More Bad Words

More bad words

My kids know that the phrase “I can’t” is just as bad as using the f-word. But I had a very interesting conversation with my 4-year-old son in the car this morning about the word hate. He was telling me how someone in preschool said a bad word yesterday (probably the fourth time I had heard the story) and the word was hate.

​Then he wanted to know why hate is a bad word. Hmmm… how to explain this to a 4-year-old. I have a feeling that the response that I came up with should be told exactly like that to our world’s leaders, but I digress. I explained that hate only brings hate and that nothing good will ever come from hate.
 
This goes for being haters to ourselves as well. If you are constantly looking in the mirror hating on yourself and hating things about how you look – what does that do for you? My mom used to always say “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” – of course I didn’t get it for years (oh, those lovely teenage years).
 
The same goes for yourself – if you lead with hating on yourself or picking yourself apart (oh look at these stretch marks, wrinkles, etc) this only breeds more hate and negativity inside of you. To start making a shift – start by leading with love. Leading with love when it comes to yourself is so important as a parent to show children how to do it too.
 
You are amazing at just being you and when you lead with love towards yourself, you become the best version of yourself. You start working on loving yourself in how you talk to yourself, treat yourself and doing the things that make you happy. Bonus side effect as a parent – you become a happier and healthier parent.
 
If our children are the future, shouldn’t we be teaching our kids how to love themselves and be happy with who they are? But like any other parent knows – you can talk a good game until you are blue in the face. You have to live it first – kids are not stupid and they are watching. If you want them to love themselves, you need to start loving yourself for who you are. We have to show them how, just like you teach them to tie their shoes, wipe their butt and brush their teeth.
 
Self-love can start in small ways like the way you talk to yourself (yes, even in your head) and your own self-care. Just by taking smalls steps towards taking care of yourself you will see a huge trickle down in results in other areas of your life as well. Don’t wait though – start by loving yourself a little more today. You are worth love – believing that starts by getting into your heart and out of your head.
 
Remember…
Life is What You Choose
XO Renea