Rule No 7_Reprogramming your self-love radar

Dear Readers

We have come to the final part of the first 7 rules in your self – development journey. Before we put on our thinking hats and go back down the rabbit hole let’s recap what the rules were all about:

Rule No 1 - God first (testimony opens up higher consciousness)

Rule No 2 – Know thyself (provides a self-assessment on oneself)

Rule No 3 – Crack the code to distractions (blocking the paths that bind you and mental clarity)

Rule No 4 – Forgiveness (breaking down false beliefs creating new foundations)

Rule No 5 – People hierarchy (setting boundaries and protecting oneself)

Rule No 6 – Be more reflective, less observant (courage for inner journey and detecting flaws)

Rule No 7 - Reprogramming your self-love radar (unconditional love and recalibrating thoughts)

We will be exploring these rules in 7 parts, 7 rules for you and 7 rules for others......Reason why I did a recap is these are rules for you alone, my next set of rules will be all about others, yes, we can’t only work on ourselves, we share this world with other people, so these rules will cover different aspects of your life. Take it as vitamins for the heart, mind and soul. So, time to put on our thinking hats and close up these 7 rules for YOU! 

Let's get to it.......👇

Self- love is something we don’t really understand because we have been conditioned to believe that we must put others before us when it comes to "LOVE" otherwise we don’t look like decent human beings, or we get manipulated into believing we are obligated to just sacrifice ourselves for another. For example "do for your kids, do for your husband, do for family, friends the whole shebang. So tell me then.......when will you do for you? So much crooked ways of thinking really, warped, and selfish! I'm not saying don't do for them, but it's all about balance and including yourself in this equation makes it a gain for you and others that are in your life. So you need to make time for self love it's a key ingredient. A person who doesn’t love themselves has no love to give to another. Even if you have a little bit of self-love, you will always be operating in a conditioned state of love......your goal and what you really want to get is the unconditional side of love. Conditioned love is full of fine print you know how it goes. Let’s unlock the unconditional door……it’s about time we change up our way of thinking so we can break free from the barriers that hold us back mentally.

Let’s look at the definition of self-love:

So how do we apply this definition in our lives?

By becoming STRATEGIC! How do you become strategic?

S - Speech

T - Temperament

R - Realism

A - Accountability

T - Transparency

E - Encouragement

G - Gravitation

I - Idealism

C - Cooperation 

Speech - how you talk to yourself matters. I don't mean talking verbally with yourself, I mean negative thinking is still a form of conversation with yourself. For example if you think "I will never be someone" or "I hate how I look" that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy you create for you and the end relationship you will have with yourself is "you will never be someone" you will live your life in automatic not knowing anything deep about YOU. That is YOU programming your own mind to fail! Besides, deeper is better than surface level as you tap into your core being which is really the true version of you. After the new thinking patterns form by changing negative thoughts to positive you will notice your speech, how you talk about yourself and others will start to change and this will become a new habit that will evolve to a more grounded and authentic thinking pattern that lives in alignment with who and what you are! In short your speech will become elegant in it's own nature to yourself and to the world. Your speech will emit positive opinions and outlook on life. A true representation of how God wants us to love ourselves. You need to also rid yourself of garbage words that most people use like swearing and slang, It still to this day sounds uncomfortable to the listener, no matter how much freedom of speech we are given learn to guard your tongues because deep down people look at those who swear and talk silly in a suspicious raise an eyebrow type of way. It's true, most won't admit it. Cos we want to save people's feelings. So learn to let go of those silly words and learn something new upgrade your linguistics! There are so many beautiful, inspiring, encouraging, insightful and positive words we don't know about that we can learn and understand. When the mind can learn new words and definitions we start to not only mirror these words to others through our own speech we also learn to reflect on them. This reflection takes you to a deeper understanding of how important it is to guard what you say and how you say it. When you guard your tongue you will guard that precious mind of yours. It is interrelated!

Temperament - this has to do with your behavior and reactions towards people and life in general. In the face of adversity it is your temperament that can make or break you! Temperament can have different meanings as it covers a much broader scope, in my 1st rule I highlighted temperament on a personality level which can be a great tool in getting to know yourself better. Now I am talking about behavioral level and we will focus mainly on the negative reactions we have like anger, fighting with others, saying hurtful things the list can go on for days...…In order to overcome this you need to get your temperament in check and 1st step to achieving that is learn to control yourself in the face of adversity. Somebody pisses you off ok I get it, you want to also give it back to them so they can taste the same fate but did you know that if you hold your anger you actually making a victory with YOU. You are upgrading YOU by holding still. If you can learn to control your behavior you are heading for Master's qualification to YOU. Here is something else you should know that will set you free in a lot of your negative reactions or behaviors to situations and people. It could be falsely manufactured to intentionally create a reaction from you. If someone knows you are hot headed and react instantaneous they will use it against you. Create a situation that will manufacture these feelings in you. Please do yourself a favour and start assessing people and situations and see if they really do deserve your time and energy. When a situation is manufactured by someone else you become an innocent party that is thrown into a triangle of drama and your temperament will be provoked of which you had no fault in. So remember what is key here is to learn to hold yourself and not react, ask yourself if this is really your fault or if your reactions and behavior was manufactured by someone else? If it is by someone else don't give them they keys to your being, take it back! When you are angry learn to keep quiet, you can form this habit gradually and you will get some mental clarity after the rush of emotions and thoughts settle. Give it a try! Another thing you could do that will settle the war with your temperament is rather learn to speak your truth instead of covering up, lying or saying what you think others want to hear. When you get thrown into a situation with drama and you speak your mind from a genuine, authentic and truthful side you walk away more in power of you cos when a true part of you is reflected you don't sit with the aftermath you are at peace. So learn to make friends with your negative traits say to yourself I am aware of them and will do my best to rather keep still instead of feeding my demons. Debit your lower self and credit your higher self. 

Realism - this is my favourite element you know why? Most of us never really looked at ourselves in a realistic light. Either you are holding yourself in high regard or really low. You need to baseline yourself! Too high regard will make you come off conceited and snobbish and who wants to be around that? Too low regard can lead to self harm type of behaviours and clogs up any mental clarity you could get. So how do you get real with yourself then? You start becoming humble with how you see yourself and the world. For example you could be good at something but terrible in another. Your goals in life could be too unrealistic or you really chasing after something that is not meant for you. Getting real with yourself involves being able to admit what you good at and what you not good at. Some of us set unrealistic expectations for ourselves and deep down we know it was unrealistic but you preferred it that way cos then it doesn't require any effort on your part and you can just rationalize it by saying you will never attain it. Do you see how you pause yourself by all these self fulfilling prophecies you programme in your own mind? Get real with yourself and accept your flaws and know what you not good at, let all of this become a catalyst to your growth because this will give you a scope into assessing what is real about yourself and where you put on rose tinted glasses and lived in an illusion by holding yourself in too high regard for something you not really good at. People enjoy being around others that can admit when they are wrong or even openly admit what they aren't good at. The key to accepting these flaws and lack of skills is to look at it not in a bad light but rather in an unorthodox way for example don't say I'm bad at public speaking rather say I'm unorthodox when it comes to public speaking. This is Reprogramming your mind to accept parts of you that are hard to live with. You also need to look at the world in a humble way, praise others for what they are good at, motivate them to only be in competition with becoming a better version of themselves, acknowledge and give credit when it is due to another, I will tell you why this helps you as well......seeing someone's eyes light up and a genuine smile when you offer a compliment or give recognition is a wave of positive energy and feelings that is shared with both the listener and speaker. This is also how you develop real and authentic relationships. Getting real with others and with yourself creates a web of genuine and authentic exchanges. I personally can't stand fakeness, I rather be alone than with fake company. So imagine how someone else feels when you being fake as well? I love being real and original and I want YOU to see the benefit that comes with finding that authentic version of you. Realism also involves looking at others in a realistic light, if someone or a habit is draining you or killing a part of your identity then you need to get real with them and the situation! I will go into more detail about realism when it comes to others in a later post but for now your main focus should be applying realism to your own self. Which means assessing yourself not others! 

Accountability- this is hard for everyone so don't feel bad about it. We are not meant to be perfect in anything. Only God is perfect! But taking accountability as much as you can for yourself , your actions and the direction of your life should be a priority folder that you create in your mind. The reason why I added this element is if you don't take responsibility for anything you will be irresponsible in everything. For example if you disrespect or behave maliciously with someone undeserving of it, that is a credit to your lower self as you have now created something in the guilty conscious folder of your mind......maybe you won't feel bad today or tomorrow but one day it will catch up with you and that is the power of a guilty conscience. The same could apply to lying, cheating, stealing or doing all the bad things that are frowned upon. Your guilty conscience is something you can't escape from. You can only destroy it with truth. So taking accountability means owning up to what you did that was harmful to yourself or others. Accountability also involves being upfront with people, apologizing when you know it's your fault and being able to admit it. Not only do you take ownership of your part in it, you also free yourself in the process by doing the remedial action needed to find peace. By saying sorry to someone or admitting to mistakes you lift a huge responsibility off living with the weight of it. Taking accountability also involves actions like setting a clear direction of where you want to see yourself. Putting direction in your life creates a purpose for you to get up in the morning and make an ordinary day extraordinary. Accountability also has a hidden meaning which is not letting your situation or circumstances define who you are. When you operate with perseverance and resilience you are taking accountability for your own life by not letting memories from the past or fear of the future define you. A victim mentality or throwing blame on others is a deflection that only the manipulative are good at. So don't be someone with those traits. Lastly taking accountability means living in the present. I know it sounds unrealistic and it is......but by doing your best to live in the present moment as much as you can will train YOU and what was kept dormant for so long which is your AUTHENTIC self will slowly start to surface!

I will cover the remaining elements in my next post as too much information becomes hard to absorb and the rules I write about is really something to take your time with and ponder on.

Until next time.......Firi_B👑