Yes, a lot of you girls are too flabby, but I’m not talking about your bodies. I’m referring to vital social, emotional, and psychological muscles that girls need to build up in order to live happy, fulfilled lives. You will have to throw off the shackles of good girl conditioning and push through cultural constrains. Just like in preparing for a marathon, it will require discipline and courage. If you wish to learn how to love yourself more, here’s how to get started.
- Conflicts: Handling conflicts directly and effectively is essential for all relationships, i.e. friendships, co-workers, and romantic. You need to believe that being assertive and advocating for yourself is not being mean, and that working through problems will actually enhance friendships with the kind of people you really want to surround yourself with. Push through your fears and just do it.
- Know and Care: You need to catch yourself when giving a knee-jerk response of, “Whatever you want” or “I don’t care” whenever someone asks what you want. Go inward to know what you desire, and care enough about you to put your needs out there. You will teach people that what you want is important, and thus YOU are important.
- Teflon: Stop making decisions based on not wanting to make people mad or displease them. Pump up your deflection shields, stop caring about what other people think, and make decisions centered on what is right for you. Trust your intuition vs. the opinions of others.
- Comparing: Ugh, this is a tough one. You’ve been conditioned to look outside of yourself to define your sense of yourself. Stop looking at other people that you judge as better than you in some way and making it something negative about you. Instead, affirm that person for that attribute, and make it about them, not you. You’ll feel content vs. discouraged.
- Boundaries: The muscle behind taking good care of you is self-love. Learn to accept yourself and embrace all of you. The resulting renewed sense of self-worth will provide the motivation to set firm boundaries.
“What they think of me” must be put aside for bliss. Joseph Campbell
Start working on your awareness of where you’ve gotten ‘flabby’, catch yourself when you aren’t flexing these vital muscles, and discipline yourself to take the prescribed actions I have set forth. The result won’t be six pack abs; but you will feel more happy, confident, brave, and content.
Be sure to listen in to my weekly podcasts on “Raising Girls”; they are all free and you can find them at this link or on iTunes. Pass them on!
https://drtimjordan.com/raising-daughters-podcast