SELF-LOVE IS NOT A DIRTY WORD! Why do women who seem to have it all, put themselves into abusive relationships or silently beat themselves up for everything they are not? The bottom line: lack of self-love. "It's an epidemic for women today, that's often played out behind closed doors, even in the lives of celebrities," says author Christine Arylo, author of Choosing Me Before We: Every Woman's Guide To Life and Love and Founder of the International "Madly In Love With Me" Day on Feb. 13th.
Four Factors every woman can gauge herself against to see what area in her life needs more attention and self-love. Ask yourself if these are true or false. If they aren't 100% true, you've got some self-love work to do.
- You don't have any abusive or toxic relationships. 1 in 3 girls will be in an abusive relationship by the time she is 20, 80% will go back. Many women don't consider a relationship abusive unless it's physical abuse, but emotional and verbal abuses are actually just as damaging… friendships, relatives and romantic relationships alike. The only reason to have any relationship is two reasons: 1.It helps you live your dreams and makes your life better or 2. It makes you a better you. If you think you need some help in this area, Arylo recommends:
>> Do a relationship inventory. Write down all your friends, relative and romantic relationships and ask yourself which are full of respect and unconditional love and add energy to your life? Put a star by those. These are supportive relationships and you want to keep them. Which are negative and drain energy from your life? Put a check mark by them. These are unsupportive relationships and you either want to change them or let go of them.
- You take care of yourself as well as everyone else. It's estimated that 80% of women are so overworked and stressed that they suffer from adrenal gland fatigue, whether they know it or not. Women often slough off or mistreat the symptoms like weight gain, fatigue, insomnia, fuzzy thinking, depression, cravings and mood swings (for example thinking they need to work out more to lose weight, when in fact they may need to stop and take care of themselves.) And then, because they aren't listening to their body's warning signals, many women don't know they are basically running on pure adrenaline until their bodies shut down because of serious health concerns like auto-immune and thyroid disease… and then they have to listen.
>> Make Yourself Sustainable: Do a 40-day Take Care of ME Practice. Taking care of yourself isn't just taking a day at the spa, it's literally a mindset that you either have or you don't. It's not that we don't want to take care of ourselves; it's that our minds don't see any way of creating the 'time' to do it. So we have to change our minds. The yogis, metaphysicians and brain scientists agree that if you do anything for 40 days you can change your patterns and your brain patterns to create new pathways and thoughts. Arylo recommends waking up every morning and asking, 'What do I need to do to take care of myself today?" Listen. "I've been doing this practice all of January and it's pushed all my buttons and beliefs," says Arylo. "I want to argue and say I don't have time. But when I listen, and take care of me everything else falls into place. I am literally retraining my brain to trust that I don't have to do it all myself."
- You believe that you are enough right now. You don't beat yourself up for everything you are not. Seven in ten girls (70%) in San Francisco believe they are not good enough or do not measure up in some way, including their looks, performance in school and relationships with friends and family members, that's a huge number, which doesn't diminish as they get older. High achieving women are harder on themselves than any other person could ever be. If we could see the black and blue marks from the beatings that women give themselves for everything they are not, we would have to call the authorities. "It's a bad habit to develop young," Arylo says, but after spending many hours with high school girls who she say are 'achievement junkies and doing addicts in the making' Arylo says the best thing we can do is to help girls stop comparing themselves to others. She recommends:
>> Taking a Comparison Diet. Instead of watching calories, you are watching words and thoughts. Every time you find yourself comparing yourself to someone else or to whom you used to be or should be, stop! Dead in your tracks. And instead change your words and your thoughts to find something nice to say about yourself. Dig deep if you have to. Say something you like about yourself, you are proud of or are grateful of. Then take that comparison and turn it into inspiration. What action can you take from here to inspire you to be the person you want to be?
- You take care of your body. Our bodies are like temples on loan, structures that need to be adored and taken care of, vs. shifted, shaped and worked out for appearances sake. The weight obsession is starting younger and younger in our society. 4 out of 5 girls will go on a diet before 4th grade. 57% of girls admit to fasting, dieting or using food substitutes. We are obsessed with making our bodies fit into an image, and when we come from this place, we'll never attain it, or even if we do get the perfect body, we will make ourselves miserable trying to keep it.
>> Have A Relationship With Your Body. Learn to Listen. We focus way too much on losing 10 lbs, having flat abs or keeping up with the looks of younger women, and not enough time on communicating with our specific body about what she needs. Often we get a signal from our body - what food or exercise she needs - but we don't listen. We need to trust our bodies more than we do all the textbooks that tell us what type of diet we should be on. Arylo has coached many women who were addicted to dieting or working out, and she says, "It became a form of control. They weren't happy in their lives and they didn't love themselves so food and exercise became another form of abuse." Arylo recommends making a 40-day practice out of listening to your body and noticing what happens when you listen and when you don't.
A new kind of self-love expert, Christine Arylo takes a fresh approach to redefining and teaching self-love. Author of Choosing ME before WE, Every Woman's Guide to Life and Love. Arylo's opinions and techniques have appeared on E! Entertainment, WGN, FOX, CBS and ABC TV, over 100 radio programs, and in publications like the San Francisco Chronicle and the Daily Om. A teacher, inspirational catalyst, m.b.a, and self-admitted, but recovering achievement junkie and doing addict, Arylo is the founder of Madly in Love with ME™, an international self -love movement, which includes the official day of self-love on February 13.
Website: http://www.daretoliveyou.com
About Madly in Love with ME™ : Kicking off every year with international Madly in Love with ME Day™ on February 13th, the Madly in Love with ME™ movement inspires, dares and guides women and girls around the world to trade in the self-criticism, feelings of un-worthiness, overwhelm and exhaustion for unwavering self-love. With events in cities around the world on February 13th, and a plethora of virtual opportunities - including a free Self-Love Guidebook, a Video Dare contest, and a call for rewriting the definition of self-love -- women and girls can create their own self-love extravaganzas for themselves or their friends, Madly in Love with ME™ is on a mission to reclaim self-love for every woman.
Event information:
Local "Madly in Love with ME" Day Event
The Claremont Hotel
February 13th
9AM - 5PM
Website: http://www.madlyinlovewithme.com
