out to people when she's talking about herself.

I'm not dumping on marinik at all, she sounds like a really fantastic and upstanding lady. But I would be remiss if I didn't point out this small shortcoming of hers. If it's not really there, then she doesn't need my validation and won't mind that I'm chasing ghosts. But if it is there, then she now has the valuable opportunity to achieve a greater understanding of herself. And for that, I'm willing to risk being wrong.

As far as I can see she never reacted. So she is fine with not defending herself. On the other hand you say yourself that you have not come to that place. This what you wrote:

The Cloud: So where is lasting joy and peace found? I can't say from experience, but I suspect that it's found in that which is eternal and unchanging and unnameable.

So where do you find the high stance to give judgment on where other people are with their journey and where they want to go. Marinik was giving advice to the OP and it sounds good and reachable to me. I like the fact that she said this:

Marinik: Am the best looking NO am I the smartest NO am I the most successful NO... riches NO...funniest NO but I love myself because I have almost always been the best version of myself.

I like the concept of being the best version of myself in that moment. This is all we can do.

[The Cloud]

Originally Posted by lemjau

So where do you find the high stance to give judgment on where other people are with their journey and where they want to go. Marinik was giving advice to the OP and it sounds good and reachable to me. I like the fact that she said this:

I like the concept of being the best version of myself in that moment. This is all we can do.

Oh wow, I just realized that I made a bit of an error. I don't know if it invalidates everything that I've said, but I was acting under the impression that Marinik was the author of the OP, confusing her with Milena. It certainly wasn't my intention to dump on anyone's advice; as I said, marinik sounds like an upstanding woman and certainly has as much right to post as I do. I still don't entirely agree with her advice, but I wouldn't have picked it apart like I did if I'd known that she wasn't the original poster. You'll have to judge for yourself whether me making a fool of myself invalidates the things that I have said.

Milena, I apologize for corrupting your thread with comments not directly relevant to your query. Marinik, I didn't mean to single you out.

[marinik]

Originally Posted by lemjau

As far as I can see she never reacted. So she is fine with not defending herself. On the other hand you say yourself that you have not come to that place. This what you wrote:

So where do you find the high stance to give judgment on where other people are with their journey and where they want to go. Marinik was giving advice to the OP and it sounds good and reachable to me. I like the fact that she said this:

I like the concept of being the best version of myself in that moment. This is all we can do.

Lemjau thank you for your effort to defend my view point, but it is OK, let it go. You are new to these Forums, so you will find a lot of people passing judgment very easily. And it is fine with me, it is where they are right now. Most of them talk about enlightenment but only have this vague idea of what it is. I personally think it is a different thing for each and every person/soul who reaches it. I haven't yet and don't know if I will in this life time . I tend to do The Huna Process of Ho'oponopono when I encounter someone like Cloud.
I love you.
I am sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.

[marinik]

Originally Posted by The Cloud

Oh wow, I just realized that I made a bit of an error. I don't know if it invalidates everything that I've said, but I was acting under the impression that Marinik was the author of the OP, confusing her with Milena. It certainly wasn't my intention to dump on anyone's advice; as I said, marinik sounds like an upstanding woman and certainly has as much right to post as I do. I still don't entirely agree with her advice, but I wouldn't have picked it apart like I did if I'd known that she wasn't the original poster. You'll have to judge for yourself whether me making a fool of myself invalidates the things that I have said.

Milena, I apologize for corrupting your thread with comments not directly relevant to your query. Marinik, I didn't mean to single you out.

I love you.
I am sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Milena

Err... what practical steps can you take to like yourself as a person?

Like, if I don't like how I look, do I change it or do I just try to like myself? What if I'm fat? What if I'm short? I don't understand why fatness should be changed but the unchangeable things should be accepted. I figure they should all be accepted, right? I just dunno how to.

Practical advice please?

Oh, and maybe I should mention where this question came from. I'm tired or getting offended by other people when in reality I'm just offending myself. I want to stop offending and hurting and rejecting myself. I want to like myself. Because then I can use my time on things that are more important.

Greetings.

You were born not merely liking yourself, but loving yourself. All little children love themselves.

Then they grow up.

When do they start to stop liking or loving themselves? It's when they start getting exposed to social conditioning and their minds start to create an image of what they ideally ought to be.

Eg in their minds, they evolve an image that they should be like this, or like that, because Mother said so, or the school teacher said so, or the Sunday school teacher said so.

As they grow older, the image grows more complicated. Eg the person's image may be that he ought to have a college degree, or a respectable job, or be happily married, or drive a certain kind of car, or live in a certain kind of house, or speak in a certain way, or be accepted in certain types of social circles etc etc. And he may attach so much to the image that the failure to be that image causes unhappiness, and causes him to dislike himself.

Now, the tricky part is that the image is also constantly changing. Therefore it is always ahead of yourself, and you will never reach it. Eg if you are in school, the image may say that you should pass all your subjects. So you pursue that, and you may attain it, but by then, the image might have evolved that you should score at least all B's. So you pursue that, and you may attain it, but by then, the image might have evolved to say that you should attain all A's. So you pursue that, and you may attain it, but by then, the image might have evolved to say that you should be the top student in the entire school, or maybe the entire state, or maybe the entire country.

Now actually there is a fairly simple solution.

It is fine to set goals. It is fine to keep pursuing them. It is fine to achieve them, then set even higher goals, then pursue those.

The important thing is to understand that you have to have fun while doing it. And that when you have done it, there will still be many other things to do. It doesn't end, until you die.

(Actually it doesn't even end then, but that's a different kind of discussion).

What hinders you from liking yourself is the distance between:

(a) who you are now; and
(b) who you think you ought to be.

But understanding that, and understanding that "who you ought to be" is a dynamic image that you can never fully capture, because it is always changing, will in itself help you to like yourself.

Because you'll understand that there is nothing really wrong with you, as you are, right now, you see.

[vMike]

Look in the mirror, smile and say "I love you"

Gotta love yourself regardless, just pure unconditional love