How Self-Love And Daily Affirmations Can Help You Be The Best Version Of Yourself…and A Better Actor.
My road to discovery of self-love and affirmations led me to become the best version of myself and in doing so I ended up writing out this entire self-love program. I live by it, it’s helped many of my friends and I've taught it to various different people.
I break it down into 4 different parts:
SELF-AWARENESS, SELF-WORTH, SELF-ESTEEM, SELF-CARE.
Oftentimes, when we hear about self-love depending on the context, immediately your brain goes to self-care, taking care of the external parts of you. Getting your nails and toes done, massages, getting groomed, haircuts, etc. However, healing comes with SELF AWARENESS, you have to be emotionally raw with yourself, and you have to be open and honest. You have to look in the mirror and see what it is you don’t like about yourself. Look at the doubt you have in yourself and the criticism you give yourself. Look and see what your flaws are and be willing to change those.
Plenty of us may also lack SELF-WORTH which is your own personal measurement of yourself. What are your values and the value you offer to others? Your self-worth is NOT based on the acceptance of other people. You need to identify your morals, core values, strengths, your tools, your resources, and everything that you have to offer to yourself and others. This is also the foundation of SELF ESTEEM.
Self Esteem Is your own personal opinion of yourself. It is your confidence. Once you begin to leverage your strengths and go above the limitations you’ve set for yourself, you will become more confident, you’ll walk differently, and you’ll feel differently about yourself. What are you doing to help build your confidence?
Lastly, let’s talk about SELF-CARE. True Self-care is more of an internal experience. It’s not limited to self-maintenance. You need to care for yourself physically, emotionally, intelligently, socially, financially, energetically, spiritually, and everything! The glow comes from within. You have to care for yourself starting from the inside out.
Putting in work on all of these different levels of self-love will help you be the best version of yourself!
Why is all of this important when being an ACTOR? It is imperative that you love yourself. PERIOD.
Besides this journey we are all on, what else is there? In order to be able to love another and radiate that love through your work and creativity, you have to love yourself first.
When we feel triggered or rejected, we want to give up all hope and throw in the towel. As I mentioned before, this idea of self-love is often misunderstood in our culture.
Self-love, however, is the essence of being. Take a look at acting. The art of acting is in many ways one of the highest expressions of creative love. Our ability to share ourselves bravely with others is enhanced by intimacy, vulnerability, and power.
When you are younger, you don’t even think about self-love. I mean, how many people are actually talking about self-love with their friends? It is essential that we love ourselves, but not according to the standards that society sets because those standards are based on external factors. It is common for us to equate the expression of love through things. If you are not aware, your sense of self-worth becomes based on what society deems to be signs of love. It is important to note that those measurements are both unattainable, short-lived, as well as destructive since they are based on illusions. A person's self-love does not depend on how attractive, physically fit, successful, popular, famous, or stylish he or she is.
It arises from a sense of self-acceptance. There is nothing you need to prove to anyone. You are already OK as you are regardless of whether you are working or not, famous or not, established or not.
Self-acceptance requires that we love those aspects of ourselves that we do not already love. These are parts of ourselves that we keep hidden, that we are afraid of, and that we believe to be flawed. These parts are necessary for us to be whole.
A whole is made up of parts. It's not some parts. It all goes together.
The bottom line, you should love yourself. Give yourself forgiveness. We become whole through all our experiences in life. Without all your life experiences, you wouldn't be where you are today.
Commit to being kinder to yourself and loving yourself.
Love you guys,
Taja
