First of All

Welcome to a new month and a new challenge.  This month we are going in Pursuit of Happiness.  Over the course of the next twenty eight days we are going to talk about ways to have more happiness in our lives.

From a very young age we teach our children not to be selfish.  We teach them to care about other people and we teach them how to take care of their pets.  We place great emphasis on sharing their toys and sweets with their friends.  We often tell them how much we love them and they in turn learn what it means to love and how to show love.  Yet somehow we forget to teach them the importance of loving themselves.  Most of us believe that it is wrong and selfish to love ourselves.  We even think that it is shameful to admit to loving ourselves.  However, it is very clear that it is very important to love ourselves.  It is only by loving ourselves that we can begin to love others, as the Bible says that we are to love our neighbours as we love ourselves.

Therefore, the first way we can be happier is to learn to love ourselves.

Loving ourselves means to be kinder to ourselves, to cut ourselves some slack and to be tolerant of our own shortcomings and inadequacies.  Loving yourself means giving yourself some quality time and pampering yourself.  Make a note of all your positive attributes and celebrate them. Silence your inner-critic and focus on everything which makes you uniquely you.

Once you learn to love yourself it gives your self-esteem a boost, and you will be able to accomplish much more.  You will derive more enjoyment from everything in your life and handle difficult situations with greater ease.  Loving yourself cultivates a positive attitude towards yourself and life in general.  When you love yourself you get up in the morning with a feeling of happiness and an anticipation of all the good things awaiting you.  Happiness is infectious.  Not only will you feel happier, but in turn you will make those people whom you come into contact with happier as well.