re you living life in the standards & ideals around you or the values & principles that matter most to you?
When it comes to self-love and living your life powerfully do you live every day in the standards and ideals that exist all around you? Or, do you create your own values & principles to live by that resonate with you so powerfully you feel inspired by them? Have you ever thought about what is influencing everything you are doing? Are you making choices based off of what matters most to you or based off of how others think it should look and be done?
Standards and ideals are ways of being and acting that look one specific way and portray as perfection or excellence. When you are being and acting inside of your standards and ideals you tend to do what others would do or what others think you should do. You be and act in an inauthentic way that isn’t true to what matters most to you and inspires you in those moments. Standards and ideals may come from your friends and family, the communities around you, your workplace, politics, your culture, your country, and even the world. These are the ways of being and acting that are expected of us even if it is something that doesn’t necessarily resonate with who we are as a human being.
Whereas principles and values are ways of being and acting that you create based off of what inspires you most and it gives you a way to measure your worth and self-love. When you are being and acting inside of your principles and values you tend to do things that you love, things that inspire you, things that measure your self-worth and most importantly, things that compound the amount of love you give to yourself directly and indirectly by being open to receiving it in any way, shape or form. When we are being and acting inside of our principles and values, we begin to build a mindset full of self-love. We begin to take pride and gratitude in our every way of being and acting because it aligns and resonates with us so much.
This distinction began to come clear to me when I was going through a rough relationship and I was in two head spaces. Head space one was that no one has to be the same person tomorrow as they were today, they chose to be or not to be the same person tomorrow as they were today. Head space two was that no one who loved me would do that to me. And then I realized that both headspaces were inside of the standards and ideals around me. I had no principles and values to shape the way I was being and acting in my love life. AND the poor guys I had dated were all blamed for not living up to my standards and ideals of how they should and shouldn’t be. I realized it was my ways of being and acting that wasn’t allowing an abundance of love into my love life.
I was then faced with the challenge of discovering what principles and values I wanted to create for myself and my love life. I knew that it would all start with how much I value myself and how much love minimum, I am willing to let in to flourish into a romantic relationship. I began to perceive men differently; I began to create what a mutually abundant relationship would look like and stood inside of that. I then discovered what was possible for the relationship I could have with myself if I created principles and values for those ways of being and acting. I began to see a whole new world of possibilities for myself in every aspect of my life.
Sometimes we find ourselves being influenced by the standards and ideals around us and we don’t even realize them overtaking our principles and values we’ve set into place for ourselves. The more you bring self-awareness to your ways of being and acting and align them with your principles and values, the more you will find yourself catching yourself getting caught up in those standards and ideals. You’ll be able to then push them aside and grab back on to your principles and values. Be patient and loving with yourself, give yourself the space you need to build that muscle and ingrain it into your memory and every day way of being and acting.
Want to share with me the principles and values you’ve created for yourself that inspire you to live your life powerfully and love yourself whole heartedly? Find me on Instagram @ambersabourin
Love always,
Amberly
