{"id":43353,"date":"2011-06-12T15:02:59","date_gmt":"2011-06-12T19:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/43353\/beautiful-love-shine\/"},"modified":"2011-06-12T15:02:59","modified_gmt":"2011-06-12T19:02:59","slug":"beautiful-love-shine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/43353\/beautiful-love-shine\/","title":{"rendered":"You Are Beautiful! How to let your love shine."},"content":{"rendered":"


\n
\nYou Are Beautiful!
\nHow to let your love shine.
\nBy Crystal Andrus
\nI remember a retreat I was having not too long ago when Natalie Hughes (our musical director) couldn\u2019t find a babysitter for her small daughter, Audrey. Natalie always performs during these special days and it\u2019s just not the same without her. She asked if she could bring Audrey and let my teenage daughters watch her.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course!\u201d was our answer.<\/p>\n

Just before the day got started, I asked Audrey if I could introduce her to the group of ladies\u2014many who looked a little anxious. Audrey happily agreed.<\/p>\n

Up Audrey came, a little shy but glowing; I asked her to tell everyone her name and how old she was. I then asked her if she was beautiful. \u201cYes,\u201d she nodded with the sweetest smile. She certainly was beautiful! She then told us that she was also \u201csmart and talented and very loveable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ladies all admired her gentle strength and humble confidence. We admired her God-given sense of self-love.<\/p>\n

Audrey hadn\u2019t learned to hate herself . . . yet. Audrey hadn\u2019t learned that her hips were too big or her breasts too small. She hadn\u2019t decided that men would probably hurt her or that money didn\u2019t grow on trees.<\/p>\n

Audrey was still trusting, believing, and completely hopeful about life and the important part she would play in it. Audrey loved herself. Not with selfish narcissism but with a natural sense of divinity.<\/p>\n

We are born with self-love. We didn\u2019t have to learn it. We innately felt it. We instinctively believed in our parents. We trusted that they would protect, guide, encourage, and empower us, until we were old enough to make our way out into the world with confidence, courage, and certainty.<\/p>\n

But for many of us, this didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

Our parents didn\u2019t give us what we needed. It\u2019s not necessarily their fault though. They probably didn\u2019t get the messages of self-love delivered to them either!<\/p>\n

My parents never once told me as a child that they loved me. Not once. I didn\u2019t find out until I was a teenager that my mother\u2019s parents had never spoken those words to her either!<\/p>\n

Parents don\u2019t intentionally set out to ruin their children. I\u2019m a mother myself; I can\u2019t imagine carrying the burden of thinking I said or did anything that may have negatively affected my daughter\u2019s self esteem, self worth and self love! But I probably have . . . not even knowing it.<\/p>\n

Parents carry their own wounds, shame, pain, and blame. And they unconsciously project it all over their kids. The truth is we all project our light and our darkness on those around us\u2014unless we\u2019ve done some serious self-work!<\/p>\n

Marianne Williamson points out in her extraordinary book, A Course in Weight Loss, that \u201cthe love you\u2019ve withheld from yourself \u2026 is held in trust for you until you\u2019re ready to receive it.\u201d This concept is so huge! You probably have an enormous warehouse of self-love stored up inside of you!<\/p>\n

Do you understand that the only reason you\u2019re struggling so much is because you\u2019ve been too afraid to shine bright. You\u2019ve been worried that being YOU\u2014magnificent, beautiful, talented, sexy, powerful, amazing\u2014will hurt you. You\u2019ve tucked your self-love, along with your bright shining light, deep deep inside.<\/p>\n

You may have insulated your self-love so far down that you think it\u2019s lost, but it isn\u2019t! Your love can never leave you\u2014even if you\u2019ve left it!
\nThis week, your job is to remember who you were as a child. Find a picture of yourself. Notice all the wonderful qualities you possessed; the wonder and trust in your eyes. (You may even have to go all the way back to a picture of yourself as a baby.)<\/p>\n

Write down ten positive affirmations about \u201cher\u201d. An example of your list may be:<\/p>\n

You are so beautiful.<\/p>\n

You are so kind.<\/p>\n

You are so smart.<\/p>\n

You are so special.<\/p>\n

You are so sweet.<\/p>\n

You are so loveable.<\/p>\n

You are so important to me.<\/p>\n

Your life matters.<\/p>\n

You matter.<\/p>\n

I love you!<\/p>\n

Then, every morning and evening, look into the mirror\u2014into your own eyes\u2014and repeat these affirmations to yourself.<\/p>\n

This is the start . . . the beginning of falling back in love with you! It may feel futile at first. Do it anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You Are Beautiful! How to let your love shine. By Crystal Andrus I remember a retreat I was having not too long ago when Natalie Hughes (our musical director) couldn\u2019t find a babysitter for her small daughter, Audrey. Natalie always performs during these special days and it\u2019s just not the same without her. She asked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-other"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}