how to fall madly in love with yourself 02

HowtoFallMadlyinLove

withYourself

By:SandraDawson,MA,MFTAmerica’sMostLovingRelationshipExpert

http://www.FallMadlyInLoveWithYourself.com

Copyright©2007SandraDawson,MA,MFT

AllRightsReserved

How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson

© Copyright 2007 ii

Advice For Love Relationships


© Copyright 2007 i

Copyright Notice

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical. Any unauthorized use, sharing, reproduction, or distribution is strictly prohibited.

Legal Notice

While attempts have been made to verify information provided in this publication, neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibilities for errors, omissions, or contradictory information contained herein. This book is not intended to be psychotherapy. The purchaser or reader of this book assumes all responsibility for the use of this information and materials. Sandra Dawson, MA, MFT or the Institute for Self-Love assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever on behalf of any purchaser or reader of these materials.


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Table of Contents

Forward: “How to Use this eBook”

Chapter One: Journey to Self-Love…………………………. 2

Chapter Two: Why You Lack Self-Love……..........................6

Chapter Three: Motivating Yourself to Change…………........9

Chapter Four: Change is Your Friend………………………..13

Chapter Five: Loving Yourself Unconditionally…….……..19

Chapter Six: Taking Responsibility for Your Own Life….23

Chapter Seven: Becoming a Self-Nurturing Person…………28

Chapter Eight: Your Roadmap to Success…………………..30

Chapter Nine: Setting Goals for Your Personal Growth….38

Chapter Ten: Writing Your Mini-Autobiography………....47

Chapter Eleven: Addressing Causes of Problems………..…54

Chapter Twelve: Changing Ego-States…………………………57

Chapter Thirteen: Committing to New Behaviors……….……..66

Chapter Fourteen: Your Self-Love System in Action…….…… 70

Chapter Fifteen: Celebrating Your Successes………….……81


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FORWARD

“How to Use this eBook”

“How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself” is a system of change that I have

created for you. My recommendation is that you first read the whole book,

with one small exception, and then go back to “Goal Setting for Your

Personal Growth” and start working on the exercises. The one exception is

writing the first 5 years of your life, mini-autobiography. If you have

questions along the way, you can reach me at:

www.fallmadlyinlovewithyourself.com

About Sandra Dawson, MA

For the past 9 years, I have been a Licensed Marriage and Family

Therapist in California and in February of 2008, I moved to New York to join

my daughter and her family. Very soon I will be licensed in New York as a

Marriage and Family Therapist as well. My new business name in New

York is Institute for Self-Love. Before becoming a Marriage and Family

Therapist, I was a personal growth trainer for corporations like ITT, Hughes

Aircraft, GUESS?, LA Times, Clinishare, and Northrop. My passion is

helping human beings to love themselves 100%


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Chapter 1

Journey to Self-Love

Congratulations, you have chosen to give yourself the most wonderful gift

you could ever give yourself. The purpose of “How to Fall Madly in Love

with Yourself” is to guide you to loving and accepting yourself 100%. I

know you can love and accept yourself 100%, because I have learned to do

this myself.

You may be wondering, “why can you succeed just

because I have?” This is a great question!

The answer is that my self-love was so low at one point in my life that I was

considering suicide to escape from the pain I was in. I also had a very

strong desire to live and enjoy life. So, while I knew I had a problem, I

made it my life’s purpose to figure out how to love and accept myself so that

the pain would go away. I thought that I wouldn’t have to leave this

wonderful world to get the relief I so desperately needed, if I could learn to

love myself.

I was right. Loving yourself is necessary to have positive feelings about

yourself. You know that is true, and that is why you are motivated to change

the negative patterns in your life to positive ones. Honor your strong desire

to live and enjoy life. Don’t let anyone talk you out of experiencing the

happiness you deserve to have.


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I now love myself and want to show you “How to Fall Madly in Love with

Yourself”. This is my life’s purpose and I am an expert at helping people

learn to love themselves. You can succeed. I know you can. Every human

being has the ability to love and accept themselves 100%, if they will learn

how. I will show you how.

If you are in great pain right now, I want to assure you that you can work

through that pain and learn to love yourself. When you love and accept

yourself, your daily experience of life is one of joy and excitement. You

deserve to experience joy and excitement! You have been living with much

pain for a long time, but this pain can stop the instant you decide you are

lovable and ok. I will show you how to make positive decisions about

yourself. I will guide you the whole way, and you will succeed.

If your pain feels unbearable, please seek help. You may need to be in

psychotherapy, or you can contact me for coaching.

It is important to know that many people are on the same journey to self-

love that you are on. You are not alone. You feel all alone, because the lack

of self-love leaves you isolated and feeling unworthy of love from others.

Let’s end this pain you are going through, and work together to realize all of

your dreams in life. They can all come true, when you love and accept

yourself.


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This is the book I wish I could have read when I

embarked on my own path to self-love. You will learn everything you need to learn to understand what you need to

do, and how to do it. You will ultimately recover your true self, and you will

get back on the path you are meant to be on, to fulfill your purpose in life. I

am honored to be helping you.

“How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself” is all about recovering your true

self. Your true self always knows what you are feeling, thinking and

wanting. Your true self spontaneously and freely asks to have your needs

met. What would your life be like right now, if you knew what you wanted,

how you were feeling and what your thoughts truly were? Wouldn’t it be

quite different? Wouldn’t you be happy and fulfilled? Isn’t this the basis of

happiness and fulfillment….meeting your needs? The answer is a big yes!

To embark on a path to true self-love is a big step to take. This is why

congratulations are in order for you. I feel blessed that I have arrived

myself at a time and place to put my learning experiences into a written

form to pass my knowledge on to you, so you may speed up your growth

and have as many years as possible of true joy and love.

That’s why I say I wish this book had been available to me when I started

my journey. I wanted to grow to love myself much faster than I was able to.

I was in pain, and I wanted to be out of pain, fast! Fast wasn’t possible,

because all the information I needed was not in one place. All the


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information you need is now in one place in “How to Fall Madly in Love

with Yourself”.

Yes, I am very grateful that I love myself now, but a treasured part of my

gift to you and your growth is your ability to make very positive changes in

less time. I want to work with you. I also want to help you make the

changes you need to make as quickly as you would like.

Let’s get going. You deserve to love yourself and I will show you how,

starting now. Whatever you want for yourself today can be yours, and it

will be yours, as long as you work on loving yourself. Are you willing to let

go of the negative beliefs and self-talk that you use to discount and demean

yourself, even if you aren’t aware of what your internal dialogue is at this

very moment? Your answer must be yes, since you are reading my ebook,

“How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself”. I know you want to value

yourself, your talents, and not obscure your true nature any more. Let’s

work together on your journey to self-love.


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Chapter 2

Why You Lack Self-Love

I would never have known the true joy of love and life had I not pursued my

own path. It is a tragedy to miss out on living a life that is true to yourself.

So many people are lost and unhappy. So many people are living lives that

were taught to them by parents who didn’t know any better. So many

people lack self-love. If you are not realizing your talents and full potential

for love and self-development, you are going to feel deeply unhappy and

confused.

What a tragedy when any human being fails to realize his or her true self. If

you start off in great pain, and end in great pain, you never get to

experience the true joy of love and life. While this kind of tragedy is

occurring every day on our planet, it is not the true order of things. And it

is not what you want for your life. I know that, because you are reading,

“How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself.”

The true order of things is parents and primary caregivers who teach us

how to love ourselves. They are capable of teaching us, because they know

how to love themselves. What so many of us have been so deeply affected

by is the fact that many past generations have not been taught to love

themselves, and because of this, our parents could not teach us.


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You, like all human beings have learned to be who you are during your early

years of development through interactions with your parents. You

depended upon them to survive. They were the most important people in

your life. That wasn’t an illusion. Children cannot survive without

caregivers. You needed parents or primary caregivers, who could teach you

how to love yourself, but they didn’t know how to do that for themselves, so

they could not teach you.

No Child can Grow and Develop All Alone You therefore had to do it their way, no matter how unloving their way may

have been at the time. The good news is now you don’t have to do it their

way. You can change. You can love yourself and undo the negatives you

learned as a child. You can learn about the process of change and apply it

to your life, so you can experience joy and excitement every day.

If you were criticized frequently as a child, you have taken in those negative

messages and you have created a life that is true to them. If you were told

you are not smart, over and over, no matter how well you did in school, you

will believe you are not smart until you make a decision to change that

belief. If you were told you were fat over and over and not shown ways to

be thinner, you will believe you are supposed to be fat, and you will behave

in ways to maintain that state of being.

When you maintain a state of being that you were taught as a child, you are

also unconsciously maintaining a bond with your parents. If you do what

they tell you to do, even now as an adult, you earn their approval


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unconsciously, and with that approval comes a feeling of closeness and

connection. It’s a positive feeling. As a child you could not survive without

that bond.

What you need to learn now is that you can survive without that bond to an

unhealthy parent. Instead, what you really need is a warm bond with

yourself, and that’s what I will be helping you to develop.

In Summary You do not need to depend upon your parents or primary caregivers any

longer, now that you are an adult. You can become aware of the negative

conditions of your childhood, and change the negative beliefs you

developed to positive beliefs. You can do this by using my process of

change, which I will guide you through. The steps include becoming aware

of negative beliefs and behaviors, grieving your losses, expressing your

feelings and re-deciding that you are okay in any way you want to believe.

There are obstacles to achieving success. I will be helping you to identifying

your obstacles so you can remove and move on in your life.


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Chapter 3

Motivating Yourself to Change

The best way to motivate yourself to change is to imagine the negative

consequences you will experience or that you will continue to experience in

your life, if you don’t change.

Here’s an example of how imagining the worst outcome can motivate you.

When I was in my twenties, I was a smoker. I wanted to stop, because my

father died of lung cancer. I stopped and started smoking again and again,

so many times, that my friends were convinced I would never succeed.

Then I started imagining myself with cancer. I saw myself in the hospital

dying. This picture of me having cancer was so terrifying, it motivated me

to stop smoking. I was finally successful. I set goals for myself. I made lots

of little new decisions about smoking. New decisions, like:

• I didn’t need to smoke when I drank a cup of coffee.

• I could enjoy a glass of wine without smoking.

• I could be around others who smoked and not indulge myself.

• I could replace my unhealthy habit with a healthy one, like

breathing deeply doing yoga.

When you make new, positive decisions about yourself, you will succeed at

making the changes you desire.


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If you take a moment now to imagine what your life will be like if you don’t

fall madly in love with yourself, you will be motivated to make new

decisions about yourself and your behavior.

I know you want the best for yourself. That is why you are reading “How to

Fall Madly in Love with Yourself.” You will succeed. I will be showing you

how, and helping you with every step along the way.

My process of change for you will guide our work together. First you will

become aware of a problem you are having. Then you will explore your

personal history to discover the roots of your problem. Confronting

yourself with information will help you overcome your natural tendency to

deny any negatives in your past. Reading ‘How to Fall Madly in Love with

Yourself” will help you confront yourself with information.

I will be here to help support you while you deal with your past. You will

explore your options, and commit to new behaviors and beliefs. Before you

know it, you will be living your dream life.

Human Beings are Highly Motivated

to Avoid Pain The principle here that underlies success in accomplishing difficult

emotional goals is that as a human being, you are more motivated to avoid

pain than you are motivated to seek pleasure. This doesn’t mean that

motivating yourself by imagining pleasure won’t work. It will also work.



But it does mean that imagining painful consequences can be more

motivating, than imagining pleasurable outcomes.

If you find that other methods are not working to keep you motivated to

make changes you really want to make, it will be time for you to employ

imagining the worst possible outcome. Since the worst could actually

happen, you will be motivated to make the changes necessary to avoid

having to experience this negative outcome. This is a smart technique to

use to get you to make important changes in your life.

Re-deciding Is Also Important What is re-deciding? Re-deciding is changing negative beliefs or behaviors

to positive ones. You can’t just think about positive beliefs or positive

behaviors and succeed at making changes in your life. You must actually

change your beliefs and/or behaviors. To change them is a choice you

make. Re-deciding will be critical for you in order to make lasting changes.

I will be helping you in many, many, many ways to re-decide that you are

okay, to create new positive rules to live by, and to change negative

behaviors to positive ones. I will be helping you to raise your awareness of

the possible causes of your problems, and I will help motivate you to solve

the problems you identify.

It’s important that you have help to solve each and every one of your

problems. I’m an expert at solving problems, and I’m passionate about

helping people to enjoy enhanced self-love along with the peace and



contentment that comes from it. I am here to help you. Don’t hesitate to

reach out for support.

I am here to help you increase your awareness of your problems, your

motivation to change, and your ability to re-decide who you really are. You

are doing a great job, and you have the potential to grow, if that is what you

want to do. Growth is infinite for all of us.



Chapter 4

Change is Your Friend

Change is part of life, and if you observe reality, you will see it everywhere.

Since reality is your best friend, that makes change, at the very least, your

friend. Human beings have been adapting to changes on the planet earth

for millions of years.

You are very capable of making changes. You may not enjoy the feelings

that you must deal with when you decide to make changes, but I am sure

you do enjoy the positive outcomes you achieve. And when you get good at

making changes in your personal life, you will start to accept all the

discomfort as part of a truly enjoyable life.

Awareness is the first step in the process of

change.

Are you aware of what has happened to you? Do you know your personal

history well enough to understand why you do not love yourself today?

With awareness of your past, you will learn what you need to change today

to enjoy loving yourself, and to enjoy all of the benefits that come from

accepting and loving your true self, like successful love relationships and

fulfilling careers.



Exploring Your Options

I want to make the process of change as comfortable as possible for you.

With support, you will be able to deal with your resistance to change. You

will feel anger, fear, sadness, blame and sometimes apathy as you explore

your personal history.

You will feel anger as you truly realize how you have been prevented from

becoming your wonderful, capable, lovable true self. I understand and

accept anger as part of your growth. Anger does not make you a bad

person. It makes you a full human being.

Anger is necessary to survive as a human being on this planet. Anger is

truly simply feedback from our bodies telling us that we are not getting

something that we need and want. Anger generates energy in your body so

that you can solve the problem you are having. Anger is meant to be used

to solve problems, not to hurt yourself or others. You will learn to use your

anger to guide you to greater self-love.

Anger is not supposed to be denied. It is supposed to be supported and

used to figure out what is the best way to solve your current problem.

Let’s say you go to school every day and the kids make fun of who you are.

You are different from the other kids in some way that you cannot change.

You may have dark skin. You may be a different nationality. You may be

smarter. You may be prettier. No matter how you are different, you want



to be treated with respect and acceptance, but you are made fun of instead.

Natural feelings in this situation are sadness for loss of acceptance, and

anger, because you are not getting what you want, and fear because each

day it may happen again.

Now imagine you go home, and you are told that you should not be angry or

you are told to not listen to the kids. Or you are told to ignore them or say

mean things back to them. None of these behaviors resolves the issue of

your self-acceptance and self-worth. With continual put downs, you are

going to start believing that something is wrong with you. You are born

with DNA that will motivate you to wanting to believe you are okay. If your

parents or primary caregivers do not understand that you need a positive,

supportive environment to continue to believe you are okay, you will suffer

in this situation.

Your anger, which was needed to solve the problem, is repressed and you

are then left thinking there is something wrong with you, because of the

way you are being treated.

It is not true. You are wonderful and lovable for being exactly who you are.

No one should have been allowed to mistreat you. Your parents needed

training in encouraging you to use the energy from your anger to hold onto

your positive beliefs about yourself in your negative situation. Your parents

should have also gotten you out of this situation as quickly as possible.

That would have been teaching you how to love yourself.



If you were taken out of this emotionally abusive situation, you would have

learned to leave negative environments. Instead, you may have learned to

stay and put up with negative put downs. Your ability to love yourself will

suffer with an emotionally abusive environment, and lack of proper

parental support. This is just one example of many ways you could have

learned how to not to love yourself.

Identifying What You Want to Change

As an adult you first become aware of the causes of the problems in your

life. The second step is identifying what you want to change. When you

decide to confront your childhood abuse, you now can explore new options

such as loving yourself. You can explore speaking up to people who abuse

you, like saying “stop”. You can deal with your self-doubt and discover that

you always knew what was healthy for you. You get to decide what you

want to change.

I will recommend that you change negative beliefs that you learned, and

that you change negative behaviors that reinforce those beliefs. Can you

now see how Change is Your Friend? Because you were born with the

ability to change, you are not stuck with a negative, unfulfilling life. You

can explore it, and make whatever changes you decide will be best for you.



The Process of Change In the process of change, you will need to grieve losses in your life, so a big

part of change is letting go and accepting new and better ideas and

behaviors. When you identify something you want to change, you will

automatically be dealing with sadness. You will need to grieve your losses

and work through your thoughts and feelings to arrive at a place of self-

acceptance and acceptance of what once was.

Some of you will be able to do this on your own, with the support of family

and friends. Others will need support. Asking for support may feel

shameful to you.

If it is shameful for you to ask, ironically, that is more of a reason for you to

reach out and ask for some support. No human being becomes all they can

be without the help of other human beings. Support is natural and you

should be expecting it. So please find someone who is willing to nurture

and support your growth.

Why Sandra Dawson is Here to

Support You

Just like surviving childhood alone is not possible, dealing with your

feelings alone is not recommended. I am here to coach you step by step in



“How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself,” and I am available to talk with

you at any time you want and need support as your Relationship Coach.

If you are in therapy, please talk with your therapist about everything you

are learning. You need a warm and accepting environment to recover from

your dysfunctional and/or abusive childhood, and to make positive

decisions about who you are. “How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself”

will help you grow faster.

Something is going on in your life right now which is motivating you to take

a hard look at yourself. You probably didn’t receive much support as a

child. You may not even expect support now, but you do need it! Please

know that support is necessary to recover and to fall madly in love with

yourself. No one loves and accepts themselves without feeling love and

acceptance from another person.

It takes courage to open yourself up now to getting the validation and

acceptance you never got. I am here to validate and accept you. It is my

mission in life to help you believe in yourself, to expect the best and to get

the best for yourself.

If you are like me, and I think you are, you do not want your life to stay the

way it is today. I am here to help you succeed. I believe in you and know

you deserve to love and accept yourself 100%. I am here to support you as

you work through “How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself.”



Chapter 5

Loving Yourself Unconditionally

We don’t usually think about falling madly in love with ourselves do we?

Some of you might feel lucky to even like yourself. I know this is a stretch,

but it is a stretch that will bring you the peace and joy you have always

wanted. I believe you have learned to demean and discount yourself and

you can unlearn it. Loving yourself unconditionally will be an important

part of your journey to self-love.

Falling madly in love with yourself will keep you motivated to grow and

heal yourself on your journey to self-love. This is the real deal. I have made

the changes I am showing you how to make, and so have many, many

clients of mine, so I know you can make them too.

Success in Love and Life Success in love and life starts with loving yourself unconditionally and

conditionally. For example, saying “I’m wonderful” or “I’m important” or

“I’m smart” are all statements that reflect self-love and the real you. If you

cannot point to an accomplishment that proves you are smart, you should

be able to believe you are smart unconditionally. Do you? If you have done

something fabulous, maybe you will be able to believe you are smart, but in

this case the belief is conditional. It is based on something you have done.

It is perfectly okay to have conditional self-love, but it is not okay to lack

unconditional self-love as well. Actually, both are necessary.



You Learned How to Do It Many of you have internalized negative messages like, “you’re selfish,

you’re bad, you’ll never amount to anything, you’re stupid, or you’re fat.”

This list could go on and on, and it usually does. You were constantly told

that you needed to behave differently. Now you’re the one who beats

yourself up. You learned how to do it, and you are very good at it.

And to make matters worse, at the same time you internalized these

negative messages, you also made a lot of negative decisions about yourself.

So now, due to this mistreatment of yourself, you are deeply alienated from

your real self. Beliefs like, “I’m not good enough, or something is wrong

with me, or I’m not smart enough, or I can’t do anything, or I’m bad, or I’m

unlovable, or I’m not pretty enough” are keeping you stuck.

Cultural Messages

Can Block You Too Many of you are also blocked from loving yourselves because of cultural

messages you repeatedly heard. For example, you may have learned that

being vulnerable is a negative thing in your family, and then it got

reinforced socially. When your emotional safety is not protected or is

shamed in any way, both at home or in school, you will lack trust in people.

This lack of trust will lead you to isolate yourself from other people as a way

to protect yourself from experiencing that pain again. It’s



emotionally painful to be criticized, made fun of and put down in any way.

Sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will hurt you too!

You can grieve the loss of emotional safety, and ultimately accept the fact

that you are vulnerable. You can grow to enjoy your vulnerability and be

with other people who are emotionally safe to be with. Yes, you can find

safe people to relate to, and learn what a wonderful feeling it is to fully

express your real self again without being emotionally attacked or abused.

You can finally be free to be you.

And if you are put down, you can learn to ignore the content of any negative

message, so that the arrow doesn’t penetrate and hurt you. Loving yourself

has the power to protect you from emotional adversity, and to allow you to

assert yourself to take care of your needs under all circumstances. That

includes positive and negative circumstances, alike.

You May Have a Distorted

Perception of Yourself If you didn’t get positive feedback about your unique thoughts, talents,

feelings, and wants from your family and your social environment growing

up, then your self-image may be suffering. You may have a distorted

perception or self-image of yourself. You can update your internal image of

yourself, and learn to clearly see and accept your wonderful real self.



Your negative beliefs are all false, but you don’t know that yet. And they

have immense power to keep you stuck in patterns of loveless relationships,

boring jobs and a sense of hopelessness and fear about life in general. That

is why they must go. And go they will by giving them up and learning to

love yourself unconditionally and conditionally.

Loving Yourself Unconditionally Loving yourself unconditionally means: accepting your innate uniqueness,

your creativity, your intelligence, your curiosity, your intuition, your

wisdom, your loving nature, your sense of humor, your playfulness, your

spontaneity and your infinite potential to grow. You undoubtedly have lost

your ability to love yourself unconditionally, so I am inviting you to

reconsider that decision. It is not in your best interest to deprive yourself

of unconditional self-love.

Loving yourself conditionally means recognizing and valuing what you

have learned and developed about yourself like learning to become an

accountant, a baseball player, a great mom or dad, a musician, a hair stylist,

a model, a comedian, a manager, an artist, a public speaker, an author or a

teacher. Loving yourself conditionally is earned by you. You can be proud

of your achievements, because you earned them, and you can be proud of

your unconditional qualities simply because all human beings are born with

them. You are no different, even if you feel like you are right now!



Chapter 6

Taking Responsibility for Your Own Life

When you don’t love yourself, you may blame others for the choices you

have made as an adult, which is the opposite of taking responsibility for

your own life. Some of you will do this, because your childhood was

oppressive, and you will need to vent your anger in order to regain your

power. Some of you will do this because your parents didn’t understand or

respect your boundaries. Instead they put unrealistic demands upon you

and you never got to experience your need for freedom and independence.

So now as an adult, you defer to other’s demands, and you find yourself

furious at them for putting pressure on you. You aren’t furious with

yourself for accepting these demands, but that is where your growth will

take you. You will learn to take full responsibility for your feelings, your

wants, your thoughts and your behavior.

Anger is a Stage of Recovery It’s important for you to recognize that your anger is a stage of recovery and

that it eventually leads to forgiveness of yourself and others. Yes, you will

need to forgive yourself for hurting yourself in any way as an adult, and

ultimately, to accept responsibility for whatever actions you have taken.

This doesn’t mean your parents weren’t responsible for what they did, or



that your society wasn’t responsible either. Both failed you, and the truth of

these failures cannot be discounted.

Your growth now, however, is dependent upon regaining your power, and

working on learning to take responsibility for every choice you make or

have made as an adult. Taking responsibility will strengthen you and

speed up your recovery.

As an adult, you really want to be in charge of your destiny, because that is

a human need. It is built into our genetic code to grow to become

independent and self-responsible. If you currently feel stuck in a state of

dependence and truly believe you are not responsible, this is a defense

mechanism you have developed to cope with a childhood situation that

prevented you from growing into your natural state of independence.

Denial is a Defense Mechanism The truth is that denying your past is affecting your present life is a defense

mechanism, or denying you are responsible as an adult for your actions is

also a defense mechanism. A defense mechanism is a false decision you

make to protect yourself from negative feelings like sadness, fear and anger.

It makes complete sense to use the defense mechanism of denial to block

feeling sad, scared and angry as a child, because no one is there to comfort

you when you have these feelings.

Children need comfort to deal with intense, negative emotions. So you

decide that feeling sad is not okay or that there is no such thing as sadness,

and your decision blocks feeling sad. You decide feeling scared is not okay,



and again your decision blocks feeling scared. You decide anger is bad, and

that decision blocks feeling angry. You decide you have no power, and

therefore, you are not responsible. This blocks your feeling of

powerlessness. All these decisions are untrue, but they work to protect you

as a child.

Denial Really Works

But Only for Awhile The defense mechanism of denial really works. You will be protected from

feeling these uncomfortable feelings. While you are young and dependent

on others for your survival, denial will protect you.

As an adult, your life will be disappointing to say the least if you hold onto

your false beliefs about yourself and continue to deny the feelings that go

along with these untrue beliefs. But something upsetting usually happens

when you are an adult, that causes so much anger, sadness or fear that you

no longer can deny your feelings, your past or your responsibility in

creating your life.

That is what happened to me. I denied my childhood until my first

marriage ended. I didn’t want my marriage to end, but my first husband

abandoned me by having one affair after another. After two years of

putting up with no relationship, I couldn’t go along with the situation any

longer. I wanted a divorce and that is what I got.



When I moved into my new apartment as a single mom, the pain, and anger

and fear of my repressed childhood experiences erupted. I actually couldn’t

stop crying when I was alone, and the level of anxiety I was experiencing

was very high.

All I knew before getting into therapy was that I hated my mom and dad,

but I didn’t know why until I started talking about my childhood history.

Up until that time in my life, I had to deny my childhood, because it was so

abusive. Denial protected me from all of the negative feelings of pain and

fear I experienced when I was little. Denial was good for me as a child, but

to recover and live a joyful, love-filled life, I needed to give up the defense

mechanism of denial.

Idealizing Your Childhood is a

Defense Mechanism I also used the defense mechanism of thinking my childhood was ideal to

protect myself from the fear and sadness that actually existed. When my

first marriage ended, I could no longer deny the truth of those early years.

Here’s a quick summary of my childhood. My mother hated me and my

father threatened my life until he died when I was 18.

This is not an ideal childhood, and it was so painful and full of so much

fear, that thinking it was a perfect childhood, helped to block the real

feelings. In hindsight, it was a blessing, to have my feelings break through

my defenses. Because I couldn’t block my true feelings any longer, I had to



work on healing my childhood wounds and learning to love myself. As a

result, I now have a wonderful, loved-filled life that I never could have had,

had I stayed in denial.

If you are going through a crisis now, you have a great opportunity to heal

your past and move forward. Falling madly in love with yourself is moving

forward. Recognizing that you need to care more about yourself is brilliant

on your part.

Please don’t give up no matter how hard it gets. You will succeed. You will

turn your life around, and make it everything you want it to be.



Chapter 7

Becoming a Self-Nurturing Person

When you succeed at falling madly in love with yourself, you will become a

self-nurturing person. A self-nurturing person loves and accepts

themselves unconditionally, takes care of all of their needs, and enjoys the

balance of both giving and receiving love in their relationships.

When you take care of your needs, you will manifest important qualities

such as being self-accepting, self-responsible, action-oriented, expressive of

your real self, and capable of self-soothing. Becoming a self-nurturing

person is the goal of falling madly in love with yourself, and the benefits are

unending.

When you become a self-nurturing person and start taking care of all of

your needs, you will fall madly in love with yourself. Why? Because this is

how human beings have been created. We feel great pleasure when our

needs are met. We have strong desires, and we feel strong emotions when

our desires are fulfilled.

When you anticipate that your needs are going to be met, you will feel

intense pleasure. When you behave in a way that allows you to anticipate

that your needs will be met on a regular basis, because you are committed

to taking care of yourself, you will fall madly in love with yourself. You will



be happy with yourself. You will feel proud of yourself, and you will feel

strong and confident.

The Chemistry of Attraction Falling madly in love with yourself is based on the chemistry of attraction.

You may not know this, but when you fall in love with another person, it is

because you unconsciously believe that person is going to meet emotional

needs that

weren’t met for you when you were a young child. The chemistry of

attraction is actually triggered by the expectation of your need satisfaction.

The chemistry of attraction is another way of describing intense pleasure

which is felt when you expect a need to be met.

By committing to meeting your own needs, you will trigger the chemistry of

attraction within you. You will feel happy, excited, satisfied, fulfilled and

content, all at the same time, because you know you will be fulfilling your

needs 100%. And your stress level will be significantly reduced, if not

completely eradicated, most of the time.

Congratulations again for becoming a self-nurturing person. This is truly

the best gift you can be giving yourself.



Chapter 8

Your Roadmap to Success

If you’re going to succeed at truly loving your self, you’ll need a roadmap

and a vision of how your life could be if you cared enough to truly make

yourself a priority. I know that you deserve to be happy and joyful and to

have your dreams come true. I know this, because I have made the changes

necessary to go from thinking there was something wrong with me, to now

believing in myself 100%. You can make the same changes and I am going

to show you how.

Maslow’s

Hierarchy of Needs

Let’s now get started on specific steps you can take on your journey to self-

love. It’s time to become a self-nurturing person, and we will use

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as your roadmap to success.

Abraham Maslow was a Humanistic Psychologist. He outlined a theory of

personality in the 1940’s that so accurately describes personal development

that it still is an important model for personal growth. That is why I believe

it is a great tool to use as a roadmap for developing your self-nurturing

skills.



Maslow noticed early in his career that some needs take precedence over

others. For example, if you are hungry and thirsty at the same time, you

will tend to try to take care of your thirst first. The reason for this is that

you can do without food for weeks, but you can only do without water for a

couple of days! Thus, thirst is a “stronger” need than hunger.

Needs theory suggests that the lower needs on the hierarchy are the first

ones encountered, and the higher needs are realized only after the lower

needs are gratified. Thus, the lower a need is on the hierarchy of needs, the

more it dominates when it is in a state of deprivation. The more a need is

gratified, the less important it is, and the more important the next higher

need becomes.

In developing the hierarchy of needs, Maslow identified five levels of needs

starting with our Physical Needs, followed by our Safety and

Security Needs, our Belonging and Acceptance Needs, our Self-Esteem

Needs, and our Self-Actualization Needs at the top of the pyramid.

According to this theory, and according to many people’s personal

experience, including my own, when a lower level need emerges, it will take

precedence over higher level needs if we love ourselves and truly take care

of ourselves. The order in which you will meet your needs starts with

physical needs and goes up the hierarchy of needs as follows:



Level One:

Physical Needs

Generally, these needs are for very basic ones such as food, water, shelter,

clothing, air, touch, structure, exercise, relaxation, rest, sleep, a calm

nervous system, stimulation and good health.

Physical needs can be described specifically. At a more specific level,

physical needs consist of the need for oxygen, water, protein, salt, calcium,

and many other minerals and vitamins. They also include the need to

maintain a proper pH balance, a proper body temperature, sufficient

physical strength, and the need to excrete wastes from the body. This

description is not all inclusive. It is just a general description to give you an

idea of what physical needs are.

Level Two:

Safety and Security Needs

When your physical needs are satisfied, the need for safety and security

comes into play. Generally, safety and security needs consist of being safe

or protected from danger, and having the means to satisfy your physical

needs on an on-going basis.



At this level of need, you will become increasingly interested in finding safe

surroundings, stability, protection, organization or order, and some limits.

This usually translates into a desire to have a home in a safe neighborhood,

job security, safe and trustworthy friends and family, money in the bank for

a rainy day, a good retirement plan, and insurance for an unexpected

disaster.

Level Three:

Belonging and Acceptance Needs

When physical and safety and security needs are mostly taken care of, a

third level of need starts to show up. This is where you begin to feel the

need for friends, a love relationship, children, warm and affectionate

relationships in general, and even a sense of community.

In this stage, you will seek to overcome feelings of loneliness and

alienation. Your family is supposed to be the first place you experience the

fulfillment of your needs for belonging and acceptance, along with your

need for safety and security and your physical needs.

Belonging and acceptance needs manifest in your desire to marry, to have a

family, to be a part of a community, to be a member of a religious

organization, to be a brother in a fraternity, to be a sister in a sorority, to be



in a gang or to be in a bowling club. The need for belonging and acceptance

is also partly what we look for in our career.

Level Four:

Self-Esteem Needs

When our belonging and acceptance needs are met, the need for self-

esteem arises. Self-esteem is the need to believe you are capable and

deserving of self-respect. When this need is met, you live more consciously,

you are more responsible, you are more expressive of your real self, you

know who you are, what your purpose in life is, and you have personal

integrity, which means you don’t suffer with internal conflicts about who

you are.

Maslow identified two versions of self-esteem needs. One is the need for

the respect of others, for status, fame, glory, recognition, attention,

reputation, appreciation, dignity, and even dominance. The other involves

the need for self-respect, including such feelings as self-confidence, self-

worth, competence, achievement, and mastery. When these needs are not

met, you can feel that your self-esteem is low and generally suffer from a

feeling of inferiority.



Level Five:

Self-Actualization Needs

Self- actualization means growing to become all you can be, and continually

growing to reach your top potential. When all of your prior needs are

mostly met, you can focus on growing to become the person you were “born

to be.”

When your growth needs are not met, you can feel on edge, and like

something in your life is lacking. While it isn’t as easy to figure out your

self-actualization needs, it is possible and it is extremely important to do so,

in order to create a fulfilling life for yourself.

Self- actualization means growing to become all you can be, and continually

growing to reach your top potential. If you are isolated and unloved, you

will focus on meeting this need. If you have low self-esteem, you will be

compensating for your

state of being, and hence, not at a point in your life where you can focus on

your self-actualization needs.

When your lower needs are not satisfied, you will not be able to devote

yourself to fulfilling your top potential. The values that Maslow identified as

needs for self-actualized people consist of:

• a strong desire for truth along with a strong rejection of dishonesty.

• a strong preference for goodness and strong rejection of evil.



• a desire for meaning in life, not a void of deep understanding.

• an appreciation of beauty and rejection of ugliness and vulgarity.

• a strong need for unity and wholeness and resolution of conflicts.

• a deep experience of aliveness, not deadness or a rigidity in life.

• wanting to develop one’s uniqueness and not settling for conformity.

• consciously achieved perfection as opposed to inconsistency.

• a deep need for justice and order, not lawlessness and chaos.

Growing to Become

All You Can Be

Growing to become all you can be or becoming a self-actualized person is a

deeply satisfying achievement. Maslow believed that only 2% of the

population gets to this level. While there is really no way of knowing how

many people accomplish this in their life time, you can be one of those

people, if you truly want to be.

The secret to your success will be working on all of the needs below this one

on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Only then will you be truly ready to grow

to become all you can be. By working on fulfilling all of your lower needs,

you will feel grounded and ready to take on the next level of need. Because

it’s a genetic predisposition for all human beings, you will automatically

move up to Self-Actualization once your lower level needs are fulfilled.



Summary of Your

Roadmap to Success

If you are hungry, you will be busy looking for food. If you are unsafe, you

will be continuously on guard. When you lack relationships, you will feel

lonely and alienated. When you lack self-esteem, you will feel unworthy.

And when you lack self-actualization, you will feel edgy. All of these needs

can be met by you even if you didn’t learn how to meet them as a child. You

can learn how starting now.

Chapter 9



Setting Goals for Your Personal Growth

In stressful times, or when your survival is threatened, you will most

certainly “regress” to a lower need level on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

For example, if your job loses its value to you, you might seek out a little

attention elsewhere. If your marriage ends, you will feel again that love is

all you need. If you face severe financial losses, after a long and happy life,

you suddenly can’t think of anything except money.

Regression can occur on a society-wide basis as well. When your society

suddenly experiences a recession or depression, you will focus on security

needs over higher level needs. If war breaks out, you will be focusing on

safety needs. If shortages of food occur, you and everyone in your society

will become focused on physical needs, and not much else, unless they are

being met.

If you’ve had significant problems growing up, like a period of extreme

insecurity or hunger as a child, or the loss of a family member through

death or divorce, or significant neglect or abuse, you may be stuck in that

level of need for the rest of your life, if you don’t seek help and support to

make some changes. This was Maslow’s understanding of psychological

impairment, and his understanding has helped many people, like myself

and now you, to make significant changes in your life. By following

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you will be able to clearly identify goals to set

for your personal growth.



Identifying Your

Personal Growth Goals

You might have gone through a war or extreme poverty as a kid. But now

you have everything you need, so you wonder why you aren’t enjoying what

you have. The reason is, most likely, that you are still worrying about not

having enough money to maintain your physical needs. You would want to

make changing negative beliefs about money one of your personal growth

goals.

Maybe your parents divorced when you were young. That was traumatic

for you because you were too young to handle the enormity of the loss on

your own. And now, even though you have a wonderful spouse, you get

insanely jealous or worry constantly that you are going to be left. Perhaps

you have internalized the belief that you are not good enough, and you

don’t know that your internalized belief is what is driving your irrational

behavior, because it is an unconscious belief until you work on it to make it

conscious. It is also a false belief, but you don’t know that either. You

blamed yourself for the loss of your parent through divorce, and

unconsciously, you fear it will happen again. You will want to make

changing negative beliefs about the security of love relationships, one of

your personal growth goals.

Maybe you grew up poor, and now you’re successful beyond your wildest

dreams, but no matter how much money you make, you feel insecure and



fearful of losing it. It’s time to change these negative beliefs. It’s time to

make this one of your goals for personal growth.

Perhaps your parents were highly critical of you growing up. Today your

self-worth is suffering. When someone shows their love or friendship to

you, you tell them what is wrong with yourself or you think about how

unworthy you are. Either way, you have internalized your parent’s critical

behavior toward you, and now it isn’t safe emotionally for you to get close

to others. You feel stuck in a pattern of pushing friends and potential

partners away from you. Make this one of your goals for personal growth.

Perhaps your parents were verbally or physically abusive to you.

Relationships now have a disturbing pattern. You either avoid them

altogether or you find people who mistreat you like your parents did. Being

close is dangerous for you, so you either find ways to avoid being close

completely, or you deny the danger, and unconsciously manifest abusive

relationships all over again. Make this one of your goals for personal

growth.

Selecting Your Personal Growth Goals

Since you learned negative beliefs and attitudes about yourself, the good

news is that you can unlearn them. Falling madly in love with yourself will

motivate you to succeed, and will keep you on your journey to self-love.

Understanding and accepting that you’re a work in progress, like everyone

else, will help you to stay open to your own process of self-discovery.



Now it’s time to become a self-nurturing person. This means you will

commit to taking care of all of your needs, and as a result, you will fall

madly in love with yourself. We will use Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for

your roadmap to success.

By using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you can now identify specific areas

of growth to focus on. Below I have listed possible needs within each level

that you may want to select as a goal for yourself. Once you have identified

growth goals, you will then start the powerful work of making the changes

toward greater emotional health. I will show you how to do this.

Review the five levels of needs below and identify any areas that you would

like to improve. The areas listed will get you started on your path of

identifying specific causes to work on. If you have a journal, I recommend

using it now to write down any areas of need you would like to focus on, or

if you downloaded “How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself”, you can fill in

the blanks below. What are the problems in each level that you are

experiencing in your life today? Add any problems that you are facing if

they are not included below.

Write down what is occurring today, and next to that, what you want

instead:

Example: for Shelter: “I am renting a room and my roommate

annoys me every day, because I want to use the kitchen without

him, but he is always there. I want to have my own house or

apartment.”



Physical Needs:

Shelter-

___________________________________________________

Nutrition-

___________________________________________________

Exercise-

___________________________________________________

Health-

___________________________________________________

Touch-

___________________________________________________

Stimulation-

___________________________________________________

Other-

___________________________________________________

___________________________________________________

Example for Finances: “I lost my job several years ago and now I

am self-employed. No matter what I do, I cannot make enough

money to cover my expenses. I want to increase my yearly

income.”



Safety & Security Needs:

Finances-

___________________________________________________

Stability-

___________________________________________________

Protection-

___________________________________________________

Structure/Boundaries-

___________________________________________________

Freedom from fear-

___________________________________________________

Other-

Example for Relationships: “I am now a single mom. I feel so

depressed that my marriage has ended and I am afraid I will



never have a long-lasting and fulfilling love relationship. I

want to find my soul mate and live happily ever after.”

Belonging & Acceptance Needs:

Relationships-

___________________________________________________

Giving Love-

___________________________________________________

Receiving Love-

___________________________________________________

Friendships-

___________________________________________________

Community-

___________________________________________________

Other-

___________________________________________________

___________________________________________________

___________________________________________________

Example for Self-respect: “I let others control me. I want to assert

myself and do what I want to do.”



Self-Esteem Needs:

Self-respect-

___________________________________________________

Self-worth-

___________________________________________________

Confidence-

___________________________________________________

Achievement-

___________________________________________________

Independence-

___________________________________________________

Recognition-

___________________________________________________

Other-

Example for Personal Growth: “I am so bored with my job that I

could scream. I want to develop my talents and do work that

fulfills my purpose in live.”

Self-Actualization Needs:



Personal growth-

___________________________________________________

Purpose-

___________________________________________________

Realize full potential-

___________________________________________________

Working with passion-

___________________________________________________

Helping others to achieve their potential-

___________________________________________________

Understanding-

___________________________________________________

Other-

___________________________________________________

Congratulations! By identifying your problems, you have created a list of

personal growth goals. You have taken a very big step towards falling

madly in love with yourself. The next step on your journey to self-love is

discovering the underlying causes of your problems, because these causes

may be the real obstacles to your success.

Chapter 10

Writing Your Mini-Autobiography



One of the reasons I became a Marriage & Family Therapist is because I

know that our childhood experiences affect our lives greatly. In psychology,

there is the concept of doing family of origin work. Family of origin work is

nothing more than exploring your personal history, from the time you were

born to the present. By exploring it, you start to become aware of what you

learned and how it is affecting your life today.

Therapists have always understood the value of doing this kind of historical

work even when most people resist it, and deny that it has anything to do

with their present life. Exploring your past history is critical to your success

in learning to love yourself. I want to show you how it can benefit you on

your journey to self love.

You will see the value of your exploration as you go through all of the steps.

The Past is not Over and Done With There is no way to explore your personal history without bringing up strong

feelings. Many of the strong feelings that you will experience will not be

pleasant. For this reason, many people want to believe the past is over and

done with. But that is not true. The past is not over and done with. It is

alive and well and affecting your life negatively right now. And, until you

make the changes that are necessary to fall madly in love with yourself, you

will continue to suffer.

When you explore your personal history, you may feel much sadness. No

one wants to feel sad, so you may resist change in order to block feeling sad.

You may also feel scared. Fear is another uncomfortable feeling, so again



you may resist change in order to block feeling scared. You may also feel

angry. Anger is a bad feeling for many people. They have been taught not

to feel anger. If that is true, it will be very uncomfortable to make the

changes you need to make. For these reasons, it has been easier for human

beings to deny that their past is affecting their present lives.

If you know that you need support to proceed with your journey to self-

love, please don’t hesitate to seek a psychotherapist for yourself, or call me

for relationship coaching. It is an act of courage to reach out for support. I

will feel honored if you contact me, and I will be so proud of you if you seek

a personal therapist for yourself.

Please don’t let your discomfort with the process of change stop you. You

deserve to have all of your needs met. We are now going to identify what is

blocking your success from the information you uncover while writing your

mini-autobiography.

Writing a mini-autobiography is a great way to help you identify causes for

your problems, and therefore, a great way to help you break through your

resistance.

Organizing Your

Mini-Autobiography



Your mini-autobiography can be as short as you would like it to be, or as

long and as detailed as you would like it to be. And it also can be organized

in any way. It is usually a good idea to use a journal to write in, so you have

easy access to it as you work on loving yourself.

You may want some direction, however, with regard to the actual

organization of your mini-autobiography. What works for lots of people is

to use each year of your life as a chapter. Within each chapter you write

what you imagine you were thinking, feeling and wanting at that age with

regard to all levels of need from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

For example, for your first year of life, you would focus on how all of your

needs were met; i.e., all of your physical, safety and security, belonging and

acceptance, self-esteem and self-actualization needs. If any of these needs

were not met, there is a good chance you will have a growth goal in that

area of your life.

When a need is not met, this becomes a problem you experienced, both in

the past and in the present, depending upon what stage of life you are

writing about

What is a Problem?



A problem is the difference between what you have now and what you want.

Let’s say you are single, and you want to be in a fulfilling, committed, love

relationship. What you have now is being single. What you want is a

relationship. This is your problem.

What is causing this problem for you? It is not as easy to identify the

causes of a problem, which is why you will be writing your mini-

autobiography. With the information you recall about your childhood, you

will be helping yourself to identify the causes of your problems. Once you

know the accurate cause of a problem, you have a greater chance of

resolving it. Following are two examples of identifying a cause of a problem

you may have had.

Identifying Causes

Let’s say you identified a growth goal of safety when you were young. You

write down that you were terrified as a child, and that you want to feel safe

and be free of anxiety today as an adult. What caused you to feel unsafe as

a child? In your mini-autobiography, you remember and write down that

your parents fought frequently. Not only did they scream at each other, but

most of the time it ended with physical abuse towards each other. When

your parents fought, your father threatened to hurt you and your brother.

The cause of your feelings of being unsafe today stem from witnessing the

physical abuse of your parents, and fearing an attack upon yourself, unless,

right now in the present, there is something threatening you.



The next step in your personal growth will be identifying the negative

beliefs you adopted about trusting others, and changing them to positives.

Also you will need to develop nurturing behavior towards yourself so that

you can learn to self-soothe. Without a nurturing parent to help you calm

down during a difficult time, you will automatically lack the ability to

soothe yourself when you are upset.

Here’s another example of identifying a cause of a problem you may have

had. This is an example of a situation in which you grew up with a very

critical mom. A growth goal you wrote down for yourself is increasing your

self-esteem. As you write your mini-autobiography, you start to remember

many instances of your mother putting you down. As you make these

negative interactions more conscious, you give yourself the opportunity to

change whatever negative beliefs you have developed.

What you discover is that more than one level of need is being affected

today by your mom’s critical parenting of you. You were told you were

selfish when you focused on your own desires, so today you ignore your

physical health and your health issues are getting worse instead of better.

You were told that you cannot pursue a dancing career, because you would

never be able to make any money at it. Today, you have no idea what career

you would like to have, and you feel lost, because almost any ideas you had

about work for yourself were shot down by your mom. You have financial

problems today, because you cannot get yourself to stay with any job you

start, and you feel your self-worth has suffered because you have no



achievements to speak of. And finally, you feel a constant edginess, because

you cannot decide upon a purpose for your life. You feel confused and

stuck.

You most probably learned that your survival depended upon pleasing your

mom. You are in a constant state of conflict, because you need to please

mom while at the same time your natural talents are screaming for

expression. The cause of your problems is your deep need to please your

mom. This is what you will need to change.

You May Need Help to Write

Your Mini-Autobiography

When you write about your first year of life, you may need help from

someone to tell you what was going on in your life at that time, if you

haven’t already been told. It will be helpful to contact family members who

can fill in some of the gaps. If no one is available, you can look at

photographs or family films or videos to try to figure out what you were

thinking, feeling and wanting around all of your needs.

You can use the same methods to help you identify what was going on in

your life during your pre-school years. Starting in kindergarten, you may

be able to remember what you were thinking, feeling and wanting. If not,

family members and photos can be helpful, again.



The grammar school years are next, and memories will be more plentiful

during these years. Junior high school and high school follow and

remembering will hopefully not be an issue for you any longer. College may

be the next period to focus on, and finally your work life, or whatever

sequence of events that are unique to your life up to the present time.

Write as Much as You Can The goal is to write as much as you can, but the first time you sit down to

write, there will be many things that you don’t recall. As you work on

healing issues from the past, many more memories will come back to you,

and you can continually update your journal. It will be a fascinating

experience for you, because most people have forgotten the good times

along with many of the painful times.

Resolving the painful times will help with remembering the good times

which will increase your self-confidence and set a stronger foundation for

understanding and accepting your real self as you move into a happier and

more successful time of your life.

Please start writing your mini-autobiography right now. Take some time

out from reading, to focus on the first five years of your life. Then come

back to reading the next chapter and finish reading “How to Fall Madly in

Love with Yourself” before you finish writing your whole mini-

autobiography.



Chapter 11

Addressing the Causes of Problems

I want to help you have the confidence to be your real self and to be

completely comfortable with expressing who you are. Your real self is full

of love and life and is yearning to be free to express him or herself. I will be

showing you now how to address the causes of your problems.

When you resolve your childhood issues, you will have the success in your

love relationships and in your whole life that you are dreaming of having,

and you will fall madly in love with yourself during the process. When you

fall madly in love with yourself, you will have all the energy necessary to

make the changes you need to make.

It’s your birthright to have all of your needs met, and it is now time to

reclaim what was yours from the start; having your real human needs met

so you can truly be your real self.

Let’s Take Chapter One to

Start With Take one chapter at a time to work on. Let’s take Chapter One to start with.

Please read your mini-autobiography to refresh your memory of your first

year of life. Then look at the goals you set for your personal growth. Based



on your personal history, is there anything that happened to you during

your first year of life, or in the womb, that could be causing problems for

you in meeting your physical needs, your safety and security needs, your

belonging and acceptance needs, your self-esteem needs and/or your self-

actualization needs?

Write down what happened that interfered with getting your needs met.

Because not getting your needs met creates intense emotions like fear,

sadness and anger, you developed a negative belief about yourself to deny

needing to have your needs met.

What do you think that negative belief might be? Jot down anything and

everything that comes to mind. These negative beliefs must be changed to

positive beliefs.

Changing Negative Beliefs to

Positive Beliefs Take a separate piece of paper now, and draw a line down the middle of it.

Label the left column of the piece of paper, “negative beliefs”. Label the

right column, “positive beliefs”. Keep a list of your negative beliefs on the

left side, and start writing down possible positive beliefs that you would like

to have. An example of this exercise is the following:

Negative Beliefs I Positive Beliefs

I am not good enough I am good enough

I am unimportant I am important



Please notice how easy it is to identify a positive belief. The hard work

really starts when you decide you want to change that negative belief into

the positive belief you have identified.

Now focus on the positive belief. Repeat the belief over and over again, out

loud or silently to yourself. Do you notice any feelings? What are those

feelings? If they are feelings of sadness, are you willing and able to let

yourself cry. If you are, you will be doing a great job of grieving the loss you

experienced for so many years thinking you were not good enough. Now

you are accepting that you are good enough, and when you have cried all

the tears of sadness associated with not believing this about yourself for so

many years, you will be finished with crying.

And you will feel great joy and relief.

Repeat this same process of change for each negative belief you have

discovered. If you find this too difficult to do on your own, please get

support for yourself. I will be glad to coach you to falling madly in love with

yourself.



Chapter 12

Changing Ego States Another way to discover causes for your problems is to create an Egogram.

An Egogram comes from Transactional Analysis which was developed by

Eric Berne. All human beings experience five ego states according to this

theory.

The first ego state is the Parent which is broken down into two types of

parent behaviors: the Nurturing Parent (NP) and the Controlling Parent

(CP). Parent ego states reflect learned behavior. The Nurturing Parent is

encouraging and positive in response to the growing child. The Controlling

Parent sets limits and can be harsh and judgmental when it is not necessary

or helpful.

The second ego state is the Adult (A) which is the part of a human being

that thinks and solves problems in the present. This is the rational, logical

human being.

The third ego state is the Child which is also broken down into two types of

child behaviors: the Free Child (FC) and the Adapted Child (AC). Child ego

states reflect feeling behaviors. The Free Child is spontaneous, playful,

creative, intuitive, curious, capable, loving, lovable, and full of wants. The

Adapted Child has been “socialized” and depending upon the degree of

socialization or lack of socialization will be somewhat or greatly rigid,

somewhat or greatly in a state of chaos, afraid, withdrawn, shy, and feeling

not okay about him/herself.



Drawing Your Egogram

When I drew an egogram for myself some 30 years ago, it looked like this:

I told you some things about my childhood that now I will elaborate on. My

mother was verbally abusive to me, so there was little opportunity for me to

learn to be encouraging and supportive to myself. I internalized a very

small Nurturing Parent (NP). That is reflected in the diagram above

My Controlling Parent (CP) on the other hand was very large, because I

learned to say mean, discouraging, harsh, and negative things to myself.

For years I was unable to do positive things for myself, because of this early

conditioning.



My Adult (A) was also small because of the violence in my family. My

mother was being beaten by my father very often. The police were called to

stop the domestic violence very frequently. My life was threatened by my

father. I was terrified. In an atmosphere of physical abuse like this, it is

often so traumatic that a child’s ability to think clearly is affected. That was

the case for me. My over-activated nervous system made it very hard for

me to concentrate and solve the problems in my life.

My Free Child (FC) was also very small, because the verbal abuse and

violence blocked my ability to feel safe and spontaneous. I am a twin, and

that helped me to hold onto more of my Free Child, because my brother and

I could console each other, and leave our home to have fun. We were

survival mates, and that helped my ability to form close relationships once I

got on my journey to self-love.

My Adapted Child (AC) was also very large due to the verbal abuse. I

learned to put myself down, discount my accomplishments and block

myself from having friends and committed love relationships.

My Egogram Today

Today, my egogram looks completely different. My NP, A, and FC are all

very high, and my CP and AC are very small. Analyzing my Egogram was

extremely important for me about 30 years ago when I started my personal

growth. It helped me to understand why I was having such a hard time

making a love relationship work. My self-worth was extremely low and my

negative judgment of myself very high. When I liked a guy back then, I



didn’t feel worthy. When a guy liked me, I too easily rejected him. After

years of failing to find lasting love, I decided to work on myself and increase

my self-worth.

I then fell madly in love with myself as a result of learning how to become a

self-nurturing person, and that led to me meeting the love of my life. I am

happily married now and am living a successful life. I could not have made

all of these positive changes without learning how to become a self-

nurturing person.

I am able to help you on your path to self-love, because I have traveled

down the same road you are on now. I can lead you to the positive outcome

you are seeking.

From my own experience and from my professional knowledge, I now know

for certain that healthy relationships are based on being open and

expressive of ones real self. When your Free Child is repressed by a strong

Controlling Parent, you do not feel safe enough to reveal your real self. You

end up in relationships that are based on fantasies of what love should be,

but not in relationships that actually meet your real needs. You are used to

having relationships that do not meet your needs, so this is acceptable for

you until the fantasy gets destroyed.

Fantasies inevitably get destroyed in many different ways; some by affairs,

some by growth in one partner that is too threatening to the other, some by

conflicts that never get resolved, and some by traumatic events that



mercilessly rip a weak bond apart. Any of these reasons, however, can be

used to motivate a couple to work on their individual childhood wounds.

More couples would do this work on themselves, if they understood and

accepted the truth that almost all of their problems stem from injuries

sustained growing up. This is not a popular concept, but it is, indeed, the

truth. It is truly the only path to successful love relationships until

parenting is greatly improved on this planet.

True commitment can only be given to someone when you know who you

are and you allow yourself to be seen. When you feel good enough about

yourself to reveal the real you, you can also be open to the continual growth

that is part of a healthy life together. You get to have your independence to

grow to become all you can be, and you get to have intimacy that is soul

satisfying.

Falling madly in love with yourself is the first and most important step

toward lasting love, and having all of your dreams come true in life.

When you are not afraid to be your real self and you love and accept

yourself unconditionally and conditionally, your Egogram will reflect your

increased nurturing abilities and your high self-esteem. You will have a

larger Nurturing Parent (NP), and a smaller Controlling Parent (CP). You

will have a stronger Adult (A) and a larger Free Child (FC). You will have a

smaller Adapted Child (AC).



Your ideal Egogram would look something like the following:

The egogram above shows a person who loves themselves.

It is my wish for you that you achieve this positive level of self-love.

Keep working on changing the negatives in your life to positives,

and you will achieve your goal. This is my egogram today, and

all that I did to achieve it has been more than worth it. I am

sure you will feel the same way.



Draw Your Current Egogram Now it’s your turn to draw your current egogram. How nurturing are you

to yourself, how controlling, how free is your free child and how strong is

your adapted child and how strong is your adult? Use your journal to

record where you are today.

Draw Your Ideal Egogram Then draw a second Egogram, the one you would like to have. After

drawing it, think about what is causing you to have the differences between

the Egogram you want to have and one you currently have. This will help

you identify the causes for the problems you are currently experiencing in

your relationships and in your life.

If your Controlling Parent is very strong, you are possibly judging yourself

too harshly and keeping yourself from succeeding in love and life. Perhaps

the cause of not being able to find and keep a partner in your life is your

strong Controlling Parent along with your strong Adapted Child that is

usually present with a strong controlling parent. This is your clue to change

the rules you have internalized from your childhood, and to change

negative beliefs about yourself and negative behaviors to positive ones.

Negative rules and negative beliefs become the true underlying causes of

your problems. Hence, the focus of your healing, and learning to increase

your self-love will be here.



Maybe your Adult ego state is not big enough. This is a sign of extreme

trauma in your childhood, and will signal you to work on healing this

trauma. If you have an idea of what occurred during your childhood that

was a danger to your life, that will help you work on the cause of your

problems. If you don’t know, but you have a great deal of anxiety, do you

know what triggers your anxiety today? What triggers your anxiety today

may be a clue to the underlying cause of your trauma in the first place. It is

definitely a place to start your search.

Also, read your Mini-Autobiography again to see if there are clues there to

help you identify the trauma you may have experienced. Many people had

birth trauma that has never been dealt with, and it has caused and

continues to cause much difficulty with their adult functioning. See if you

can find out the circumstances of your birth and how you were taken care of

during your first year of life, to determine if trauma healing is necessary for

you.

Next on your journey to self-love, please go back to your Hierarchy of

Needs where you identified the problems you are experiencing in each of

the five levels: physical needs, safety and security needs, belonging and

acceptance needs, self-esteem needs, and at the top of the pyramid, self-

actualization needs. Utilizing the information you have discovered by

writing your Mini-Autobiography and completing your Egograms, what do

you think are the causes of your problems today. Have you learned

negative behaviors and negative beliefs that are keeping you stuck?



If your resistance is threatening to stop you on your journey to self-love,

take some time now to imagine what your life will truly be like if you don’t

make some changes. Do you really want the negative patterns to continue?

If these patterns continue, how will you feel about your life when you are

older and you are looking back at the road not taken. Now is the time to

commit to your healing process, so you don’t regret not taking this golden

opportunity to turn things around. It’s no fun being old and depressed and

anxious. Old, by itself, is enough to deal with.

Your golden years should be a time to share your wisdom and enjoy your

perspective. I know. I am here and I am happy and fulfilled. Please

continue to give the same gift to yourself by working on your problems now.

And congratulate yourself, for you now have a complete plan for personal

growth and succeeding at falling madly in love with yourself.



Chapter 13

Committing to New Behaviors

If you commit to this process, you’re guaranteed to feel a whole lot better

about yourself by the end of one month. Your change process only requires

you to spend an hour a day reading and doing the exercises.

Spending one hour a day is going to have a massive impact on your self-

confidence and how you relate to others – as well as how others relate to

you. Your results will be in direct proportion to how willing you are to

stick to your daily ritual, but don’t fall into the trap of crucifying yourself if

you miss a few days here and there. That’s exactly the kind of behavior

you’re trying to end in your life. Just let it be OK and pick up where you left

off. Remember, the aim isn’t perfection; it’s the joy of self-discovery in the

process of your personal growth. You’re not perfect now and you certainly

won’t be at the end of it, no matter how hard you try, but you will be a lot

more relaxed with yourself.

You will feel joy and excitement and you will be looking forward to each

day. With greater confidence in your ability to solve the problems that

come your way, you will have increased energy, too. When you change

negatives into positives, joy is the result.



Identifying Behaviors to Change

If you would like to increase your Nurturing Parent (NP) ego state, and I

certainly hope you want to do this, then here is a simple method to use.

Identify negative, harsh, critical, controlling and judgmental behaviors you

engage in. Here is a list of possible negative behaviors:

Negative Self-Talk

Putting Yourself Down in Front of Others

Not Asking for What You Want

Not Paying Your Bills

Not Opening Your Mail

Taking Drugs/Addictions

Over-eating

Under-eating

Lack of Sleep

Believing You are Not Okay

Procrastinating

Dating Partners Who Don’t Want a Commitment

Spending More Money than You Have

Not Having Fun

Lack of Exercise: Stretching, Aerobic, Strength-Building

Being Controlled by Others

Not Expressing Your Feelings in Love Relationships

Inflexible Behavior and Attitudes

Lacking Boundaries and Order



Abusing Others Emotionally or Physically

Letting Others Control You

Now write your list of negative behaviors on the left side of a piece of paper.

Draw a line down the middle of the page again. On the right side, decide

upon the new behaviors that you would like to engage in that are positive

and that will help you to meet all of your needs.

Example:

Negative Behavior I Positive Behavior

Not Paying Your Bills on Time Want to open mail, and pay

bills.

Using your current Egogram, what do you think is causing you to not pay

your bills on time? Were you encouraged to set time aside for

administrative tasks? Did either of your parents or primary caregivers,

model and/or help you with tasks that must be done regularly to take care

of your physical needs, and safety and security needs?

Probably not, so the cause of your behavior problem will be the lack of

nurturing or support. The solution now, will be imagining that support, or

asking for it from someone, like a mate, a boyfriend, a friend, a

psychotherapist or your relationship coach. What you didn’t get as a child,

you can get now, if you identify what it is and ask for it from someone who

is willing and able to give it to you.



Another possible cause of your behavior will be negative beliefs about

yourself. You will need to identify the negative belief, imagine the positive

belief you want to replace it, and work on re-deciding that the positive is

true for you.



Chapter 14

Your Self-Love System in Action

I would like to summarize some points now. In other words, where are we?

You know that your goal is to become a self-nurturing person which is

dependent upon your commitment to taking care of all of your needs.

You know what all of your possible needs are from Maslow’s Hierarchy of

Needs.

You know you have learned to demean and devalue yourself, and that this

learning will most likely be the cause of a great deal of your problems.

You know imagining what your life will be like if you don’t change is the

best way to motivate yourself to do the hard work of healing on your

journey to self-love. Imagining positive outcomes will also help you.

You know that change starts with awareness of your problems.

You know that problems are defined as the difference between what you

have and what you want.

You also know that you must identify what is causing the difference

between what you have and what you want, in order to solve the problems

in your life.



If you could easily discover the causes for your emotional problems, you

would be solving your problems and moving on quickly in life. But

discovering causes and then coming up with the correct solutions to your

problems is precisely where personal growth can get complicated, and it is

definitely where people frequently get stuck.

With your roadmap to success you are, you will learn How to Fall Madly in

Love with Yourself by identifying causes and working to remove them.

When you don’t take action to meet your needs, you are usually stuck in

negative feeling states. It feels like your negative feelings will last forever,

and, of course, that is completely uncomfortable and undesirable, and it is

one of the reasons you are now motivated to change. For example, I knew I

should be in therapy for a long time before I actually went. The pain of

grieving the end of my first marriage motivated me, and this is definitely an

example of how anticipated pain or current pain can be the strongest

motivator of change for human beings. It got me motivated and it may be

motivating you right now as well.

When growth and development stops for anyone, it is because of resistance.

Resistance is really another word for fear. What could you be afraid of? In

order to change, you will have to feel some feelings you are currently

blocking from your awareness, because those feelings are uncomfortable.

Using my life as an example, I had been conscious of being very sad

starting in high school. I didn’t know what to do about it and the feelings



scared me. I ignored them, and then ten years later when my first marriage

ended, I couldn’t repress the sadness or fear any longer.

I wish I could tell you that it’s not necessary to feel painful feelings in order

to fall madly in love with yourself. The truth is you will undoubtedly

experience some pain and fear from your past on your road to removing

any obstacles to achieving your goals for growth.

Feelings like sadness, anxiety, frustration, and anger are blocked, because

they are associated with painful and shameful childhood disappointments.

When you were a child, you were powerless to change the circumstances of

your life, unless you were fortunate to have parents who listened to you,

respected your thoughts and feelings, and then responded accordingly.

Instead, you were probably told that you were selfish for wanting things or

lazy when you didn’t do your homework or bad because you didn’t listen.

Whatever the judgments or losses were, the essence of your childhood

disappointments now revolve around not being able to trust others, failing

to take care of your needs well enough, trying to cope with anxiety and

depression, and feeling great fear of intimacy, disappointment or

frustration in the patterns of your relationships that leave you alone and

unhappy.

These problems in your adult life are occurring, because you have learned

to deny and discount your real human needs that must be fulfilled in order

to have a truly joyful and emotionally healthy life.



Your goals, based on the problems you will identify, will most probably be

to change negative beliefs and negative behaviors into positive beliefs and

positive behaviors. Making these positive changes will require you to

become more nurturing to yourself.

There is pain around your problems, because you did not give up having

your needs met easily or by choice when you were young. Someone or some

event interfered with meeting your needs, and that someone or that event

now must be remembered in order to re-decide to believe in yourself and

change the negatives in your life.

There is some good news here. When you recall your past pain now, as an

adult, you can feel the pain and complete its expression. When you were a

child you couldn’t complete your feelings of sadness or fear without a

supportive surrogate parent or a nurturing parent to help you. That

supportive person was not there for you. Therefore, it was far too

overwhelming for you as a child to feel your deep sadness and fear. Hence,

you repressed it, and you’ve been living your life ever since keeping that

repression going in order to protect yourself from feeling overwhelming

feelings of sadness, anger or fear.

You have arrived at an important time in your life in which you recognize

that you don’t believe in yourself enough and that patterns in relationships

are hurtful to you. And you are ready to make some changes.



As an adult you can now complete the expression of all past feelings, and

bring your nervous system back to a balanced state, because you are now

strong enough to tolerate their expression. And you can also seek a

supportive environment where you can identify your problems, explore the

possible causes, and then express the feelings that are closely tied to early

childhood losses. Feelings are supposed to be expressed. When support

and understanding are provided, feelings are usually expressed until the

energy of that feeling has been released. It is then over, and you literally

move on with your life.

When feelings are blocked because they are overwhelming and no support

is available, they stay locked in our bodies. They don’t go away, because

feelings can only go away when they are expressed.

It’s important to know that expressing your feelings will be healing and will

lead to the joy and happiness you seek if they are lovingly understood,

validated, and accepted by you and others participating in your healing

process.

Without a nurturing environment where understanding, validation and

acceptance are provided when you express your real feelings about

something, you will re-injure yourself. Re-injury, in this instance, means

that you will not be encouraged to express your feelings, and you will

probably decide to repress them again.

Repressed feelings are not physically healthy also, because to repress

feelings, you actually must tighten your muscles. Not only will your feelings



be blocked with this tension, but other body processes that are necessary

for physical health will be blocked as well. Finding the support you need to

express your repressed thoughts and feelings will not only reduce stress in

your life, but will also help you to be physically healthier.

You couldn’t leave an unhealthy environment as a child, but now you can

leave or speak up. You can ask for apologies and changed behavior from

anyone who isn’t nurturing and supportive to you.

Please be gentle and supportive of your change process, and if it feels too

overwhelming, then please seek some professional help. Some of you will

need real, live support with a coach or a counselor to help you do the work

necessary on your journey to self-love. I am here to help you, if you would

like my help.

When you have completely expressed the feelings that you have been

repressing for years, joy and happiness will follow. This joy and happiness,

however, will be permanent. Not a bad trade-off; some pain now for a

permanent state of joy and happiness later! Go for it. You will be so glad

you did. There are great rewards in store for your courage and persistence.

There is nothing better than reclaiming your life and truly living happily

ever after.

When you identify the underlying causes of any of your current problems

and then complete the expression of any feelings related to the causes, you

change your experience in a very significant way. What you are really doing



is bringing your nervous system back to a healthy state of self-regulation.

Self-regulation means that you can now feel all of your feelings like sadness,

fear, anger, and joy, and their variations, without getting stuck in trying to

repress any or all of your feelings.

When you have healed most of your childhood wounds, life will flow easily

for you. When you are sad, you will feel sad and you will cry, and then you

will feel relief and contentment. When you are scared, you will feel fear and

you will protect yourself, and your body will calm down. When you don’t

get something you want, or get something you don’t want, you will feel

anger, and you will assert yourself to change that outcome, and the anger

will pass.

When you take action to meet your needs, you will feel joy and

contentment, and appreciation for your life. This is the vision of a healthy

life I wish for you. Feelings will not be something you fear any longer,

because you will be able to express them and nurture yourself appropriately

each time. Your feelings are feedback about something you need to pay

attention to in your life. When you can let your feelings be, you can solve

the problems that come your way.

Grieving is an important part of falling madly in love with yourself. When

you were born, as long as there weren’t any serious problems with your

mom’s pregnancy and delivery, you came into the world with a healthy

sense of self-love and self-acceptance. You expected your needs to be met



100%, because they had been met in your mother’s womb. When your

needs were met, you could relax and trust your environment, including the

people in it.

When you had a need as an infant, you cried. That’s a baby’s way of

communicating. If your cries were not honored, you learned to live

without getting those needs met. To regain your positive expectation of

having your needs met, you will now have to uncover past experiences that

has convinced you to give up on yourself. Please be open to this process. It

will only benefit you, because you will have the opportunity to re-decide to

not give up on you and your needs, any longer. It is never okay to discount

your own needs. You may put off fulfilling them, but it is never healthy to

go forever without meeting your needs. You are paying a price for

repression in many ways.

It’s now time now to face your resistance head on and to engage yourself in

several exercises that will bring up memories and feelings from your past,

so that you can identify the underlying causes of your problems.

Self-Love System Steps

There are fifteen (15) steps to help you to fall madly in love with yourself.

By doing each step, you will reconnect with your real self. You will be on a

path that will help you create the true happiness you have been dreaming of

having.



Step One: Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, identify the physical needs

you are not currently meeting.

Step Two: Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, identify the safety and

security needs you are not currently meeting.

Step Three: Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, identify the belonging

and acceptance needs you are not currently meeting.

Step Four: Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, identify the self-esteem

needs you are not currently meeting.

Step Five: Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, identify the self-

actualization needs you are not currently meeting.

Step Six: Start or finish writing your first draft of your mini-

autobiography.

Step Seven: Using personal history data gained from writing your mini-

autobiography, try to identify what is blocking you from meeting your

physical needs. Whatever is blocking you from meeting your needs is the

cause of your problem.

Step Eight: Using personal history data gained from writing your mini-


safety and security needs.



Step Nine: Using personal history data gained from writing your mini-


belonging & acceptance needs.

Step Ten: Using personal history data gained from writing your mini-

autobiography, try to identify what is blocking you from meeting your self-

esteem needs.

Step Eleven: Using personal history data gained from writing your mini-

autobiography, try to identify what is blocking you from meeting your self-

actualization needs.

Step Twelve: If you have identified negative beliefs as the cause of your

problems, create a positive belief for each negative belief, and commit to

accepting the positive beliefs and giving up all of the negative ones.

Step Thirteen: Using your current and ideal egograms, identify

behaviors that are blocking you from meeting any of your needs.



Step Fourteen: If you have identified negative behaviors as the cause of

your problems, identify a positive behavior to replace any negative

behaviors identified.

Step Fifteen: Focus on accepting positive beliefs and behaviors until they

become a habit, and celebrate your successes.



Chapter 15

Celebrating Your Successes

“Childhood is a time for play, for experimentation, for fantasy, for

exploration. Everything is curious. The mystery the child is searching for is

itself.” Leo F. Buscaglia, PH.D. And the mystery can feel unattainable if

your childhood has been full of abuse and mistreatment.

But, your hard work will pay off. You will discover your true self, and each

time you make a discovery, please plan on celebrating your success.

Here’s an example. You’re writing your mini-autobiography. Writing leads

you to remember winning a swimming race when you were 8 years old.

You didn’t think you could do anything well, so you have been holding

yourself back. When you remember how well you competed against other

kids who lived by the long island sound, you are amazed, and open to

considering a positive belief about yourself. You now believe you are

capable. Celebrate. Treat yourself to a dinner out with your best friends.

Tell them what the celebration is. Enjoy your positive re-decision.

Every time you turn a negative into a positive, rejoice and celebrate. Share

your victories and reinforce the idea that you are not alone anymore. You

have friends and family around you who want to support your growth and

success.



If you would like some ideas for celebrating your successes, please don’t

hesitate to contact Sandra. I want to help you as much as I can on your

journey to self-love. I wish you much love and happiness, and I look

forward to working with you directly if you feel the need for one-on-one

coaching.

Thank you for taking this journey with me. I am truly honored to be

guiding you on your journey to self-love. May you continue to enjoy falling

more madly in love with yourself every day from this day forward.

how to fall madly in love with yourself 02

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