Workbook:
Make a list of the 5 most important things that you need to focus on tomorrow:
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How many of these involve you taking care of yourself and putting yourself first? We can spend our entire lives rushing around, working, achieving, and doing for others without ever stopping to think: “What do I need to do to nurture myself?”
Happiness has nothing to do with how much you do or how much you accumulate. Happiness is an internal experience. You have to love yourself first, and as a consequence everything works externally. You can have everything and still not be completely happy if you don’t love yourself.
Make a list of the 3 things you would love to have time to do for yourself:
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2.
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Now, prioritize one of the things that you would love to do, and plan to do it tomorrow. If you feel you don’t have enough time, be open to reconsider this. Put aside the excuses and find a way to fit it into your day. Make it the most important thing tomorrow, and fit everything else around it. When you nurture yourself, you have more to give to everyone and everything else in your life. Give yourself permission to do something that nurtures you tomorrow, and see how you feel. Hopefully you will decide to do this more often!
Do you feel resentment with someone in your life because you give when you don’t want to, instead of saying “no”?
Write about a recent time when this happened and how you feel about it.
This week, practice saying “no” when you need to.
When you love yourself, you don’t need anything external, but you can enjoy everything that you have.
So, what is the recipe for a happy life? Try these ingredients:
- Unconditional love of self.
- The capacity to give, starting with oneself.
- The capacity to share.
- The capacity to live from love rather than from fear.
- The capacity to allow your loved ones to live their lives in freedom, instead of trying to control them due to your own
Loving yourself comes first. When you put yourself first you can give to others without resentment, because you feel free to say ‘no’ when you need to. You have the capacity to share because you feel fulfilled and abundant and you want to share that abundance with others.
How do you cultivate the capacities outlined in the last two points?
When you love yourself, you begin to love everyone and everything around you, and to see life as something beautiful. You choose to act from love rather than trying to avoid things you fear. And when you give yourself the freedom to do what is best for you, you develop the capacity to stop controlling your loved ones and let them do what is best for them.
The recipe for a happy life is based on unconditional love of self.
Find the love within, be the love, share your love, and give to others with love.
Start taking action every day to be more loving with yourself, and everything else will fall into place.
And take the time to get the most out of the workshop you just enrolled in. This will really help you to love yourself and love your life.