Love Yourself - First Essential to Being the Best Mom for Your Kids

**If you would like to listen to this blog post, scroll to the bottom for the audio version.

It’s April! Woohoo! For most of you winter is done. For us in Minnesota, the end is near!

New season, new excitement, new energy!

Same goes for me ;) I’m so excited to share my next blog series with you. I’m going to outline it quickly here in this post, but I will be writing about each of these topics more in depth. Be sure you sign up for my weekly emails so you don’t miss it!

For the next six weeks, I will be talking about Six Essentials Every Mom needs to Be the Best Mom for their Kids. Guess what?! If you’re not a mom these essentials still apply to you!

Are you excited? You should be!  This will be a great opportunity to start making shifts in your life so you can THRIVE and be the mom you want to be!

So.... let's begin with Essential Number One:

LOVING YOURSELF

I want to share two common themes I hear from women around this topic. 

1. Some women don’t believe that they struggle with loving themselves. But, when I start to ask questions, they soon realize that they struggle with the thought, “I’m not good enough”.  This is not loving yourself.  Basically, you're saying you have to meet some expectation to be worthy of love.
2. I also find that some Christian women think loving themselves will make them proud or selfish. They believe it will put to much focus on them. So they use excuses like, “I don’t have the time”, “It’s not important” “I’m not important”, “I’m not made that way” or “that doesn’t excite me”.

Can you relate to either one of these situations?

Yes? Yay! Good! God put you right where you need to be.

So, lets touch on the topic about not being “good enough”. (Honestly, I could write twenty blog posts about this topic, but I need to keep this short so you’ll actually get through this with me!)

The main phrase I hear my clients tell themselves (in their head) is, “I’m not a good enough mom.”

Here is what I want you to do if you’ve heard yourself say this: write down what would make you a “good enough” mom. Is it having a spotless kitchen, well balanced, home cooked meals, laundry always clean, folded and put away, never forgetting to pack your kids a snack for break at school, showing them how to be frugal, doing a devotional every night….. 

Just make your list. Seriously. I know a lot of you will just read this and skip over the action, but if you do this exercise it will be eye opening. 

Now give this list to your best friend. Tell her she has to do all these things to be a good enough mom.

Would you do it? Would you even let her see?

 Then ask yourself, "Would I love myself any more if I met all these expectations?"  "Would my husband love me any more?  My kids?  God?"

Okay, let’s talk about the next problem. Lets look at the opposite. What it means to not love you?

I don’t know who said it, but the quote, “The opposite of love is not hate; the opposite of love is indifference” really rings true here.

Indifference, or you can call it apathy, is basically summed up in the phrase, “I don’t care.” Apathy's definition is a lack of interest, enthusiasm or concern.

It's Satan’s way of fighting love. If you are apathetic to yourself, you feel unimportant, unappreciated and unmotivated.

You are stuck.

When you feel stuck, it’s easy for Satan to tear down your confidence and any good thoughts you may have about yourself.  He just starts to whisper… “You don’t care. You are not important. You don’t bring anything to this world. You weren’t made to make a difference.”

You start to believe it and live it.  How do you live it?

Here is a typical scenario for most of my clients when it comes to being apathetic to themselves:

My client is stuck in excess weight. She commits to a new diet and exercise routine.

An obstacle gets in her way though and requires her to double down (i.e. her birthday comes).

“This is too hard. All I want to do is have one little ‘fun’ thing to eat. This isn’t working for me any more. ”

She takes one or two so called "miss steps" (like eat cake and have pizza) and then.. 

“Screw it. I don’t really care. Oh well.”  

Now, she goes on the down hill slide. She eats everything in sight and ends up 5 pounds heavier than when she started. But not only is she heavier she thinks more about food. She obessess about the weight she has gained. She gets short and snappy with her husband and kids. Her energy goes down. She finds it harder to laugh or find joy during the day.  

Finally, after a little while passes, she says, “This stinks.  I feel even more miserable and now I’m even deeper than where I started before.”

And then loop starts over again.

The problem is, she hasn’t really got to the root of the problem. She is still not loving herself or taking care of her mental and emotional health. It starts in her head if she truly wants to take care of her body, her temple, that God has given to her. 

Now, you can take out the weight part and actually put in any problem that Satan is keeping you stuck with (over drinking, excess social media, lack of focus, anxiety, depression, etc.) It all ends up the same… a lack of love for you; an indifference to the importance of God putting you on this earth and apathy towards how you treat yourself.

I’d like to go to Jesus summing up the commandments.

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37

How well do you think you love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself? How well can you love your kids if you don’t love yourself?

You HAVE TO love and respect yourself to let your light shine. I don’t mean in a prideful way. I mean in a way that draws people closer. So people want to know the secret, the secret to why you're so happy.

The secret is... Christ loves YOU so much that he thought you were IMPORTANT to put on this earth.  Not only that, but he DIED so YOU could be with him in heaven.  So, YOU believe YOU are that IMPORTANT and LOVABLE.

How do you love yourself?  I'm glad you asked because I struggled with this for a long time.  I got it intellectually, but it never sunk deep.  Then I realized, through coaching...

You need to be your own best friend AND foster that friendship.  

Here's how:

1. Pray for yourself in a caring way. Want to know something? For the longest time I didn’t pray for things I longed for. I thought it was selfish.   When I prayed for me, it was only asking forgiveness. Don’t be like me.
2. Be curious. Yelled at your kids? Ask yourself questions kindly as to why you did that. Figure out the situation. Don’t just push it off or get mad at yourself.   When a friend comes to you with a problem, do you criticize her? Or do you ask curious questions to help?
3. Use loving words towards yourself. Don’t tell yourself you’re fat, ugly, inadequate or not a good mom. We, as humans, aren’t motivated to do better when we are negative. Plus, you wouldn’t say it to your best friend, so don’t say it to yourself.
4. Be fully present. Take time to listen to what your thinking. I highly suggest journaling. Just like your friend pours her heart out to you, you should do the same to yourself.
5. Think about your future. I hear so many women say they feel stuck. They don’t know what they like or even what step to take next. It is okay to sit and dream! There is nothing wrong with that. I think most women haven’t dreamed for so long because they believed their dreams never come true. NOT SO! Did you dream of having kids? Did you dream of being married? Having a house? Don’t let the evil one steal new dreams away from you!
6. Show affection to yourself. Take care of your body. Fuel it. Move it. Pamper it sometimes (massage anyone?). Think about a gift you’d give your best friend, do the same for you!
7. LAUGHT AT YOURSELF! Life is humorous. One of the best things about having a best friend is having someone to laugh with. Don’t be afraid to do that for yourself!

So, getting back to those who think loving themselves is prideful or selfish: I actually think it is more selfish not to love yourself. You end up spending SO MUCH TIME putting yourself down, thinking about all your mistakes, getting angry or thinking about how your life isn’t as good as it could be. All that mental energy is poured into staying stuck.

What would you rather spend all your mental energy on?

How about loving your family and those around you? 

The most precious gift God has given us is love. It really is the best way to live. It's one of the best feelings to have.  Don’t you agree? 

So why deny yourself of love?

Don’t dwell in the stuckness (yes, I’m making that word up) of not loving yourself. It is a terrible place to be.  It doesn't serve you and it definitely doesn't serve those you care about.

Go out. Love yourself. Then enjoy all that wonderful love in your life.

Do you need help figuring how to love yourself so you can love your family better and live out love?  Sign up for a FREE 45-minute coaching session here.