“Love comes to you when you least expect it. Don’t look for it.” That’s something I heard many years ago, I think from a movie. It makes sense, and it happened to my husband and me. I wasn’t looking for it at the place we met, but I think I attracted it.

 

 

There was a time in my life when I wasn’t sure I’d find love. I felt unworthy and very sad. I was a mother, terrified I’d be alone forever. I was fed many scams (misleading messaging), so much so that my ability to think rationally and in a healthy way was diminished.

I gave what I thought was love, but my programming up to that point didn’t allow me to feel love. Not for myself or others.

 

When We Love Ourselves, We Attract Love

I had to learn to love myself, and that was when I attracted love. I’ll be honest. It was a slow process. I was up against years of low self-worth and dysfunctional beliefs that I was not good enough. I showed my daughter those scams, and through interactions, she absorbed the wrong messaging too. I did the same thing that’s been happening in families since the dawn of time: transferring irrational beliefs to offspring. We can’t help it unless we first become aware and then do the work to change those messages.

In order to attract love (and I’m talking about real love, not just a relationship that fills a void but doesn’t bring you happiness), you have to love yourself first. 

You can’t just exercise your way to love, wear the right clothes to attract love, or even be the most beautiful, richest, or high-achieving person in the world and hope to attract true love. You will attract a variation of what looks like love, but until you love yourself, all you’re attracting is a relationship.

 

So, Then, How Do We Love Ourselves – Wholly and Unconditionally?

• Forgive yourself (and eventually others when you’re strong enough to do so)
• lighten up on yourself (stop the chatter in your head, trying to control every minute detail of your life)
• Be gentle with yourself  (don’t berate yourself because you have the chatter going on)
• Replace old thoughts with new ones (you buy new clothes and give up old ones that don’t serve you well, so do the same with your thoughts)
• fight for your happiness (let the child in you know it’s safe to be happy now)

I’ve read a lot of books on self-help, personal development, psychology, and the like, and the common thread that runs throughout them is that if you are unhappy with life, you have to change your thoughts before you can ever change your life.

 

Change the Thoughts to Change Our Lives

That’s the secret to loving yourself. We have to change the wrong messages we learned as children when our brains were sucking up information like the sand does to water on a beach. None of the negativity and dysfunction we were exposed to as little children was our fault, but as adults, it’s our responsibility to deal with it because we’re in control now.

How many of us want to feel real love? I know I do.

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is thank God for waking up. I mean, think about it: we are not guaranteed that, so why not be thankful for our lives the second we open our eyes? Just try it. It does start the day off well.

Then, throughout the day, I am continually thinking good thoughts. I sometimes have to force myself to if I get bombarded with negativity or have an interaction with a wounded person. I have to be very focused, and so do you if you want to have a good mindset that serves you well and, most importantly, helps you to love yourself.  If you are hurt somewhere, like from an old wound (physically or mentally), or are sick, thinking good thoughts throughout the day of good health and feeling great can actually help you heal. I’ve done it, it works. Trust me on that one!

Thinking good thoughts might help you attract better everything, from the right food to eat to help with inflammation going on in your body, thereby relieving pain, or new people and situations that make you feel good, or a wonderful partner who loves you as much as you love them. It all comes first from the mind. Then, it’ll show up in your life as something real.

 

We Can Only Change Ourselves

As babies, everything around us is an influence. Words and actions from our parents, caretakers, family members, television, movies, and everything influenced our tiny developing minds. Once we realize that what we have learned was what other people learned and shared with us (all of it, the helpful and hurtful words and actions), we can stop the cycle for ourselves and our children. We can change and help those around us change if they choose to live a happy life. We cannot force anyone to change. We can only do that for ourselves.

When we do change and begin to attract love from everywhere (because that’s the frequency we’ll be on), the people we wanted to change but couldn’t or wouldn’t might not seem that important to us anymore, and we move on. There is nothing wrong with loving ourselves more than a painful situation.

 

To Sum Up

We can attract love just by being our authentic selves. Smile and get a smile back. And always remember you are enough.

Thank you for reading my thoughts on this. I didn’t mean to mislead you with the title, but we need to love the most important person in our lives first before we can attract love from others.  I hope these ideas gave you something to think about. Let me know in the comments if you have other ways to show yourself love. ( P.G. responses, please! LOL )

To attracting love,

Francesca

 

Created by a human for humans.

 © 2024 FrancescaME | All rights reserved.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

 

*DISCLAIMER: FrancescaME is not a therapist or doctor, and any information shared is from personal experience, learning, and research.

If you’re suffering, please consult a mental health therapist for help. Just as our bodies need to see a doctor when we’re not well, our minds need care, too.

Call 988 if you’re in crisis. (Languages: English, Spanish -Available 24 hours)

 

For a chuckle, follow our Funny Lady Life Podcast on Spotify, iHeartRadio and Facebook.