Month: July 2020

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The Princess Guide to Loving Yourself First: Coming back to life

This is an excerpt from The Princess Guide to Loving Yourself First now available at Amazon.com, ThePrincessGuide.com and online booksellers. Everyone who purchases the book can be entered into a drawing to get a free 30-minute coaching/counseling session with me. Drawings will take place on July 12 & 26, 2020. To enter, simply take a photo of yourself with the cover of the paperback or eBook, post to social media and tag me (Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn: @SeneeSeale; Facebook: @ThePrincessGuide), or email a copy of your receipt to PrincessGuide@BecomingPublishing.com.

I was walking down an aisle in a store in 2016, and next to the As Seen On TV products jumped out the words on a box Back To Life … My first thought was, “I wish I could slather on a product to bring me back to life!”

We all go through seasons in life where our faith is tried, but how we react to the negative things that happen to us defines who we really are. At that time, I had been thinking a lot about character and virtue. Several years ago when I was working as an editor of a weekly publication for The Dallas Morning News, I was going through a really difficult time in my personal life. The only guy on our team walked up as I was talking about my situation with another girl on our team. He said something to me that has never left me. He had only been working with me for a couple of months, but he said I was the most virtuous person he’s ever known. I was flattered he had this opinion of me, but I really wasn’t sure what he meant.

Michael Tyrrell, musician and creator of the Wholetones music project, put it like this in an email, “Virtue is the cornerstone of character. It is the manifestation of moral principles or ethics that define one’s statue. In other words, it’s the ‘you’ in you! It’s who you are when nobody’s around to impress.”

Senee Seale The Princess Guide

My grandfather always told us, “A man is only as good as his word.” I took that to heart and always try not to commit to something unless I know I can do it and keep my promises. I’ve found out in my lifetime that very few people keep their promises—even really important ones like wedding vows or governmental oaths.

One of my friends in graduate school called me her “Little Southern Belle.” One night during a break in class as the professor was walking back in the room, my friend was telling everyone out loud, “Senée is the epitome of a Southern Belle. She can tell you to go to hell and make you look forward to the journey!” To that, our professor turned around and shook her head. (She wasn’t from Texas and had told us she didn’t understand our hospitality or etiquette.) I have never viewed myself as a Southern Belle—a princess, yes, but not really a Southern Belle. I have just always known deep down inside me that I am called to live to a higher, royal standard in which I keep my promises, tell the truth at all costs, and do my best to do things in love …

It’s amazing to me, but I actually felt myself coming back to life four years after being in that store wishing something could bring me back to life. The amazing part was that if happened during the COVID-19 lockdown while I was Sheltering In Place all alone. The interactions I had with people online and later meeting some of them in person made me realize that I had been brought back to life and was fully enjoying and experiencing life in all its happiness and disappointments. I credit practicing gratitude for much of this. I was able to hold on to the positive moments, be truly, deeply grateful for them, and let the rest go. Had I not been practicing loving myself first, establishing what I wanted for my life, and setting and enforcing my boundaries, I don’t think I would have experienced this reawakening or coming back to life. You can have the same experience—I’m confident of that. If I can do it, so can you. All it takes is doing the internal work I outline within these pages.

Senée Seale is a book author, mental health professional and life guide passionate about helping people create positive changes in their lives and relationships. Are you ready to start attracting positive things into your life through practicing daily affirmations? Get your free copy of The Princes Guide to Gratitude Affirmations.  For more information on how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, check out the website today!

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The Princess Guide to Loving Yourself First: Self-love is the key

This is an excerpt from The Princess Guide to Loving Yourself First now available at Amazon.com, ThePrincessGuide.com and online booksellers. Everyone who purchases the book can be entered into a drawing to get a free 30-minute coaching/counseling session with me. Drawings will take place on July 12 & 26, 2020. To enter, simply take a photo of yourself with the cover of the paperback or eBook, post to social media and tag me (Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn: @SeneeSeale; Facebook: @ThePrincessGuide), or email a copy of your receipt to PrincessGuide@BecomingPublishing.com.

… I’ll admit it—I’ve struggled with loving myself for the majority of my life. I watched Hallmark and Hollywood movies that told me the only way to find true love and happiness was if someone outside myself loved and approved of me. I believed it. I thought I had to be pleasing and perfect to receive unconditional love. However, no matter what I did or how correctly I performed, I never experienced that love (for very long, at least). I now know—after more than four decades on this planet—that this is false! True, lasting, real love comes, first and foremost, from within.

Loving yourself is—in my personal and professional opinion—the most important key to happiness in life and relationships. I know what it’s like to have people tell you through their words and actions that you have no worth and are not lovable. I also know what it’s like to break out of that programming and no longer allow others to control your thinking and life.

If you don’t know me or haven’t read any of my work, I’m a Qualified Mental Health Professional and print journalist. I worked as a research assistant in the Couples Daily Lives Laboratory at The University of Texas at Dallas studying relationship conflict and reconciliation while I was earning my Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology. I love data, but I also like finding facts from many different sources. I’m going to present scientific research, expert commentary, Biblical scripture, and my own experiences in this book. Just keep an open mind, and if you don’t agree, then take what resonates with you, use it to improve yourself, and discard the rest.

Senee Seale The Princess Guide

Let me say this upfront: There is nothing wrong with wanting to be loved. I believe we were created to love and to be loved. The problem occurs when we give that power of love to another person outside of ourselves—when the love from another person is more important to us than how we feel about and love ourselves. If given to the wrong people, they can and will use it to control, dominate, and hurt us. I’ve seen it time and time again and experienced it personally.

The answer to this problem is to love yourself first. That way, no one can take love away from you when the main source of it comes from within yourself. A few months after publishing The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart where I devoted a chapter to this topic, I read Christian Mickelsen’s book Abundance Unleashed where he seems to share my opinion.

“The more attachments you have to being loved, the more neediness, the more you’re going to be searching for that love out in the world, and it’s always going to be elusive,” he wrote.

I’m not proud to say that I see myself in those words. When I look back over my life, I have realized that I was like a needy puppy begging at the feet of men and others outside of myself for love. I can now see that I went from a place of empowerment and loving myself first to a place of neediness where I could do nothing to please or get the love I deeply desired from another person. When we’re operating in a place of desperation, we are operating in lack and disempowerment—It isn’t a good look on anyone and typically repels people away from us instead of attracting them to us …

Senée Seale is a book author, mental health professional and life guide passionate about helping people create positive changes in their lives and relationships. Are you ready to start attracting positive things into your life through practicing daily affirmations? Get your free copy of The Princes Guide to Gratitude Affirmations. For more information on how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, check out the website today!

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The Princess Guide to Loving Yourself First: Let freedom ring

This is an excerpt from The Princess Guide to Loving Yourself First now available at Amazon.com, ThePrincessGuide.com and online booksellers. Everyone who purchases the book can be entered into a drawing to get a free 30-minute coaching/counseling session with me. Drawings will take place on July 12 & 26, 2020. To enter, simply take a photo of yourself with the cover of the paperback or eBook, post to social media and tag me (Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn: @SeneeSeale; Facebook: @ThePrincessGuide), or email a copy of your receipt to PrincessGuide@BecomingPublishing.com.

Independence Day was approaching in 2016, and I was thinking a lot about the concept of freedom. In America, we live in a free society, but so many people aren’t free. They may be enslaved by loved ones who are practicing domestic violence or substance use, or they may be in emotionally toxic work environments. However, the vast majority of people are enslaved by their own thoughts.

I read an email from the Illumination Podcast with Nick and Kisma which pointed out, “The real freedom, however, is being objective enough, and—we’ll just say it—in love with yourself enough that it simply doesn’t matter what others think.” That’s a real mouthful because the truth is, we’re conditioned in this society to care too much about what others think—especially if we have past experiences of something negative happening to us because we didn’t do what someone else wanted us to do.

The Bible tells us that, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is present there is freedom,” 2 Corinthians 3:17. But how many of us can admit to allowing the negative thoughts, feelings, and emotions to reign? We’re probably all guilty of it at some point in our lives because we’re human, and that’s our natural state of being. We’ve forgotten that we are divine, sovereign, and free. We were in this state before we came to this existence, we will be so after we leave this planet, and we need to take back our power and declare that liberty now.

Senee Seale The Princess Guide

So, how can we overcome the imprisonment of negativity and experience true freedom? I believe true freedom is found in having peace. There’s something to be said for stopping when you catch yourself having negative thoughts, taking a deep breath and giving it to your higher power. It’s also good to start naming things you’re grateful for during this process. You can take back the keys to your freedom by controlling your own mind and choosing to react in love toward yourself and others.

I’ve become a big supporter in the last three years of unplugging from electronics, too—Living in the real, physical world and having experiences with other living beings is freeing. I’m not the only one practicing and giving this advice. In 2016, The Center for Brain Health at my alma mater, The University of Texas at Dallas was advising people on Instagram to “Step away, disengage, and unplug to catch your next AH moment.” They’re on the cutting edge of brain research. So, I put a lot of confidence in their advice.

Break out of the online matrix where people tell half-truths, and go walk barefoot in the grass, listen to the birds sing, and feel the sun on your skin. Not only are these things very beneficial to your mind and body (earthing/grounding is a huge thing right now), but it’s freedom at its basic level. I’m making it a priority in my life every day and celebrating a happy Independence Day every day of the year. I hope you’ll consider it, as well.

Senée Seale is a book author, mental health professional and life guide passionate about helping people create positive changes in their lives and relationships. Are you ready to start attracting positive things into your life through practicing daily affirmations? Get your free copy of The Princes Guide to Gratitude Affirmations. For more information on how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, check out the website today!