Tag: what does love look like

Posted on by

Self Love Sunday: Love yourself like no one else

Grab your favorite beverage and join me as we talk about ways to love yourself like no one else. Self-love really is an inside job. No one can give it to you, but no one can also take it away. Check out the exercise in this episode, and comment below to tell me how it worked for you. It isn’t a one-time thing, but with practice and time, this exercise will strengthen your confidence and self-love.

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 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 schedule a personal session with Senée, she’s accepting new clients.

Posted on by

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.

Posted on by

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.

Posted on by

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.

Posted on by

Loving Yourself First: Love Yourself Like No One Else

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.

Senee Seale The Princess Guide

In 2018, during my birthday week, I was thinking a lot about love — not the kind of external love we automatically think about (although that was on my mind, too). I was thinking about the internal love no one can take away from you. In our modern-day culture, we tend to think that the only love that counts is the external love from another person, typically found in a romantic relationship. There’s an old song with the lyrics, “You’re nobody until somebody loves you.” I must disagree with this statement. We come from pure love. We are loved greatly by the creator of all. We have spiritual beings who love and protect us, even though we may never see or encounter them in this realm of existence.

I spent an entire chapter of The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart talking about loving yourself, but it wasn’t until late 2018 that I started to realize what that really looked like. The last line of John Mayer’s song New Light poses the question, “What do I do with all this love flowing through my veins for you?” I dare say, once again, that you give all that love back to yourself until you have someone in your life to give that love to who will love you back. That last part is very important because if you aren’t receiving love back from a person, you’re in an unbalanced and unhealthy relationship.

During that time, I was listening daily to The Sundays song Love. The lyrics are profound and really redirected my thinking about self-love. “So, killing me with love, love, love. Just love yourself like no one else. Love, it’s enough. So, they can say what they like, but they still can’t take; Your love, your love, your love. Just love yourself like nobody else. Time’s so scarce where I come from; Let them say what they like, but they still can’t take your love.”

When we finally realize who we are — that we are love and are deeply loved — no one can take that away from us. Will there be times when we feel lonely and unloved? Of course. I can’t tell you how many birthdays and holidays I’ve spent totally alone. I’ve learned a very valuable lesson, though — When I’m alone on special days, I can spend them doing anything I want to do. I don’t have anyone telling me I’m not worthy of celebrating my existence or accomplishments or that I want too much. I can spend as much or as little money on myself and feel very good about it because I don’t have anyone dictating to me my worth.

So, how do you show love to yourself? You start by talking to yourself in the mirror and telling yourself you’re beautiful, handsome, talented, honorable, worthy, kind, and lovable.

I’ve never had a problem looking at myself naked in the mirror — even when I weighed my largest — but It’s taken me decades to finally look in that mirror and see a divine, pretty princess who is beautiful on the inside and outside. I actually see her now, and I’m so grateful that I got to spend this existence in a beautiful, healthy body. Am I perfect? I’m still breathing, so the answer is no. However, I’m learning to appreciate all that I am and all that I have while not dwelling on all those who have walked away from me or those who terrorized me while they were in my life. I see the good in the now, and the present moment really is the gift.

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. If you dream of dancing with someone, enroll in dancing classes at a local studio, and let them pair you up with someone while you’re waiting on the right person to show up in your life. If you love sports and want a partner to watch games with you, join a Meetup group for sports fans, attend college alumni watching parties or go to a local sports bar and make friends. If you love live music, go see a show by yourself — I haven’t done it very often, but I have seriously had some of my best times when I ended up going out all by myself. Don’t sit around waiting and wishing for things to change … Do things now that make you happy and show positive love for yourself.

I got a little under the weather in 2018, and I was really wishing my Granny was still alive so that I could curl up in her lap and let her rock me in her rocking chair. I found myself sitting in my own rocking chair. I wrapped my arms around myself, began rocking and I said what I would tell any sick little child I was rocking, “I know you feel really bad right now, but you’re going to be alright. Your body is magnificent and will repair and heal itself. You just need to close your eyes, fall asleep and let your body do its work.” That’s exactly what I needed in that moment, and it was fascinating and wonderful that I was able to give myself what I was longing to receive from someone externally.

In case you’re wondering if what I’m explaining is being “full of yourself” or Narcissistic, the answer is no. I defined these terms in Chapter 1. I was talking about this subject with a therapist friend of mine, and she seemed to agree with my distinction between healthy self-love and someone who is ego-driven or who has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I believe that people who act in these ways exude negative energy, while people with positive self-love genuinely love themselves and radiate that positive love to everyone around them. When you learn to treat yourself with true love and respect, you won’t allow others to mistreat you. That’s a promise from a princess.

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.

Posted on by

How to deal with difficult people

It’s Thanksgiving 2020, and in spite of some states enacting a lockdown again, AAA is projecting that 50 million Americans will travel this holiday. I’m all for celebrating Thanksgiving with family and friends, and I highly encourage it. However, I do realize that some people experience a great deal of distress this time of year because of toxic family relationships. So, let’s talk about what you can do to keep yourself healthy and be thankful you survived this holiday season.

I want to know what love is

We all know that family relationships should be our strongest source of love, approval and support. However, that isn’t always the case for many people. I just recently watched the movie Four Christmases, and it was a prime example of what I’m describing.

Often, it’s confusing to know if you have a loving family because many times control and manipulation can be disguised in love and care. My best friend has a friend who has a saying that I’ve taken to heart, “If it don’t feel right, it ain’t right.”  You really have to love yourself first and begin trusting and paying attention to your intuition — that strange, uncomfortable, dreadful feeling you may get for no obvious reason and the small voice inside your head telling you something isn’t right. Through practicing self-love, you will become more sensitive to your own intuition and what is right for you. You’ll also be more capable of establishing healthy boundaries and enforcing them.

Senee Seale The Princess Guide

How do you know if you’re dealing with someone who truly lives you? In his book, Identifying Real Love, Dr. Tim Clinton wrote about romantic love, but this list can be used in any type of relationship. He 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.
Safe vs. unsafe people

So, now that we know what real love looks like, how do we know if we’re dealing with a safe or unsafe person? Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend give a good checklist of important qualities of safe people in their book, Safe People, which includes:

  • Acceptance and grace.
  • Mutual struggles, although they do not have to be the same ones.
  • Loving confrontation.
  • Both parties need other support systems to avoid toxic dependency on each other.
  • Familiarity with the growth process.
  • Mutual interests and chemistry, a general liking [of each other].
  • An absence of “one-up and one-down” dynamics [no competition].
  • Both parties in a relationship with God [having a spiritual life of any faith].
  • Honesty and reality instead of “over spiritualizing.”
  • An absence of controlling behavior.

In their book, Drs. Cloud and Townsend also make an extensive list of personal and interpersonal traits of unsafe people:

  • Unsafe people think they “have it all together” instead of admitting their weaknesses.
  • Unsafe people are self-religious instead of humble.
  • Unsafe people only apologize instead of changing their behavior.
  • Unsafe people avoid working on their problems instead of dealing with them.
  • Unsafe people demand trust, instead of earning it.
  • Unsafe people think they are perfect instead of admitting their faults.
  • Unsafe people blame others instead of taking responsibility.
  • Unsafe people lie instead of telling the truth.
  • Unsafe people are stagnant instead of growing.
  • Unsafe people avoid closeness instead of connecting.
  • Unsafe people are only concerned with “I” instead of “we.”
  • Unsafe people resist freedom (of others) instead of encouraging it.
  • Unsafe people flatter us instead of confronting us.
  • Unsafe people condemn us instead of forgiving us.
  • Unsafe people stay in parent/child roles instead of relating as equals.
  • Unsafe people are unstable over time instead of being consistent.
  • Unsafe people are a negative influence on us rather than a positive one.
  • Unsafe people gossip instead of keeping secrets.

If you recognize several of these traits in a person, then you are definitely dealing with an unsafe person. I can tell you from experience that confronting them will not work — even enforcing your boundaries can cause them to become verbally or physically violent. So, how can you deal with someone like this? One option is ghosting, but I don’t recommend it. If you go that route, at least be a big enough person to tell them why you’re turning into Casper the (Un)friendly ghost and will never speak to them again. A letter, email, voicemail or text message will do.

It’s important to always remember that you must love yourself first and do what is best (and safe) for you, even if other people don’t like it or throw a fit. Sometimes, walking away is the most loving thing you can do for everyone involved. However, if you are able to stay, then remember this advice from Dr. Wayne Dyer, “As the storm of a quarrel subsides, you must find a way to disregard your ego’s need to be right. It’s time to extend kindness by letting go of your anger. It’s over, so offer forgiveness to yourself and the other person and encourage resentment to dissipate. Be the one seeking a way to give, rather than the one looking for something to get.”

May you find a way to experience true joy during this time of celebration — even if you have to celebrate all alone. Practicing gratitude in every situation, every day — not just on Thanksgiving Day — will go a long way in changing your thinking and energy. Being positive and focusing on love, joy and peace — first and foremost within yourself, then in all your other relationships — will enrich every aspect of your life.

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 offering deeply discounted coaching and counseling rates through the end of 2020.