 Do you find yourself looking at a glass as half empty instead of full? Do you tend to look at the things in your life that are going wrong instead of those going right? You can train your brain to go from negative to positive. This video is all about helping you change negative thoughts into positive ones and create positive pathways in the process. Need help in this area? Then email chou@graceandhopeconsulting.com. **This video was initially recorded in our women group.
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You don't have to say, "yes" to everyone and everything. Work through the fears that lead to people-pleasing and build a strong self-construct. Here's a great resource to get you started: https://payhip.com/b/fWxt  There’s a growing number of people struggling with their work-life balance. A large percentage of American workers feel their job demands that they should be available 24/7 since they can check in from anywhere using their smartphone. This constant availability takes a toll on both a person’s mental and physical health. Humans need to socialize, relax, and care for themselves to stay happy and healthy. Here are four simple ways to improve your work-life balance: Unplug It’s easier said than done, but avoid checking your phone for work matters after hours. This constant checking may have become a habit you wish you’d never started, and if you are honest, practically all work-related matters can wait until the next day. It’s key to unplug from work when you get home each evening and on the weekends. Let your coworkers know you won’t be returning emails, calls, or texts regarding work after hours so that they can prepare for this change. Work Smarter If you can’t seem to get all of your work done within your working hours, you aren’t alone. An alarming number of Americans work more than 50 hours a week, every week. Before you go to your request a reduction in your workload, take a careful look at how you are spending your time. Track it for a few days and see what’s causing you to stay late each night and come in early each morning. You will be surprised by the ways you can change or eliminate distractions and other time-wasters. Take A Stay-Cation Another vital way to establish a healthy work-life balance is to make use of all of your vacation days. A large number of US workers lose essential time with their family or with themselves because they don’t take all of their vacation days, or in worst cases, don’t have any vacation days at all. If you feel uncomfortable about using all your allotted holidays in one long vacation, schedule the occasional day off here and there to enjoy “stay-cations.” Breaking it up like this will give you the mental health days you need while ensuring you don’t come back to an overwhelming mountain of work. Train Your People Many of us grew up hearing, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” Unfortunately, this gets ingrained to the point where we feel we can’t delegate any tasks lest they end up back in our laps in worse shape than before. If you have employees you manage or freelancers you outsource to, take the time to train them well. Make sure they know exactly how to do things. Of course, this will take time upfront. But, once they understand your requirements, you’ll be able to hand off more work and give yourself some slack. Feeling out of balance? Schedule a FREE consultation at Calendly.com/chou  Stop living in your past. Yesterday is gone . Take control of your present and live on! #RiseAboveYourCircumstances Want to find out how? Contact me at chou@graceandhopeconsulting.com  I love what I do because it literally saves and changes lives. Let's connect: https://calendly.com/chou  Let's continue this conversation. Connect with me by email at chou@graceandhopeconsulting.com I look forward to serving you!  Wanna continue this conversation? Need additional support? Call or text me at 717-216-0230. I look forward to serving you!   Like most things, building your self-worth is best done in small, incremental steps. If you have low self-esteem, trying to feel better about yourself might seem impossible. Trying to do everything at once will be exhausting, will scatter your energy, and will most likely lead to less progress than you’d like. You risk feeling worse than when you started. Sometimes even the thought of building your self-worth can feel like an insuperable task. Where should you start? It can help if you approach it like a project and break it down into small achievable steps. Take it one step at a time, and before you know it, you’ll be feeling better about yourself. Make the positive decision not to try to change everything at once. Trying to change everything at once will only set you up for failure, and that’s not what we want. But by making this a conscious decision, you’re setting out on a positive path of doing things calmly and building yourself a sure foundation, foundation built on self-care and kindness. And you’re off to a great start already! The fact that you’re reading this means you’re self-aware and want to do the best version of yourself. Positive self-worth builds on self-care and kindness. Here are five small, but significant things you can do to be kind to yourself, today and throughout the coming weeks. 1. Build in little regular treats to make yourself feel good. A bubble bath, a monthly massage or manicure perhaps, or a walk in the park a few times a week. 2. Acknowledge your weaknesses and think of a positive action you can take to help yourself. Apps for time or money management perhaps, a personal coach, or taking a class. Remember to tackle one at a time. 3. Journaling can be helpful in identifying, challenging and turning around negative self-perceptions. Try writing down every positive thing you can think of about yourself. Think of things that are just about you, not things where you compare yourself to someone else. Are you a good writer? Are you kind? Do you have a good sense of humor? Do people love your pancakes? I have a free resource that can help you Journal Your Way To self-Worth. 4. Start a daily gratitude journal where you list all the things for which you’re grateful. You might be grateful for clean air, water, enough food to eat and a house to live in for starters. Living in a place of gratitude keeps your brain looking for things to be grateful for, so you’ll begin seeing things all around you. I personally use the 365 Gratitude: Daily Prompts, Grateful Journal by UofHappy, LLC 5. End each day by thinking of at least one good thing that happened that day, and on waking think of a positive affirmation to take you through the day. Making this a daily habit can boost your self-worth, emotional wellness, and mental health. If you need more support in boosting your self-worth, my self-study course Starting Loving Yourself From The Inside Out can help you get there. Until next time,   I had to do just that last week ... When medical challenges overwhelmed me, my body couldn't do all the things I had set to do, I felt bummed out. I felt bad about having to cancel prior commitments and I was tired of being stuck in bed when I would rather be playing with my kids. I was frustrated by the lack of answers from the medical staff and the uncertainty it brought... It wasn't long until I felt miserable, not just physically but emotionally. And I had to remind myself that even when I can't control my circumstances, I can still control my emotions and controlling my emotions starts with controlling my thoughts. I had to change the tape and I'm glad I did... If you find yourself on the negative thoughts wagon and captivated by your inner critic, you might want to try the following strategies, they work... Stop for a moment and listen to the soundtrack inside your head. What messages are coming up? Whose voice do you hear? Notice your self-talk and the feelings that come up when you hear those old messages, buried deep in your subconscious so long ago. Those messages, those beliefs are way past their sell-by date and are no longer serving you. Challenge them, rewrite the self-talk script and turn your Inner Critic into your friend. Once you begin to notice these limiting beliefs you can start to revise them. Some ways to rewrite your self-talk include journaling about the limiting beliefs…
Then, write out a new script which you can use whenever that voice starts talking. You can try affirmations and visualizations as well at this point. Take your loudest or most powerful negative self-talk first and work to change it. After that, you can challenge each of them in turn. If you want to journal your way to self-worth, check out my free mini ebook on that subject and share it with others (suitable for teens as well). Grab it HERE. Remember, you are worth more than rubies!  Liz Thees and I sat down to discuss the impact of self-love on emotional wellness and relationships. We talked about boundaries and also about her personal story of being married, divorced, and remarried to the same man. They now been together for a total of 22 years!!
#ReinventYourself #ReinventYourRelationships  6 Key Benefits of Reinventing Yourself We often make our way to the idea of reinvention after experiencing frustration and discontentment with our lives. Sometimes there’s a sense of longing to do something different, to find a new way to live and to be. This kind of reinvention evolves from the human need to grow and to change. Change comes about because there has to be more to human existence than simply existing and most people sense that over time. Sometimes in the early stages of reinvention, we think about what benefits we might receive from building a new self. Perhaps we just want to be free of a stale, confining and suffocating way of life, but that might not seem enough to us right then. Other than liberating yourself from a life with no change and no growth, what other benefits does reinvention offer?
Of course, a huge benefit is a more authentic and fulfilling life. After all, that’s the first purpose of going through this transformation process. More importantly, you learn how to be adaptable in the face of new challenges and that is a life skill that is useful in many ways. You learn how to cope with new problems and new situations. Once you've been through one reinvention cycle, you’ll be ready to do it again when you feel the need. You may never decide to reinvent yourself again, but that’s a matter of choice. You’ll know how to do it . That’s a life-changing benefit all on its own! How will you #ReinventYourself this year?  People reinvent themselves for as many different reasons as there are different people. However, reinvention is usually driven by a few prominent emotions: boredom, restlessness, dissatisfaction, even fear. Sometimes reinvention rises out of personal crises. If you’re looking for ways to bring about self-renewal, we can help you find them. There are several kinds of reinvention, but we’re looking at proactive Reinvention. Proactive reinvention can be the toughest of the three. In proactive reinvention, we’re at a place that’s safe and comfortable at that moment. Major life changes aren’t immediately required. We might even be able to keep on coasting just as we are, but that’s not a satisfying place for us anymore. Even though reinvention can be scary, we still have the desire to do it. Reinvention seems better than where we are. Maybe we’re simply tired and unfulfilled in our lives, our work, relationships, etc. Sometimes all three categories cry out for change. Proactive reinvention has the advantage of not being urgent in most cases. You can be deliberate in your choices. 1. Ask Yourself “What do I need in my life now? What do I want? What’s missing?” To answer this question, we must dig deep, and it’s not a quick process in most cases. Proactive reinvention tends to arise out of a sense of dissatisfaction about where we are in life or even who we are. We may only know that we want something different. 2. Identify Your Love and Passions What do you value? What gets your engine running? If you could make a living at a hobby, what would it be? Getting a handle on what you enjoy and what you love to do, how you love to feel, and whom you love to be around lets you set some big, broad goals. In all cases and steps of reinvention, ask yourself questions like:
3. Explore Your Immediate Options Immediate options generally include things like your skill set, your finances, your contacts and social links in life. These can be springboards to the new you. Think of these as assets you already must dedicate to your renewal. 4. Get a teacher, mentor or sounding board If you’ve got a general idea of what you want to do, you can start homing in on sources of information and expertise. Those sources can be people who are knowledgeable or experience with the subject matter, profession, hobby, whatever it is that’s appealing to you. If you know you want to reinvent yourself, but haven’t got a lock on a destination yet, there’s no worry. Many people go through the renewal process without any hint of a fixed destination or end-point in mind when they start off. That said, it’s good to have someone around who can give you ideas, feedback, and support that’s related to your journey. 5. Consider the Unknown The unknown is scary, but it can also lead to some great discoveries. There are two big sources of it, too. There’s the unknown out there in the world external to us, and the unknown inside you. When you change your life, there’s bound to be internal changes that you didn’t plan for. If planning were all it took to reinvent one’s life, it’d be much simpler. Let the possibility of change flourish in you. If you try hard to hang on to everything that you’ve got now, that you are now, nothing will change. 6. Learn to live with fear while always going forward Reinvention requires embracing uncertainty. It means getting comfortable with discomfort. Doing new things, trying new ways to be is scary! Allowing fear to stop us from changing is always the biggest block to proactive reinvention. Always. Unlike reactive reinvention, when you must make big changes or face even worse situations than self-renewal, proactive reinvention seems optional when we get scared, so we have the option to retreat into safety. Safety is great. However, clinging to the safety of the familiar ensures you will never reinvent yourself. Regeneration of the self requires living with fear, too. Consider as an example the situation of leaving one career for another, more ideal career. Common wisdom says you must have another job before leaving your current job. That wisdom in this situation kills any chance of getting that ideal job. It’s very hard, maybe impossible, to prepare for a completely new profession while working a full-time job. A dentist who leaves her job for another job as a dentist has changed locales but has not at all reinvented herself. Making a jump from the known into the unknown safely, with no risks, doesn’t happen. There is always some element of risk. Learning to live with risk in order to get something you dearly want is one of the biggest rewards of reinventing yourself.  Here's the link to the course I mentioned in the video: https://coursecraft.net/courses/z9VRZ/splash
T’was the day before Thanksgiving…Perhaps a day to prepare for all the festivities: Making the last trip to the grocery store, cleaning the house for guests, planning recreational activities for the long weekend…But I was preparing for something totally different.
I had a scheduled surgery that morning. I ran a few errands in preparation for the surgery, drove back home to park my car since I wouldn’t be able to drive after the procedure. I then requested an Uber ride to the hospital. All the people I talked to who either had this surgery or knew someone who had it, had wonderful things to say about the procedure… “You’ll be so glad you had it …You won’t have to deal with all this pain anymore… You’ll feel like a new person”. I looked forward to the procedure. It promised a new beginning. A new beginning, I had. Just not exactly the one I expected. My scheduled procedure went well, just as expected. Once in the recovery room, I started complaining of excruciating headaches that felt very different than my regular migraines. I was taken to the observation room and given pain medication, but the headache persisted. Then a couple hours after the procedure, I was eating a Popsicle and tried to tell a family member that my head was feeling weird, but no words were coming out. My lips were moving but no words were coming out. I could see the worried look on everyone’s faces and knew something was wrong. Within a few minutes, my room was full of people. I suppose they all came to help. Rapid response was called. By the time the medical staff were in the room, the symptoms had progressed. I couldn’t answer questions like “who’s the president of the United States?” I knew the answer but couldn’t get the words out. I couldn’t move the left side of my body. The left side of my face was numb. My left eye was drooping. I was presenting all the typical signs of a stroke. I was then rushed to a different hospital by helicopter. The initial plan was to remove the blood clot as soon as possible; we all assumed that I had a blood clot from the surgery. Once in the new hospital, the CT scan and MRI could not find any blood clot, yet I still had all the stroke symptoms. I was put on stroke protocol and treated as such. I was in that hospital for a week, three days were spent in the Intensive Care Unit. My entire body was out of order during that time. I had developed medical problems I didn’t have before. My entire being had changed, internally and externally. While the changes were debilitating, I was not ashamed of them, but I slowly became aware of other people’s discomfort with my “new disabilities”. One person who had known me my entire life said, “you can’t afford to be a disabled woman with three kids” and by that comment I was reminded of society’s view of disability. Ten years ago, I was legally declared “disabled” due to debilitating medical conditions. Those conditions were however invisible and apparently did not bother anyone. I have worked since, I have been a mom, a business owner, and so many other things while living with the same challenging conditions. Somehow, as long as they were invisible, nobody cared. There were my problems, not society’s. I spent some days in bed, some days I had to call for help, other days I canceled work assignments and prior commitments. Somehow, nobody ever told me I couldn’t afford to be a “disabled woman with three kids”. This time my disability is visible, and it seems to bother people more than it bothers me. I’m in a wheelchair. I’m having difficulty communicating. I can’t take care of my personal care needs. It’s obvious that I’m not “independent” according to society’s standards. Does society view people with visible disability as a burden? Now that they can see my limitations, is it a constant reminder to them of their lack of support? Perhaps my invisible disabilities made me look “normal” for ten years and now all the sudden I’m no longer “normal”? Sadly, the answer to all these questions is a loud “YES” and I have read many research papers on this topic during my post-graduate studies, but I will not bore you with that. If my visible disabilities do not bother me, does that mean that I will not apply myself to regain the functions I’ve lost? Not at all! I’m doing physical, occupational, speech, and vision therapies and I have already seen major improvements. What I’m trying to say is that I do not fear limitations. Even if I do not regain all the functional abilities I had before the stroke, I believe and KNOW that with support and accommodations, I can still have a meaningful life. Maybe my life will be even more meaningful than it’s ever been because I now have a deeper sense of gratitude, appreciation, and empathy. I will not apologize for having disabilities, visible or invisible. I’m a beautiful human being inside and out. What you see or do not see does not define who I truly am. Get to know me and other people that society calls “disabled”, then you will realize that we are all able and disabled in our unique ways. Every human being has both strengths and weaknesses. Now, look at the title of this article again, but only read the words in capital letters. You should read I CAN BE ABLED. Yes, people can be "abled" by the respect they receive from society and that respect starts by assuming that they can have meaningful lives. If we assume that people can have meaningful lives, regardless of their functional limitations, then we start supporting people in achieving lives of purpose, and therefore, there will be no room for statements like “you can’t afford to be a disabled woman with three children”. In fact, I will joyfully be a "disabled" mother of three "disabled" children because our family has embraced disability as part of our human experience. It’s time the rest of society gets with the program! Chou Hallegra Self-Advocate & Ally to the differently ABLE Founder of Grace & Hope Consulting, LLC ***************************************************************************** P.S. Hallegra is my middle name. It comes from the Italian “allegria”, which translates into “allegresse” in French or “glee” in English. Therefore, Hallegra means lively joy or gaiety, which I want to identify with even more in this season of my life.
I like that Grace & Hope Consulting, LLC....
- Changes lives - Helps others integrate their faith into their emotional wellness and other services they receive - Was inspired by life experiences and continues to keep it real Grace & Hope Consulting, LLC has a new riverfront office located at 2843 North Front Street, Suite 203 - Harrisburg, PA 17110  Today is Father's Day and I want to celebrate with those who are celebrating. Happy Father’s Day to all the biological, adoptive, foster, and step fathers, as well anyone who is a father figure to others. Happy Father’s Day celebration to you, if today you are taking your father out for dinner or you are offering him a gift or just hanging out with him, maybe you are enjoying the day with family and reminiscing about your dad. My heart also goes out to those who are hurting today. Maybe you have painful memories of your father. Perhaps your father is no longer living or your father may be physically and/or emotionally distant, this short message is for you. If you are finding it hard to celebrate Father’s Day, may I encourage you? Before you were born, before you were placed in your mother's womb, before even anyone on earth knew who you will become, there was a God who fearfully and wonderfully created you and He loves you so much more than anyone on earth. His love is unconditional and His ways are perfect. So if you have no one to celebrate today, may I suggest that you celebrate his love for you? He's your heavenly Father who loves you no matter what. He's always been there and He will always be there. He promised not to leave you nor forsake you and His promises never fail. Something else you can do today is to look around you, around your community, your church your place of work, and try to find those people who are there for you. Family is not always blood-related. I like the verse in Psalms 68 verse 6 that says that “God puts the lonely into families”. Perhaps your biological father is distant physically or emotionally or is no longer living, but has God blessed you with another family? Who can you celebrate today ? Maybe it's your neighbor, maybe your step-dad, maybe it’s a pastor, an uncle, a mentor, etc. I'm sure if you look around you'll find people who would welcome the opportunity to spend time with you. Maybe you have people who have already blessed your life in so many ways and today can be an opportunity for you to celebrate them. Dealing with emotional wounds can be really difficult and it takes time to recover from them. So I'm not taking lightly the fact that today you might be grieving so hard that Father’s Day hurts. Please consider this : It’s in the deepest wounds that we found the most beautiful healing story. God promises to turn our ashes to beauty and I believe dealing with father wounds is no exception. Knowing that you are loved and that you have a Heavenly Father creates the foundation to seek out His perfect love and in the day-to-day life you might need specific strategies to recover from these emotional wounds that you carry and that's something that counseling can be help with.  How can our communities support those who are hurting on Father’s Day?
On Father's days, churches will often have arts and crafts for kids to do in Sunday School classes, like make a card for Dad. Most likely the preacher will be talking about fatherhood. Although those things are good in their own merits, they can become painful ways that people have to relive some of their hurts. Maybe our communities can be more inclusive and ask kids to create a craft for not just dads, but also grandpas, uncles, brothers, older siblings, and any other male role models that are part of their lives. Maybe instead of just talking about fatherhood, the sermons can more inclusive as well and talk about all the men in our communities that take on those father roles and stand in the gap for so many. But of utmost importance, I hope that all the sermons point us to the Heavenly Father who is always there and always carries us through all of our painful experiences. I leave you with this: If Father’s Day hurts, our Heavenly Father's arms are always open and He puts the lonely into families. And in the multitude of counselors there’s safety and healing. So today celebrate your Heavenly Father and reach out to others who can help you recover from daddy wounds. No matter your situation today, I hope that you find ways to enjoy this day that the Lord has made. Chou, walking with you on your journey to emotional wellness Happy Mother's Day!
Hello everyone, this is Chou Gabikiny. For those of you that don't know me, I'm the founder of Grace and Hope Consulting. I'm a board-certified Christian counselor and a certified cognitive behavior therapist. Today I just wanted to wish all the moms out there happy Mother's Day! Today is one of my favorite days because not only I get to encourage all the mothers, but it's a special day that my kids remind me that they appreciate having me as a mother. They're young so they do things maybe a little differently but even the smallest thing touches my heart. Today I just want to encourage the mother, the one who's doing it all, and maybe you are doing it alone and it is hard, and it is stressful. It is overwhelming. I just want you to remember that what you're doing… it is an investment and there is going to be a return on this investment. It might be hard today but just wait and see. I know I talk a lot about long-term because I want you to plan for the future, brighter future, so yes in the moment it might be stressful but remember your kids need you and you are building the next generation of brave people, brave women and men, and responsible people who will contribute to society and make a big difference in the world, so stay encouraged. Also, try to cherish this moment. Try to cherish the moment that you have right now with your children, they grow up so fast. My oldest just turned 11 like a month ago and I can still remember the day I brought her home. I remember when she was just born. Oh my goodness, I was a first-time mom and in a foreign country and I was alone and saying that I felt overwhelmed would be an understatement, right? Again, cherish that moment, they grow up so fast, and those little things they do today might be annoying but looking back those are the things that make life a little more colorful. So enjoy your kids today, enjoy your family today and remember that what you're doing is making an impact in the long run, that you are the one taking care of and building that next generation of women, men, of people bringing change to this world. Stay encouraged. Keep at it. Stay the course. keep up the good work and know that you are valued. Yes, you are valued. What you do, no one can do what you do. I read a while back somewhere about...I can't remember, I'll paraphrase it, I don't remember exactly how it was written but something to the extent of “God knew that you could do such a wonderful job that's why He gave you the kids that you have”. I'm going to speak now to mothers of kids with special needs. The journey is long, it's tiresome. All the doctors’ appointments, all the therapy appointments, the sleepless nights and all the people you have to coordinate, the care that you have to coordinate day in and day out. It is hard but God knew that you are able to do it, that you are stronger than what you thought, and He will never give us more than we can handle. Sometimes we might feel like "we cannot handle it anymore," but there's more strength in us. I can make a whole two-hour video about the strength that I discovered in myself when I started taking care of my children. I learned that I had more patience than I thought I did. I had more strength than I thought I did. I was more organized than I thought I was just because again, through those times of need came those skills. It was by necessity that I discovered who I am and what I’m good at. I had to become that person in order to provide the care that I provide to my own children right now. But through that process it made me who I am today, it made me this...I can go on and on, but I learned to advocate because I had kids who need someone to advocate for them. I learned to navigate systems of care because I had kids who needed someone to navigate the system for them, and I became a parent that was living more in the moment because I needed to live in the moment and enjoy even the smallest milestones. I remember with one of my sons, he was maybe nine months by the time he could sit. He had a physical disability at birth and when he started sitting I made a big deal out of it. Many people didn’t understand why I made such a big deal about my son sitting up. Perhaps they didn’t realize how hard we've worked for this, how many therapy sessions we had just to get to this point right, and the frustration itself when you're trying to make everything fit in the calendar and get everybody's needs met. Again, on this Mother's Day, please know that you are special; that what you do is very worthwhile. Nobody can do what you do and that your children see it. God sees it, and that you are irreplaceable. Keep up the good work and enjoy your day. Maybe nobody will give you flowers, buy flowers for yourself, I do that. It's like if you can’t always wait for someone to do that for you. If your kids are young like mine, they can't do much but maybe they might do a drawing for you, and that's great; maybe what you wanted was chocolate and flowers, or it was a treatment at the spa. Whatever it is that you think you need in order to celebrate Mother's Day, do it for yourself. Don't always wait for other people to do it for you, especially when there's nobody else around to do it. When you learn to recognize that what you do is enough and that you are enough, you start treating yourself accordingly, and the way you treat yourself tells people how to treat you. So happy Mother's Day! Alright, stay encouraged gals! If you need hep finding resources in your community, please do not hesitate to contact me at chou@graceandhopeconsulting.com or 717-216-0230.
 Is there something in your life that you would like to change? Maybe it's a bad habit or simply something that no longer serves a purpose in your life. Maybe it's something that keeps you from living the life you want.
Join the Change Challenge: 5 action steps to making one simple life change!  Happy Valentine’s day, friends! Has cupid’s arrow hit you yet? Do you feel love in the air? I don’t know about you but I find it sad that we wait for thanksgiving to be thankful and valentine’s day to be loving. I believe that these values should be expressed daily in order for our actions to have lasting impact in our relationships and lives. But let’s change gears a bit; shall we? Today, I want to talk to the person who does not feel love in the air, the one who is not expecting roses and chocolate today…yes, I’m talking to you! You might not feel loved. You might feel as every relationship in your life ended up as a failure. Maybe, you even gave up on love. I’m not a relationship coach nor do I provide marriage counseling, but I know this one truth… TRUE LOVE STARTS INWARD & UPWARD. People cannot fill the deepest longings of our hearts; they just can’t, otherwise they won’t be human. Humans by definition are limited and fallible. You won’t feel loved until you start loving yourself. Maybe you don’t see anything in you that is lovable and that might just be the problem. You are not lovable based on something you do, you are lovable because you are a person created in love! Let me explain. The simple fact that you are alive and breathing today is proof that someone loved you enough to allow you to be… Let that sit with you a bit… Now, if you were created in love, then why is it so hard for you to feel loved? Perhaps, it’s because you have been evaluating yourself against your own standards instead of seeing yourself through grace. Here are 3 questions to help you determine your love standards: 1.What makes you feel loved? 2.What helps you love others? 3.In which situation(s) do you feel the least lovable? Answering these three questions can give you an idea of how you evaluate love. Once you have determined whether your love tank is fueled by performance or grace, then you might want to work on specific steps to help you love yourself as you are. I realize this takes lot of work and it would take more than one blog post to cover that but here is a principle to get you started: It is easier to love ourselves when we realize that we are first loved and that becomes a truth that we choose to live by. Yes, it is a choice. Everything in life starts with a decision. We cannot wait on other people to love us if we cannot love ourselves. And even when we start loving ourselves, there will always be a person or two that we might think do not love us. So, stop waiting for the world to love you, you need to start loving yourself for the beautiful person that you are; beautiful in all your flaws and shortcomings. Here’s how I define LOVE : Living Out Values Everyday. What are your values? What do you believe in? What do you stand for? What are your non-negotiables in life? Those are the things that should guide your life and be the lenses through which you see yourself. If you value respect, then you start respecting yourself more and expecting respect from others. And that’s just one way of loving yourself. Same goes for honesty, diligence, perseverance, and others values that you might have. We love ourselves by treating ourselves as the beautiful people we were created to be! So on this valentine’s day and everyday, please love on yourself. Start by seeing yourself as all that you are meant to be. And because you are all that (I mean it in a very positive way), then treat yourself as such. If you are not expecting any roses or chocolate today, offer yourself some! You deserve your time and attention! Happy valentine’s day and remember, you are loved!  Living Out Values Everyday...
Chou Gabikiny |
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CHOU@GRACEANDHOPECONSULTING.COM
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