c2006-2008
Conscious Life Skills
Coaching
Conscious Life Skills
Coaching
life coaching and counselling
revamp your purpose, your passion, your choices, your power
revamp your purpose, your passion, your choices, your power
2, 4, 6, 8, who do you appreciate?
by Frances Todd
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c2008 F. Todd
What does appreciate mean?
The word "appreciate" means to recognize the quality, value, and significance or magnitude of a person or thing and it implies a generally high regard for people mixed with ability for critical assessment, comparison and judgment.
Self-appreciation involves respect for one’s self and other people based on the knowledge or feeling that we possess loveable qualities and that we and others have our unique talents, abilities and value in life. Respect for one’s self and others is largely based on whether or not we believe we are likeable and lovable. We also tend to make assessments or judgments about our likeability and lovability based on what we do, rather than who we are.
The word "appreciate" means to recognize the quality, value, and significance or magnitude of a person or thing and it implies a generally high regard for people mixed with ability for critical assessment, comparison and judgment.
Self-appreciation involves respect for one’s self and other people based on the knowledge or feeling that we possess loveable qualities and that we and others have our unique talents, abilities and value in life. Respect for one’s self and others is largely based on whether or not we believe we are likeable and lovable. We also tend to make assessments or judgments about our likeability and lovability based on what we do, rather than who we are.
When you're asked, who do you appreciate, do you instantly think of other people who have been influential in your life - friends, work colleagues, parents, and partner? Where do you place yourself in your response about whom you appreciate?
When it comes to appreciating what's in our life, we often put ourselves last. Many of us have grown up with being told ‘not to blow your own trumpet’, or, if we do praise ourselves, and even receive praise from others, we are reminded “not to get a swelled head’’. These attitudes can denigrate our sense of self-worth as adults.
Behaviours demonstrating that we need to engage more with self appreciation include oversensitivity to criticism, easily becoming defensive, verbal aggression, self sabotaging, self criticism and not receiving compliments graciously.
Let's look more deeply at one form of behaviour - self criticism. If we are over-critical of ourselves, significant people from our past who had power over us may have judged us as not likeable, loveable or good enough. If we feel that we are so good there is no room for improvement, we may also be compensating for having internalized someone else’s judgment that we are not likeable or loveable or possess unique talents, qualities and skills.
What you focus on, expands
Books and articles about the law of attraction, like The Secret, tell us, what you pay attention to, expands.
When you focus on criticising yourself, you feel more constricted. Your breathing may be more shallow, you curl into yourself, preparing yourself psychologically to ward off attack or negativity you've decided is coming your way - if not today, then eventually. You create comfort zones that can imprison. You enter a state of wariness and tend to control and resist fully opening to life's offerings.
When you focus on appreciating yourself, you feel more expansive - more open, freer, lighter, and energetic. When you’re feeling more likeable and loveable, the rest of life - health, relationships and abundance - also expands. You enter a state of joy and welcome life's offerings with trust it is for your highest good.
In the interests of expanding self appreciation, how about championing yourself to accept and love yourself exactly as you are?
Books and articles about the law of attraction, like The Secret, tell us, what you pay attention to, expands.
When you focus on criticising yourself, you feel more constricted. Your breathing may be more shallow, you curl into yourself, preparing yourself psychologically to ward off attack or negativity you've decided is coming your way - if not today, then eventually. You create comfort zones that can imprison. You enter a state of wariness and tend to control and resist fully opening to life's offerings.
When you focus on appreciating yourself, you feel more expansive - more open, freer, lighter, and energetic. When you’re feeling more likeable and loveable, the rest of life - health, relationships and abundance - also expands. You enter a state of joy and welcome life's offerings with trust it is for your highest good.
In the interests of expanding self appreciation, how about championing yourself to accept and love yourself exactly as you are?
Steps to champion you
As I mused about championing my sense of self appreciation, a rhyming chant from sports day at school popped into my head. At school, each student was allocated to a house for sports activity, and each house wore a different colour. Not being a star in track and field, I was a permanent member of the chorus of appreciation in the yellow house that spurred on those more athletically able. The rhyming chant that I remember well is: 2,4,6,8 - who do we appreciate!? The answer - The letters of the house name spelt out and the full name roared out in unison, followed by three cheers. And it felt good, both when the yellow shirts won and when they struggled last across the finishing after grueling longer distances races!
I figure that one way of championing me is to have my personal war cry or chant. All I had to do was change ‘we’ in the sports day chant to ‘I” and I can cheer myself on, when I need to feel good or when I need to express appreciation of myself. 2,4,6,8, who do I appreciate!
People have different ways of expressing how they appreciate themselves and others. Here are some suggestions that may be new to you:
1. Honour your uniqueness. There is no one quite like you here on the planet, with your qualities, talents and outlook on life.
Take a sheet of paper and write down 9 things you value about yourself. When you’ve finished, have a look at which things are about doing (actions eg. I’m good at art) and which are about qualities (being i.e. I am kind).
Concentrate next on expanding your list of qualities for they say more about who you are. You don’t have to be doing something to believe you have value. Coming to grips with the core of who you are is what will make you feel secure and confident, and positively underscore everything you do.
2. Read books that inspire uplift and relax you - daily meditations or quotations, biographies, humour, the list goes on.
3. Reinforce the qualities you like about yourself. Write them down - for e.g., I am creative, and say them through the day. Place them at strategic spots around the house - on the fridge or the bathroom mirror.
4. Forgive yourself. When you find qualities you don’t like, accept that these are born of experience and that you are doing, or have done the best you were able to do at that time, with the knowledge and understanding available then. Identify the lesson you learnt and start to let the experience go. Congratulate yourself for learning the lesson and for expanding your knowledge of self.
5. Practise gratitude. We create our life. Find something each day to be grateful for about the life you are living now. Find something to be grateful for in people whom you find difficult.
6. Choose your favourite love song that celebrates loving and sing it to yourself as the love interest, especially on the days you feel low.
In conclusion, I suggest: Stand in front of the mirror. In the loudest voice possible, chant: 2,4,6,8? Who do I appreciate? Roar the letters of your name with all the breath you can muster, and hip hooray!
As I mused about championing my sense of self appreciation, a rhyming chant from sports day at school popped into my head. At school, each student was allocated to a house for sports activity, and each house wore a different colour. Not being a star in track and field, I was a permanent member of the chorus of appreciation in the yellow house that spurred on those more athletically able. The rhyming chant that I remember well is: 2,4,6,8 - who do we appreciate!? The answer - The letters of the house name spelt out and the full name roared out in unison, followed by three cheers. And it felt good, both when the yellow shirts won and when they struggled last across the finishing after grueling longer distances races!
I figure that one way of championing me is to have my personal war cry or chant. All I had to do was change ‘we’ in the sports day chant to ‘I” and I can cheer myself on, when I need to feel good or when I need to express appreciation of myself. 2,4,6,8, who do I appreciate!
People have different ways of expressing how they appreciate themselves and others. Here are some suggestions that may be new to you:
1. Honour your uniqueness. There is no one quite like you here on the planet, with your qualities, talents and outlook on life.
Take a sheet of paper and write down 9 things you value about yourself. When you’ve finished, have a look at which things are about doing (actions eg. I’m good at art) and which are about qualities (being i.e. I am kind).
Concentrate next on expanding your list of qualities for they say more about who you are. You don’t have to be doing something to believe you have value. Coming to grips with the core of who you are is what will make you feel secure and confident, and positively underscore everything you do.
2. Read books that inspire uplift and relax you - daily meditations or quotations, biographies, humour, the list goes on.
3. Reinforce the qualities you like about yourself. Write them down - for e.g., I am creative, and say them through the day. Place them at strategic spots around the house - on the fridge or the bathroom mirror.
4. Forgive yourself. When you find qualities you don’t like, accept that these are born of experience and that you are doing, or have done the best you were able to do at that time, with the knowledge and understanding available then. Identify the lesson you learnt and start to let the experience go. Congratulate yourself for learning the lesson and for expanding your knowledge of self.
5. Practise gratitude. We create our life. Find something each day to be grateful for about the life you are living now. Find something to be grateful for in people whom you find difficult.
6. Choose your favourite love song that celebrates loving and sing it to yourself as the love interest, especially on the days you feel low.
In conclusion, I suggest: Stand in front of the mirror. In the loudest voice possible, chant: 2,4,6,8? Who do I appreciate? Roar the letters of your name with all the breath you can muster, and hip hooray!
Do you look too much to others for approval to live the life you want?
Appreciate how you are already enabled to live the live you want!
Request a first complimentary coaching session to up the ante on your self appreciation!
Appreciate how you are already enabled to live the live you want!
Request a first complimentary coaching session to up the ante on your self appreciation!