cynosure

Happiness belongs to the self-sufficient.
Aristotle

People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.
Ramona L. Anderson

If you don’t like someone, or if someone betrays you, you can walk away. You can stop being his/her friend.

But if you don’t even love yourself, you have nowhere to go.

This inescapable truth came crashing down on me when, for the first six months after I’d first moved 500 miles away to Southern California, I was absolutely miserable. I had no close friends, no family, no one to depend on. I felt like nobody cared about me, and that if I simply disappeared, nobody would even notice. When I woke up in the morning, I’d start crying before I even opened my eyes because I felt so alone. If only I had just one great friend that would be there for me, I’d be okay, I thought.

And then I realized I had to be that friend for myself.

And that’s when I started changing myself, little by little (and read a book or two that helped me along the way– look out for a post soon on a few of the books most influential to my happiness and self-development!)– and amazingly, I went from self-hating, depressed for as long as I could remember, self-destructive, insecure, and almost always sad to unconditionally self-loving and happy. (Of course, it took a LOT of effort, but I got there, and I’m still learning to love myself even more every day!)

And that very transformation is why this site even exists… to be there with you as you travel along this path of happiness and self-love.

The love of your friends and family is irreplaceable and valuable, but when you find yourself without that support, what will you do? Just give up? Or realize by taking care of yourself and loving yourself, you can be happy (and have the confidence to make new friends!) even if you’re alone?

And if you want to be in a successful and loving relationship… how can you expect your partner to love you at all, if even you find yourself unlovable?

Do you really need any more reasons to love yourself more, starting right now?

1. Let yourself be completely alone.

• Feel what it’s like to be truly alone with yourself.
• Resist the urge to escape and find company, to leave yourself.
• Stay with yourself in the present, and be curious with yourself. Notice how the air feels against your skin. Try to feel the presence of your body. You are alive. Isn’t it amazing?
• Forgive yourself for anything you’ve blamed yourself for in the past, and feel free without the burden of what no longer exists (the past). Tell yourself that you forgive yourself.
• Breathe. Slowly. Listen to your breath. Let it go, and with it, any negative feelings.
• Whisper to yourself, “I am awesome. I am beautiful. I love myself.” Or scream it from the rooftops. That works, too.
• Don’t just be accepting; be open and unconditionally loving towards yourself.
• Love your faults (click here for constructive ways to address them) and honor your strengths.
• Get to know yourself. Journal or draw about yourself, what makes you happy, and what makes you so great, so spectacular. Pay attention to yourself.
• Trust yourself. Who else can you trust better than yourself? You’re the only one who will always be there for you. You’re the only one you’ll always have. If it’s difficult, take time every day to trust yourself a little bit more.
• Keep a positive attitude, look on the bright side, and think positively. When you feel yourself thinking negatively, don’t try to push it away forcefully; just be aware, and let it come and go. Focus on the positive aspect of situations.
• Smile. Smile at your reflection and say hello. Smile at the world.

2. Make a list of what you would do for the person you love most, and then do those things for yourself. Alone.

• Take yourself on a date. Go to the amusement park, go to a museum, and treat yourself as the loveliest, best date you’ve ever had.
• Treat yourself to a lovely meal. Go out alone to eat at a restaurant you’ve always wanted to try. Cook yourself a feast. Eat exactly what you want to eat, no matter how expensive it is (save up for this treat if you want). Be present for the meal. Chew slowly and enjoy every bit of the treat for yourself.
• Go to the movie theater and watch a movie (in a genre that you love) by yourself. Yes, by yourself. (I did this for the premiere of Ghost Town and it was awesome being able to laugh and cry as much as I wanted!)
• Take a long walk with yourself. Go to the park and look at all the creatures that live together in harmony. They don’t reject you or expect anything out of you. Or if you don’t like nature, take a stroll around the city alone, enjoying the sights and sounds.
• Give yourself a beautiful present. Spend time making it special. You deserve it. (This is not an excuse to ignore your problems with retail therapy or by buying stuff. Create something spectacular and unique for yourself. On the other hand, if you never buy yourself anything, allow yourself to actually buy something you want for once.)
• Write yourself a letter on beautiful stationery. Tell yourself why you love yourself, why you’re great. Keep the letter for times good and bad.

3. Take care of yourself– your body and your health.

• Your body is a temple. Treat it like one. Evaluate what you choose to put into your temple. Does the food you eat nourish you, or does it make you feel like utter crap, like you have to have caffeine every 3 hours (or seconds)?
• Don’t make your eating decisions based on what any diet book, magazine, or uninformed individual tells you. Choose foods that YOU love that make YOU feel good and give you the energy to have a great day. If this requires you to stop eating overprocessed junk food and start eating real, whole foods, so be it. Your body won’t just thank you later– your body will start thanking you right now.
• At the same time, eat your cake, too– never deprive yourself. Simply consider making a dessert yourself instead of getting it from a fast food restaurant (or even many grocery stores– they usually have lists of artificial ingredients a mile long!). Make your own snacks.
• Allow yourself to feel the parts of your body that you’ve rejected in the past. Touch them with love and tenderness and gentleness. Tell each of them how much you love them. For instance, if it’s your legs, say, “Thank you for even existing, so that I may walk and run and dance and travel and experience the world.”
• Cancel subscriptions to magazines that make you feel like you are not good enough. Take the existing ones you own and spend a day tearing them apart if you’d like, and then recycling them. Throw out your diet books… into the recycling bin.
• Get enough sleep. Turn off the computer or TV an hour before your bedtime, wind down, take a long bubble bath, and make sure you get enough rest so you’ll feel good throughout the next day.
• Find a way to move your body (aka the dreaded “e” word) that you LOVE! If you don’t like the gym, don’t go to the gym. (If you do like the gym, keep on going!) Go on walks with friends, play tennis or basketball or any other sport with your family, go jogging with your dog!
• Be conscious and aware… if you have any self-destructive behaviors (drinking/eating/smoking/etc. too much), don’t beat yourself up about them, but realize that you are making a choice to do something that might lead you to feel bad (physically or otherwise), and that you deserve much, much better than that.

4. Make YOU a priority.

• Relax. Get a massage, go to the spa, take a bath. Spend at least one day (preferably per week) doing only what YOU want to do– no work, no thinking about what other people want you to do for them. Read a book or watch a movie.
• Or simply, do nothing. Just sit or lie down. Zone out. Give yourself time and space not to have to do anything, even if it’s just five minutes.
• Say some affirmations every day, if you want.
• Respect yourself. Only settle for the absolute best, because that’s the bare minimum you deserve. Accept nothing less.
• Refuse to allow anyone to treat you in any way that you wouldn’t treat your closest friend.
• If you need to, cut people out of your life (or wean them off slowly) if they are anything less than respectful or loving towards you– even if you can’t imagine life without them because you’ve been friends for so long, or even if they’re family (if you can’t imagine doing that in the case of family, then only communicate when absolutely necessary). You are worth SO MUCH MORE than that.
• Learn to say NO. Stand up for yourself. Don’t let anyone take advantage of you– you are strong and powerful, and YOU control YOUR life. Don’t do anything someone else wants you to do just because they say you should. Don’t let others guilt you, either– refuse to put up with their crap.
• Be kind to yourself when you falter. Love the fact that you aren’t perfect. It makes you (and your life) more interesting, after all! Forgive yourself.
• Be kind to others. It’ll make YOU feel good, too!
• Do what YOU love. If you don’t know what makes your heart flutter and your soul smile, take time for yourself to find out. Make it a priority for yourself to have time to do this activity and make yourself happy.
• Write notes to yourself filled with self-love and inspiration, and post them in random places. Post them in places you always see– on your desk, on your front door, on the bathroom mirror, on the fridge– and even in places that’ll surprise you later on when you find them again.
• You are a being filled to the brim with love and beauty, and you were born to love yourself. Act accordingly.

5. Stop waiting to love yourself.

“I’ll start trying to like myself when I… get a new job, eat like a rabbit, look like a plastic mannequin, find the perfect partner to love me so I won’t have to love myself…”

No.

Love yourself NOW.

The only time you have to be alive and THRIVING is RIGHT NOW.

And you’re wasting your time if you’re waiting for any moment in the future, because chances are you might not even get to that moment if you don’t LOVE YOURSELF NOW.

P.S. This post has been a very long time coming; the ideas have been brewing in my mind for literally ages! It’s a culmination of a little bit of everything I’ve wanted to write about loving yourself, and there’s definitely more to come, though I tried packing as much as humanly possible into this post. You will get the best results if you do everything listed here, no matter how weird (or new) it might feel. Or uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is (usually) good. It means you’re getting somewhere.

Let it be known that I have done and/or still do everything on this list, so if you feel a little ridiculous doing some of them, worry naught for a fearless warrior has already paved the way! Keep on loving yourself and being wonderful! ♥

—

If you like this post, please share! You can link, email, bookmark, tweet, and share it. Thank you ♥

For more ways to love yourself and much, much more, get updates through RSS and follow me on Twitter & Facebook!

Look at those tan lines and scars and the weird way my knees bend in (which always bothered me when I was younger because it “looked weird”, but now that I think about it, it’s kind of cool)!

A lot of people search for how to get rid of precious parts of their own beautiful bodies– their cellulite and their stretchmarks– and find my thighs, cellulite, and stretchmarks instead.

90 people have cellulite and/or stretchmarks on their thighs/legs or hips– and want to know how to get rid of it or hide it.

5 people love their cellulite/stretchmarks.
5 people want to know about loving cellulite or their thighs.
1 person loves women with cellulite.
3 people don’t care about cellulite.
3 people love their thighs and the cellulite on them.
2 people want to learn about accepting cellulite.
2 people love cellulite in general.

1 person says “I love my legs but hate my thighs due to cellulite.” (But your thighs are part of your legs, too. Unless you believe love is about picking and choosing.)
Another 3 people flat out hate their cellulite.

2 people “seem to have cellulite in photos”.

1 person is 6 people are looking for images of beautiful thighs.
1 person is 11 people are looking for beautiful pictures of cellulite or stretchmarks.
1 person is looking for photos of real women with cellulite.
1 person is 2 people are looking for pictures of “thighs and stretchmarks”.
1 person is looking for “real pictures of women with real fat thighs”.

1 person thinks cellulite is hot; another 2 people think cellulite is beautiful.

1 person is looking for a dress for a “fat tummy, broad shoulders, and fat thighs”. Another is looking for a dress for “scars on my shoulders and big legs”.
1 person says, “I fought cellulite.” How can you fight a part of yourself without hurting yourself? Another says “I have too much cellulite”.
1 person says, “I have inherited fat legs from my grandma.”
1 person is searching for “My daughter has cellulite on her belly.” (So?)

1 person asks: “How do I lose my love handles?” (Maybe by taking the first step and loving them for how they are, how you are.)
1 person asks: “Do guys mind excessive stretchmarks, cellulite, and a hairy stomach?” (I can say that I know at least a few guys that don’t!)
1 person wonders “if there’s something wrong with my heart if my thighs get big overnight.”

1 person wonders, “Am I beautiful with stretchmarks?” Yes. Yes you are.
Another person wonders, “Can my cellulite be beautiful?” Yes. Yes it can.

It’s pretty effing ironic that Cynosure is also the name of a cosmetic laser company specializing in liposuction, isn’t it? And here I chose the name because the word cynosure means:

1. An object that serves as a focal point of attention and admiration.
2. Something that serves to guide.

(Oh, and I like astrologically-themed titles, and cynosure is another name for the North Star.)

I’m not here to guide you away from hating yourself or being unhappy with your body or rejecting your woman(or man)hood in the form of all-natural (and beautiful, if you let it be) cellulite… if that’s what you want.

But if you do want me to, I’m here to guide you towards loving yourself, choosing happiness, cultivating confidence, personal growth, and realizing you are much, much more than your appearance, body, weight, size, grades, or whatever anyone else thinks of you… oh, and maybe loving others and our planet, too, along the way.

—

I can show you the world… of self-love, conscious happiness, positive body image, and more! Don’t miss an update– get them through RSS and follow me on Twitter & Facebook.

To be honest, when I meant to repost the longer poems, quotes, etc. for the Hang in There, Never Give Up, Keep Pressing On kit, I was just going to lump them all into one post…

Until I started rereading them, one by one, and realized they each deserve their own space. For inspiration, wisdom, humor, and everything in between. Life.

—

Simple Instructions for Life by the Dalai Lama

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R’s:

   Respect for self
   Respect for others and
   Responsibility for all your actions.

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

—

If you like this post, please link, bookmark, tweet, and share it! Thank you ♥

For more goodness, get updates through RSS and follow me on Twitter.

(You have to view a bigger version
I took this on the train from Los Angeles to San Diego.)

I’ve been writing and writing and writing and I encountered a note to my year-later self in my journal, a few pages before I began to run out of pages completely:

This was where the bookmark was when I first bought this journal on 3.16.09.
Right now I am writing on 3.18.09 in the middle of the night. I know not when
you will read this but I pray it finds you in
good spirits, in a time of your life when
every moment is filled with exquisite
love and simple enjoyment for
simply being alive. Hopefully that
describes every moment, really.
For real. All I have to say
is love yourself, let go,
stay in the present,
breathe, conquer
your fears, move on
from the past,
release yourself
from guilt,
love, pray,
and live.
have a beautiful day, my lovely.

Reminds me of the Never Give Up/Be Strong/Keep Pressing On “toolkit”– uplifting and life-changing quotes, videos, songs, etc.– I compiled when I had sunk down into the deepest emotional abyss I’d ever experienced.

(It actually wasn’t called the Never Give Up toolkit– it didn’t have a name– the title was simply: Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.)

I’ll be posting it here soon, along with several other entries that have been wafting around in my head but haven’t seemed to want to take the leap from mind to memory

(Edit: Here it is! The Never Give Up/Be Strong/Keep Pressing On kit!)

—

For more goodness, get updates through RSS and follow me on Twitter.

Sunny blessed afternoons. I read 10 books in April. I’m now ahead for reading a book a week (I was behind the first three months!). I’m now striving for at least 100 books this year.

I still wish I could clone myself so I could actually be in my own photos sometimes, but benches and tables work as good stand-ins once in a while

I bought myself a huge tiramisu cake for my own birthday a week ago. The girl at the bakery asked, “Is it for someone’s birthday?” I nodded yes and she let me pick out a candle and a “Happy Birthday” sign. I still have yet to eat it (or make a birthday wish and blow out the candle!). I wonder when I will.

Likewise, two mango cakes for a half-birthday & an anniversary.

Friday a week ago was fantastic.

Speaking of desserts, which I simply adore, I’m excitedly beginning to create raw vegan desserts. Since cupcakes are tempting (and aesthetically pleasing, which is probably why I like them so much) I made a few yesterday with Oliver. (We also finally did a papercraft project together that we’ve been meaning to do since November.) Making food is fun and exciting.. to me, at least. If you’re asking, how could a cupcake be raw? then the answer is: It’s made of fruits and nuts, coconut butter, and natural unprocessed sweeteners like agave (or honey, which is “beegan”).

Yummy raw vegan chocolate cupcakes with frosting! (The frosting was almost too rich and sweet for me! but maybe because I tasted it too much while I was making it…)

I’ve been meaning to write about raw veganism (and all sorts of healthy delicious food in general) since I first started eating more raw food, and many yummy food writings are coming soon!

I’ve also been vegetarian for a couple of weeks and it’s been both surprisingly and unsurprisingly easy for me. My trial period was 30 days (I haven’t slept past noon in over a month, either! hurrah!) but I think I might transition entirely (or at least to pescetarianism). On some days I’m completely raw vegan, on others, I’m just vegetarian… I’m flexible and I like it that way (plus, I rebel against restrictions, self-imposed or not– restricting and depriving is for the weak!).

Either way, I find myself not missing dead animal flesh at all. After I’m done with my 30 days, I’ll be sure to share my journey, considering my parents used to call me a tiger for my carnivorous tendencies and wonder how a horse (I was born in the year of) that was supposed to eat grass became such a voracious meat-eater. The funny thing is that I (along with a few other vegetarians, vegans, or even raw vegans) used to be one of those people that’d say “I’d never be able to be a vegetarian.” But it’s a process, and it’s gradual. Whew! I’d better not get carried away before this becomes a ramble about vegetarianism.

I hope you had a good weekend, and may you have a good week.

photo by Oliver

click here to see more »