How good are you at looking at yourself and liking yourself?
Me? For years, I struggled with looking at myself and liking what I saw. I couldn’t see anything positive because it was blocked by a whole lot of negative self-talk.
How we see ourselves is often affected by what we’ve heard others say about us.
Finding positives about ourselves? Nearly impossible to do if we’ve been beaten down by a lot of negative input.
Sometimes to see the stars shining in the night sky, you have to get away from it all — away from all the lights and noise of the city. Drive out to the country. Or up to a mountain top, where it’s quiet and you can look up and see the beauty that was there all along but it was obscured by all the racket we’re used to, day in and day out. It’s our normal.
You know what? Sometimes negative self-talk is our normal noise, too.
Take a moment and step away to a place of quiet. Look at yourself. Think of one thing you like about yourself. One thing. Go ahead, find the positive. It’s there, even if you’ve forgotten to look for it, like we forget to look up at the stars at night — or we can’t see them because they’re obscured by streetlights. Or maybe you no longer believe anything positive about yourself because the negative self-talk is too loud.
Tune it out.
Find the positive.
In Others’ Words: What’s one thing you like about yourself? A personality trait … a talent … a physical characteristic … an accomplishment. Come on, I’d love to hear what positive you see when you look at yourself.
In Others' Words: Look and Find http://bit.ly/2NesF52 #quotes #identity Click To Tweet 'Look at yourself, like yourself, and find the positive.' Quote by Dana Buchman http://bit.ly/2NesF52 #encouragement #identity Click To Tweet
Comments 8
Interesting parallel with looking into the night sky, for I have recently been given to doing just that, to find a measure of peace as my body falls to pieces. (Peace…pieces…geddit?)
Yeah, well.
I think that if there’s something to like about me, others are going to have to find it, because looking inward becomes the pursuit of a chimera. The crucible of cancer has made me something less than what I thought I was, and something more than I thought I could ever be…and that, dear Beth, is a channel for God’s love.
I’m no more than that, and also no less.
Cool with that, yeah?
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Andrew: See there? You did find something you liked about yourself! You are a channel for God’s love. And a very influential one, too, my friend.
I appreciate Andrew’s closing paragraph above. Your topic today is a hard one for most of us but most of us are climbing up out of the quite negative realm to the less so. When you ask us to take stock, my qualities I would most value would be my imagination, my sense of humor, and my compassion. I’m not sure how to rank them. If I had to, probably compassion would win out.
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Dee: I most definitely agree with you that the fight to silence negative self-talk is a huge battle for many, many people. Often we don’t even realize what we’re saying to ourselves. And all those positives you listed about yourself? Yes and yes and yes! 🙂
This… this is Truth.
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It is truth — good solid ground for our feet.
I hate what I see in the mirror. But I know I am loved and God lives in my heart. Thanks for something to think on. And pray about.
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Mary: I think all of us struggle with this at times. The more we lean into God’s love for us, the more we learn to love ourselves because we see what He sees. And we begin to hear His voice speaking to us — words of love and acceptance — instead of the negative self-talk or the echoes of negative words we’ve heard in the past. Praying for you tonight.