Tag: inner child

Self-Love: The Most Important Gift that We Give to Ourselves

In my last post, I talked about gifts that we give can share with others, the things that make us unique. Today I’m talking about something that many of us have difficulty with: self-love.

There is a saying that you cannot love another person without loving yourself first. But I am capable of loving others, I know that. I have wonderful loving relationships with relatives and friends. And I genuinely feel a deep love for my boyfriend.

When it comes to loving myself, that is another story. Right now, I am constantly criticizing myself for what I consider my faults: indecisiveness, procrastination, making choices and later regretting them, and battling bouts of severe depression and anxiety which prevent me from doing so many things.

My thinking patterns have been chaotic of late and trying to move ahead with this blog has been rough. I have fears of rejection and fears of success created by issues of low self-esteem from childhood that I am still working through. As a result, I have been writing posts but not sharing them. Well, more like not finishing them because I get distracted so often.

I have had things happen in the last year that has set me back further than I ever expected. I thought by now I would be making progress but I feel like a turtle in a world of rapidly moving digitally-oriented people who thrive on the constant changes of the age.

I grew up in an age prior to the World Wide Web, though I have been using Macs as a graphic designer since the early days of Apple and Photoshop. Back then, when I made a change in Photoshop, I would have to wait a while for it to finish processing on the screen. I could go get a coffee and when I came back, the spinning ball of death had stopped.  Or at least I hoped. Boredom drove me crazy back them.

Now everything is instantaneous. There is no time for boredom. It’s nice but it reminds me of how fast time goes by and how much I still have to do.

Our lives are to teach us how to love. We create stories and judgments in our heads of how we think life should be and that does not serve us at all.

I am doing my best to let go of my self-criticisms and it is an ongoing process.

We can be so hard on ourselves, yet we can be more accepting when we see the same behaviors in others.

I have to comfort my little inner child many times a day that everything is alright. I often put my hands on my heart and tell that little one inside who is scared and frightened that she is safe and loved.

If you are going through a rough patch now and dealing with issues of self-love, you are not alone.

Place your hands over your heart and feel it beating. Breathe deeply and picture a golden light within your heart. Continue breathing deeply and feel the light expand outward. Feel its warmth.

That feeling is the love that is you.

Always,
Alice Always

Playing with Imagination and Where It Can Take Us (To Infinity and Beyond)

Let’s play Rorschach Test. You know, that fun psychological evaluation exercise where you are shown an inkblot picture and you get to decipher what you see in it? Before you read any further, look at the above picture and think about what it says to you.

This is an experiment because I don’t have any idea what people will see.

So go ahead. I’ll wait.

You can post in the comments what you thought if you’d like. I’d love to see what everyone has to say.

If you said that it looks like an air hockey game, that would be correct. But if you never had any knowledge of air hockey, you might not say that.

I was going to title this post “The Goal of this Blog” but that seemed so generic and I’m not a very generic kind of girl. When I think about the word “goal” the first image that comes to my mind is an old air hockey game from the 1970s. You might picture a goal chart, a mountain, your own personal goal, a star or something that is significant to you. I see air hockey, a game from my childhood.

As I said in my last post, I have this outrageous idea that through using our imagination, we can create a peaceful and loving world. It is outrageous to me because I am still working on personal issues such as self-love and self-worth. Maybe you are also.

Most of us have something in us that we need to overcome. Sometimes it is a limiting belief that has been handed down from our parents, who had it handed down from their parents. Maybe someone said something negative to us as a young child and we took it to heart. Our hearts need to be healed. Our inner children need to be healed.

I look at this blog as a social experiment to help myself and others restore our innocence through imagination and play, and to see where it takes us. Hopefully, it will go far, like Buzz Lightyear always says: To Infinity and Beyond!

It’s my sincere hope that I continue on on this path of healing and that you join me.

Always,
Alice Always

Please comment below if you see something different than an air hockey game. I’d love to hear about any different perceptions of this picture.