Today is Day 24 of my 31 Days of Self-Love posts to celebrate Self-Love Month with suggestions for jump-starting your own self-love and joining The Self-Love Movement™.

I say it often: In order to be happy, you have to work on your inner self first. Inner happiness radiates out and makes you feel authentically happy. Material possessions create fleeting moments of joy but don’t nourish your inner self, which is where the long-lasting contentment comes from. In most cases, the biggest deterrent to finding inner peace is YOU.

When I was a DoorMat, I was clogged with old messages and insecurities. I did want to love myself and feel happy—deep down. But I got in my own way. My old beliefs—especially that I was fat and ugly, made me feel not good enough to get what I thought I needed to be happy. So while I tried to soothe myself with food and buying things, my inner heart was still felt wounded. If you’re not getting the happiness and contentment you’d like, start an inner revolution! Find your inner clogs and begin to clean them out. Begin to identify old beliefs and habits of how you treat yourself.

•    Do you hold yourself to perfection standards?
•    Do you use harsh words when you make a mistake?
•    Do you judge yourself when you look in the mirror?
•    Do you expect negative results when you attempt or want something?

Identify the habits that make you feel lousy about yourself or keep you from loving YOU or make you unhappy, Then one by one, affirm:

“I see that ________ is holding me back and I release the need to hold onto this old belief or bad habit of how I treat myself.”

Do this one thing at a time. Choose the easiest to release first and work on it till you feel it leaving. Each time you stop yourself from going to an old message or response to a situation is an act of self-love. Even if you can’t do it all the time—yet—keep trying to clean yourself from the inside out.

The best detergent for inside you is self-love!

Find your inner truth and stay in touch with it, no matter who disagrees. If you’ve always been a people pleaser, those you gave a lot to in the past may try to get you to go back to your overly giving ways. Don’t! Ask yourself, “What do I want?” “What do I really think about a situation?”  If you know in your heart that you’re right, that’s your truth. It may not be someone else’s but it’s yours.

The best way to own who you are is to start an inner revolution of thoughts and actions that shake up your old ways of thinking and doing things. That often does mean rubbing some people in ways they won’t like. But, YOU will be happier as you live as the person you’d like to be, which is the most important factor.

Evolving into a self-empowered person means letting go of old ways so yo can embrace new ones that are healthy and ultimately bring you more of what you want. As your inner revolution takes hold, you’ll grow as a person. Any revolution is uncomfortable at first. But as you start to see victories in situations that previously made you unhappy, you’ll be motivated to go for more.
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Join The Self-Love Movement™! Take the 31 Days of Self-Love Commitment—“I commit to do my best to do something loving for myself, however big or small, for the next 31 days.” and get my book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways for free at http://howdoiloveme.com. Read my 2013 31 Days of Self-Love Posts HERE. Join the Self-Love Movement™! on Facebook.