“It may seem too simple to think that all we need to do is to decide to love ourselves. But that’s our task…” – In God’s Care

One of my sponsors who is no longer with us, Chuck, used to ask me if I believe that God loves me. By this time I had a solid concept of my higher power, and had a good relationship going with him. My answer was “yes.” Then he suggested that I love myself the way God loves me. I told him I wasn’t sure how.

That’s when I got the standard suggestion that every morning I look into the mirror, specifically into my eyes and say, “I love you James. I really love you.” Being the willing guy that I am, I took his suggestion. It only took me about three years of doing this almost every day to start believing it. But there’s another reason it started actually working.

I discovered it’s hard to really love myself when I’m an asshole. When I behave in ways that are really unbecoming, there’s not too much to love staring back at me in the mirror. So to love myself, I had to start changing. Reading the book Drop the Rock, was really the beginning of that awakening. The book You Can’t Make Me Angry helped me continue along my journey into letting go of those defects. I then created (and used) character defect worksheets to discover and discard those things that were getting in the way of me becoming a great man. I began to change into someone worth loving.

Now, because I do the Daily Deal to be the best person I can be, it really is as simple as deciding to love myself. But I’ve noticed a clear correlation between my consistency in doing the Daily Deal, and the degree of love I have for myself. As is with most things, the more I put in, the more I get out. And as long as I invest in the program, making it my top priority every day, I get to love myself and… ILML!

– JamieQ