There will be many loves in your life - parents, partners, children, friends, pets, places, experiences, possessions ...  and so much more.  Love is everywhere if you open your eyes and your heart.  These loves may come and go according to circumstances, situations, events and other people in your life, or theirs.

Having a strong foundation of self-respect and self-love can help you to get through painful life events and also help to protect you from the less-than-loving attitudes and behaviours of others. The thing is, if you rely on others for how you feel, they can lift you to great heights, or they can shatter you and break your heart without even intending to.  You might even think to yourself that they "made you feel" a certain way, and feel powerless to do anything about it. 

Have you ever stopped to think that YOU are the one person that you can trust to be with you for the rest of your life?  And to love you unconditionally no matter what you do.  You also know yourself better than anyone, and there is not one person on this planet who is qualified to judge you. 

Once you have the strong foundation of self-love and self-respect, no-one can take that away from you, or make you feel anything that you do not want to feel.  Unless you give them permission.  You don't have to be perfect and you may not always get it right, however having that awareness will make it easier each time.  

Here are a few things that you can do to develop that awareness and exercise your self-muscle.  Please add to the list as you discover a few more.

Refuse to allow negative, self-defeating thoughts. Don’t think anything about yourself that you wouldn’t say out loud to your best friend. Write some positive affirmations and put them where you will see them.  If you see something in a magazine that makes you smile, cut it out and put it in a frame. Lift your vibration and things around you will flow easily.

If something has caused you to feel negative, take a deep breath and ask yourself if there is a different way that you could choose to think about it, and how you can talk to yourself about it.  There are always two ways to look at something.  Choosing to be a victim is always uncomfortable and disempowering. Instead, take a step back and take on the role of an observer.  Look at the big picture, and consider it from every point of view.

Sometimes there can be a message for you, a lesson.  The most valuable lessons you have learnt in your life have often been uncomfortable, with the potential to hurt you, like learning to ride a bike.  If it is something that has happened before, look even harder for the lesson because quite often, if you don't get it the first time, the lesson is repeated and it gets harder each time.

Clear your space and clear your mind. If you find it hard to focus and apply yourself to the task at hand, take some time to clear your work space (even if it means scooping everything up and putting it in a drawer for a short time). Allow yourself 10 minutes to sit and focus on your breathing and you will find that your mind will clear quickly.

Allow yourself some time to step back from whatever it is that is on your mind and reconnect with yourself. A great way to do this is to just focus on your breathing and be aware of allowing your body to relax as you breathe out.

If you would like to know more about breathing techniques, and why it is important, you can check out my brief Relaxation Breathing videos: Introduction to Relaxation Breathing and Relaxation Breathing Part 2

Allow a few moments for simple pleasures. Take time to smell the roses. In “Eat, Love, Pray” the Italian barber said to Julia Roberts “Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure”. For more quotes, see “Quotes from Eat, Pray, Love”

Take some time to consider the things that you do and don't want to do.  Are there things that you do because they are expected of you, but they undermine your sense of well-being?  Do you end up feeling frustrated, resentful or powerless?  Are they things that others could do?

Are you taking on physical or emotional responsibilities for others who could be taking that responsibility themselves?  Sometimes doing too much for others can be disempowering for them.  By being over-protective or trying to make things easy for them you may be depriving them of learning their life-lessons.  There are many young adults suffering from anxiety and depression because they did not have the opportunity to learn how to deal with life's tough stuff when they were children.

Begin to develop clear boundaries for yourself in a gently assertive way.  When appropriate, give yourself permission to say no and put yourself first. However try to offer options and always aim for a win-win situation so that the other person doesn't feel that you are deserting them. If you feel overloaded, think about delegating. Allow others to take responsibility for themselves. You don’t have to be in control all of the time, or care-take other people’s feelings. Just be sure that you treat everyone with kindness, consideration and respect.

It is so beautiful to share life and love with a special person. Thing is (and this applies to partners, children and friends) if you rely on them for how you feel, they can lift you to great heights, or they can shatter you and break your heart without even intending to.  You might think to yourself that they "made you feel" a certain way.

If you want to explore this concept, consider that no-one can make you feel anything that you don't want to feel.  When you feel a certain way, it really has nothing to do with someone else. You are simply giving yourself permission to feel something that is already there, to tap into it, and you are using them as the reason.  These feelings are available to you any time you want to feel them.

To explore that a little bit deeper, whatever you feel at any given time is a reflection of how you choose to think about it - your perception.  That means that you always have a choice in how you perceive something.  After you choose (subconsciously) how to perceive it, you will get the appropriate feelings and then you will have a reaction related to those feelings. There is great power there. 

For example if a child spills a drink all over you, you can choose to perceive it as thoughtless clumsiness, or you can choose to perceive it as an accident and something that you could have done.  If you perceive it as thoughtless clumsiness, you will probably feel angry or upset and react accordingly.  If you perceive it as an accident, you may feel more understanding and react accordingly.  Either way will begin a chain of reactions and events that will affect those around you, either positively or negatively.  And those chain of reactions and events will continue to affect others in some way. 

Teach others how to treat you. Don’t give anyone the power to hurt you by making their opinion of you more important than your opinion of yourself. Remember that honesty without kindness is cruelty.