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.
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!
