Tag: real love

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Self Love Sunday: What is self-love and what self-love is not

On this Self Love Sunday episode, we’re talking all about what self-love is and what it is not. Watch to the end because I have a special exercise for you to do! I want to know what you’re learning about self-love and how you are implementing these things into your life. So, leave a comment here!

Do you have a question about life that you want Senée to answer? Leave it in the comments or email it to PrincessGuide@BecomingPublishing.com. If you’d like to go deeper and learn more about healthy self-love, get a copy of Senée ‘s book The Princess Guide to Loving Yourself First.

Senée Seale is a book author, mental health professional and life guide passionate about helping people create positive changes in their lives. 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. If you’d like to schedule a personal session with Senée, she’s accepting new clients.

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How to recognize a quality person

There was a time in my life where I found myself feeling tired — no, I was exhausted. I had been waiting for years for love to come into my life. I was exhausted from waiting and exhausted from dating. I was just exhausted. I realized that the best thing I could do for myself to express loving myself first was to stop the obsessive thoughts about another person and stop the negative thoughts about spending the rest of my life all alone.

I realized that I had to change my focus to things that I had control over, things that could help others, feed my purpose and make me feel good. Dr. Wayne Dyer used to say that God is good, and when we feel good, we are feeling God. Al-Anon teaches that when you identify things in your life that are unmanageable, you give them to God (as you know it) and focus on what you can change and control — yourself.

Senee Seale The Princess Guide

I have found that the real magic and amazing thing that happens when you redirect your attention to something else within your control is that you fuel your spirit, feel good and see results. Things you previously obsessed over tend to work out for your highest good either way — and you become perfectly fine with the outcome.

I began focusing on writing, creating new content for my brand, editing existing content and following through with new ideas and projects I had been thinking about. My spirit began to feel fueled. I began to feel good about myself and my purpose — I felt God, just like Dr. Dyer said. At the same time, I remained opened to receive love while staying protective of myself and who I allowed into my life. Christ said we have to be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove. 

Not a quality person …

So, how do we know when a quality person comes along? I believe you have to start with identifying the characteristics of the wrong person before you can become clear on who is right.

In the 1990s, the female group TLC sang about Scrubs. In this song, they are identified as male, but these qualities can span both genders. They listed characteristics of a Scrub with some of them being:

  • Flirting from a friend’s car but having no vehicle of his own.
  • Living with parents, but not having a home of his own (not being financially independent or responsible).
  • Having children, but not showing love or being an active, responsible part of their lives.

I can add a few more to the list:

  • They don’t accept responsibility for their actions and blame others for everything that happens to them in life.
  • They try to convince you that their needs are more important than yours.
  •  They flatter you while manipulating you.
  • They lie habitually.
  • They have no credibility/don’t keep their word.

Let’s face it. We all have hardships in life and sometimes have to rebuild from Square One. (This has been especially true in the last year with all the lockdowns and job losses.) The difference here is that a quality person will do whatever they can to get back on their feet and be independent while a Scrub/non-quality person will be fine allowing others to support them and do nothing to change their situation.

A quality person …

No one is perfect. However, a quality person will have many or all of these characteristics:

  • Integrity.
  • Ambition.
  • Always forgiving/Asks for forgiveness.
  • Makes things right.
  • Is generous with time, money and energy.
  • Has consistent positive actions and good intentions.

I made this list before actually doing research on what experts are saying. My list seems to coincide with others like the Jim Rohn Guide to Leadership published on Success.com. His list is focused on business/leadership characteristics, but they apply to personal characteristics, too. They include:

  1. Integrity — The root of integrity means “whole” or “undivided,” and that’s a terrific way to help us understand what integrity is — an undivided life. For example, you don’t act one way in one situation and another in a different situation. There is integrity and wholeness to your life. Living this way will build trust in your followers [and those with whom you are in a relationship].
  2. Honesty — It is regularly said that honesty is the best policy, but I would add that honesty is the only policy for great leaders … a lack of honesty results in the fact that you destroy the trust of those who follow you. Even if you tell them the truth but they know you have lied to others, it will destroy the trust you had with them … When we’re honest and live transparently before our followers, they’re able to see us for who we are and make solid decisions to follow.
  3. Loyalty — People of good character are loyal people. They have a “stick-to-it” attitude when it comes to others …  A person of good character stays with their friends even in the downtimes … When we are loyal to our followers, they’ll be loyal to us and make every effort to succeed on our behalf and on behalf of the organization. There are few things that strengthen the leader-follower bond more than when a leader shows loyalty to a follower in need.
  4. Self-Sacrifice — People of good character don’t use other people, period. So, when a leader shows sacrifice of personal gain, it says to the followers that they are willing to come alongside of them — and followers reward that almost universally. A person of good character shows that they can give up personal gain for the good of the whole.
  5. Accountability — People of good character don’t mind accountability. In fact, they welcome it. This is the act of allowing others to have a say in your life, to speak to you straight about your life and conduct … When we allow ourselves to be held accountable, our followers know that we are serious about keeping our own house in order, and thus will do a good job in leading the rest of the organization.
  6. Self-Control — Everybody has temptations, but a person of good character knows to exercise self-control — literal control over their choices. When people don’t exercise self-control, they sabotage their ability to lead. People lose respect for them and will follow less, if at all. Self-control is the ability to choose to do the things we should, and to refrain from doing the things we shouldn’t. When we exhibit self-control, we again build trust in our followers. They respect us and want to follow us.

I believe a person who possesses these qualities also has another quality not yet mentioned — love. A person who operates in unconditional love — for themselves and others — naturally exhibits these qualities and is therefore a quality person. “When you come to another with love in your heart, asking nothing, only offering that love, you create miraculous relationships,” wrote Dr. Wayne Dyer in Real Magic.

Love is the highest vibrational energy that exists. That’s why we’ve always been told to send people love instead of a negative, low-vibrational energy emotion such as hate, envy, jealousy, anger or fear. Your intentions matter. Acting with pure, loving intentions will make you a quality person and transform all your relationships. “Your intention to have a blissful relationship requires you to act in ways consistent with that intention,” Dr. Dyer wrote. “This is the secret to making your relationships magical … Surround yourself with people who encourage you to be all that you are capable of being … If you meet someone whose soul is not on purpose, as yours is, you send them love and move along, trusting and knowing that the right soul mates will show up and meet you at the same frequency that you are radiating.”

Be the best version of yourself — regardless of how others act. You’ll thank yourself for it. If the saying is true that “Like attracts like,” then by focusing on being a quality person yourself, you will eventually attract quality people. You will most definitely be able to spot them immediately, in any case.

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. If you’d like to work directly with Senée, she’s accepting new clients.

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That isn’t love

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about love. In today’s society, we encounter many people who are either so emotionally unavailable that they only want you around when it’s convenient for them or they have nothing better to do, or they put so many conditions on love that you have to question if they’re offering you love or bondage.

“I love you, but you have to do this for me.” ” I love you, but if you don’t do this, I’ll never forgive you!” “You know I love you, but you have to act this certain way or you’re showing me that you don’t love me back!” “I love you only when you do this. Otherwise, I’m not sure I even like you!” “I love you, but you can’t say anything about my negative behavior … That shows me that I love and trust the wrong person!” The list goes on and on.

I keep going back in my mind to what it says about love in 1 Corinthians 13.

  • Love is patient.
  • Love is kind.
  • Love is not jealous.
  • Love does not brag.
  • Love is not proud.
  • Love is not rude.
  • Love is not selfish.
  • Love cannot be made angry easily.
  • Love does not remember wrongs done against it.
  • Love is never happy when others do wrong.
  • Love is always happy with the truth.
  • Love never gives up on people.
  • Love never stops trusting.
  • Love never loses hope.
  • Love never quits.
  • Love will never end.

Dr. Tim Clinton, author of Identifying Real Love, defines infatuation in contrast with real love to give us a deeper insight. “An infatuation does indeed go as unexpectedly as it comes and there is little you can do about it, but real love is unselfish, committed love. It hangs in there … Some couples are basing their marriage on real love. Others are basing theirs on infatuation which is false love. A marriage based on infatuation will not last,” he wrote.

In the last few weeks, I keep hearing in my head the line of a song my granny and I used to sing together, If That Isn’t Love (talking about Christ). However, I just keep hearing the words, “That isn’t love!” Example after example of relationships I’ve been involved in have crossed my mind, and I keep hearing those same words.

If someone says insulting things to you, that isn’t love. If someone puts you on a guilt trip and makes you feel badly, that isn’t love. If someone pressures you to give into their will and wishes, that isn’t love. If someone isn’t there for you physically and/or emotionally when they can be, that isn’t love. If someone chests on you, that obviously isn’t love. If someone tells you they’ll never forgive you for something you never did (but they thought you did), that isn’t love. If someone makes you an option when they have nothing better to do, that isn’t love. If someone makes you feel that you have no value to them, that isn’t love. I could go on and on with example after example, but you get my point.

Dr. Clinton said you can spot true love by these qualities:

  • True love offers a safe place to be you. It isn’t driven by a desire to rescue, over protect, control or manipulate … or a need to perform.
  •  True love values the other person for who they are and celebrates healthy separateness.
  • True love genuinely wants the best for the other person. It is grounded in our heart’s desire to cherish, honor and treasure another simply because of who they are.

These three things are easy to understand and remember. However, if that isn’t enough, the he gives us these clues to look for:

  • If your love is real, your interest is in the total personality of the one you love. There is the thrilling element of physical attraction, but it is only one of many things about the person that attracts you.
  • If it is real love, most of the qualities of the other person attracts you. This is important because, when the initial excitement of being married wears off, you need a lot of common interests to keep your marriage alive and well.
  • Real love always starts slowly. It cannot be any other way. You have to know a person before you can truly love that person and that takes time — lots of time — to really know someone.
  • In real love, your feelings are likely to be warm and tender instead of hot and cold, and they are more consistent. Real love grows slowly, but the roots grow deep.
  • If your love is real, the one you love will bring out your best qualities and make you want to be a better person. In real love, you plan and prepare yourself for a successful future marriage.
  • In real love, your beloved is the most important person in the world to you. However, your relationships with your family and friends continue to be important to you, and you do not neglect them.
  • In real love, absence makes your heart grow fonder of the one you love. Real love can and will survive the test of time and distance.
  • In real love, there will be disagreements, but real love will live through them. They will become less frequent and less severe. Every couple should learn how to handle conflicts. It is far better to discuss differences openly and frankly than to allow them to smolder under the surface.
  • Real love is unselfish, committed love. You want to do all you can to bring happiness to the other person. Your overall attitude is that of giving to the relationship and not that of getting what you can out of it.

“Regardless of the choices others make, you can learn the secrets of loving well,” Dr. Clinton wrote. “You can learn to recognize and receive real love when it comes your way — and push back when it doesn’t. You can learn to really love the people in your life — and know when and how to help them without hurting yourself in the process.”

I go back to the topic of loving yourself first. It is so important to practice it because, in today’s society of opportunists and online scammers, you will most likely be faced with unloving behavior. If you don’t love yourself first, it will be a lot harder to push back and stand up to this kind of behavior. Let me be very clear here: There is nothing wrong with standing up for yourself when another person is mistreating you — no matter how many times they may call you stingy or selfish. It is your duty and responsibility to stand up for and protect yourself in a graceful and royal way, of course.

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. If you’d like to work directly with Senée, she’s accepting new clients.

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Loving Yourself First: Putting self-love into practice

To celebrate Love Month, I’m sharing excerpts from my book The Princess Guide to Loving Yourself First. Whether you’re in a romantic relationship with someone or alone wishing to be in one, having healthy self-love is very important.

February and December can be two of the hardest months if you’re single. It seems like everyone around you and everyone on social media is being celebrated and loved. I dated a couple of guys who disappeared around Thanksgiving and didn’t reappear until the flowers began blooming. Make no mistake — They disappeared so they wouldn’t have to do anything for me during Christmas and Valentines. It made me feel terrible and less than important. I began making one of the qualifying questions to get a date with me, “Do you celebrate holidays and look for ways to make it special for the woman you’re dating?” Being in a long-term relationship with someone who chooses not to do things for you can make you feel even worse.

Senee Seale The Princess Guide

When studying Marriage & Family Therapy in graduate school, I learned that women who are highly educated and professionals have a higher rate of divorce. My instructor said it has something to do with women having more choices today with increased income. (Previous generations got married to have an income.) While being married appears to be the goal for many women, some find that staying married is a lot more work than anyone will tell you about.

I may sound like a broken record, but I will say once again that loving yourself and practicing loving actions toward yourself will not only help you cultivate healthy self-esteem that no one can take away from you, but it will also give you the skills you need to love others when the right relationship comes into your life.

How do you really love yourself, especially when you’ve been rejected, or you’ve been told through other people’s words or actions that you are not lovable? How can you put self-love into practice? Let me say that being all alone when you begin the process is the perfect time and atmosphere to focus on yourself without the judgment or distractions of others. I highly encourage it, if you have that option. Relationship expert Dr. Margaret Paul gave The Huffington Post these suggestions for learning to love yourself:

  • Listen within to your own feelings. Many people easily tune into others’ feelings yet have no idea what they feel. If you ignore a child’s feelings, that child will feel unloved. Ignoring your own feelings has the same result — your inner child feels rejected, abandoned and unloved by you.
  • Be compassionate with your feelings. If you judge your feelings, telling yourself you are wrong for having them, your inner child will feel rejected and abandoned by you. If you are kind, gentle, tender, understanding, and accepting of your feelings, your inner child will feel loved by you.
  • Be open to learning about what your feelings are telling you. Just as an actual child feels loved when you are compassionately interested in why he or she is hurting, your inner child will feel loved when you explore what your feelings are telling you … Compassionately attending to your feelings, learning what they are telling you and then taking action to remedy the situation, will make you feel loved.
  • Create a solid connection with a spiritual source of love, wisdom, and comfort. Love is not a feeling we generate from our mind. It comes from the heart when our heart is open to our source of love. When you open to learning with your higher power about loving yourself and others, love flows into your heart, and you feel loved.
  • Choose to be around loving people. We don’t always have a choice — such as in work relationships — but when we do have a choice — such as in personal relationships — choosing to be around caring, supportive and accepting people will make you feel loved. If, when you have a choice, you consistently engage with unkind, judgmental or abusive people, the message you are sending to yourself is that you are not worth loving.
  • Take loving actions for yourself around others. When you are around someone who is being unkind, speak up for yourself letting the person know that you don’t like being treated that way, and then either be open to learning about what is going on, or lovingly disengage from the interaction. Allowing others to treat you badly sends a message to your inner child that he or she is not worth loving.
  • Take care of your body, your time, your space and your finances. You will feel loved and lovable when you feed yourself healthy food, and get exercise and sleep. When you ignore your health, you are giving yourself the message that you are not worth loving. When you respect your own and others’ time and space, you are letting yourself know that you are worth it. When you overspend, putting yourself in unnecessary debt, you are not taking loving care of yourself, and your inner child will feel scared, alone, and unloved. Just as an actual child needs to feel safe regarding the necessities of life, your inner child needs to feel the same way.
  • Find work you love. Since work takes up a big part of your day, finding or creating work that fulfils you is vitally important. If you continue to force yourself to stay at jobs you hate, the message to yourself is that you are not worth doing whatever it is you need to do to create a fulfilling work life.
  • Create balance. We need balance in our life to feel loved and lovable. We need time to work and time to rest and rejuvenate. We also need time to nurture our body and soul through activities that bring us joy.

Learning to love yourself isn’t easy. If it were, we would all be pros at it — and therapists would be out of jobs. However, I’m living proof that it’s possible. Taking it day-by-day and practicing these principles intentionally will eventually (over several weeks and months) will make it automatic in your thinking and behavior.

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. If you’d like to work directly with Senée, she’s accepting new clients.

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Being alone on Valentine’s Day

It’s Valentine’s week, and I know some of you are feeling the love while others of you are down in the dumps. Trust me when I say that I can relate — mostly to the last scenario.

Senee Seale The Princess Guide

I had single friends in 2014 who started showcasing their hatred for the Valentine’s Day holiday on social media a week in advance. I didn’t think they hated the day as much as they hated being alone on the day and not getting to participate like everyone else. I have felt the same way for most of my life. I was thinking the other day about it, and even having been married twice, I’ve only celebrated Valentine’s Day with a man 7 out of 48 times … That isn’t even 20%, y’all. I have felt like I was standing at a window watching everyone else being happy and having fun while I was not allowed to join the party.

I dated a guy once who told me early on that he didn’t like Valentine’s Day nor did he participate. I’m not stupid and knew he was just using that as an excuse to not do something for me. I wish I would have listened to myself and left then and there, but I stuck around to see how cruel he could really be.

After spending most of my life not getting any attention and watching everyone else get flowers and candy at school, work and the college dorms, it’s important to me to have those things now — no matter how silly it may seem to others. Most women would probably agree with me, if they were really being honest with themselves.

Apparently, Mr. Wrong wasn’t alone in how he felt. ABC News reported in 2007 that a Yahoo! survey found people go “crazy” (my word) between the December holidays and Valentine’s Day and were more than twice as likely to consider breaking up with the person they were seeing. A reason why wasn’t given.

In 2020, AskMen.com reported on a survey conducted about love day. “The experts at eMediHealth surveyed an even split of 2,200 men and women to find out exactly what each expects from their partners this Valentine’s Day. The survey also uncovered just how ‘lonely’ single folks are when the romantic holiday rolls around, and the outcome is somewhat surprising.” The survey found that 55% of men and women were neutral (didn’t care) about being alone on V-day while 22.5% felt a little sad about not participating.

Researcher Gunny Scarfo writing for Fox News in 2019 shared the findings of her research, and it doesn’t necessarily align with the findings from the eMediHealth survey. “Unfortunately, according to a survey of 692 people across the country and dozens of interviews my research partner and I conducted last year, many Americans feel isolated — surrounded by people in their lives but feeling that no one truly sees them … By the numbers, our findings are chilling,” she wrote.

“Nearly 45% of Americans reported dreaming of deep emotional connections with others, only to wake up with nobody in their real lives with whom to share those kinds of connections. Almost 30% report that they are unsatisfied with their ability to open up to people they enjoy being around,” she shared. Sadder still, 8% of respondents reported that they do not have a single close friend.

I have conversations with men online all the time, and these numbers sound about right to me. We’re all just broken people, and I believe the COVID-19 lockdown has exacerbated any and all mental health and psychological issues people have. I’ve seen many people self-medicating loneliness with alcohol and isolation. While substance use is a short-term fix to help you forget, in the long-term it creates avoidance and doesn’t solve the problem. As I’m always writing about, going to the kingdom within and doing the internal work is the only positive solution.

If you’re spending Valentine’s Day alone this year, I will reiterate what I posted last week from my bookThe Princess Guide to Loving Yourself First: “I used to think that the only way a gift mattered was if it was given by someone I loved. I now realize that giving gifts to myself in love is just as important, and it comes with no strings or expectations attached. If you long for someone to give you your favorite flowers, go buy some for yourself or plant them in a pot so that you can have them near you most of the year … Do things now that make you happy and show positive love for yourself.”

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. If you’d like to work directly with Senée, she’s accepting new clients.