How to Fall Madly in Love With Yourself 02
-
Upload
john-magnusson -
Category
Documents
-
view
177 -
download
1
Transcript of 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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© 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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 ii
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 iii
This page left blank intentionally.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 1
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%
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 2
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 3
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 4
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 5
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 6
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 7
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 8
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 9
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 10
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 11
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 12
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 13
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 14
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 15
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 16
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 17
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 By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 18
“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.”
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 19
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 20
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 21
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 22
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!
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 23
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 24
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,
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 25
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 26
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 27
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 28
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 29
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 30
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 31
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:
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 32
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 33
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 34
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 35
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 36
• 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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 37
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 38
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 39
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 40
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 41
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.”
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 42
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.”
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 43
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 44
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.”
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 45
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:
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 46
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 47
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 48
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 49
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?
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 50
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 51
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 52
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 53
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 54
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 55
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 56
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 57
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 58
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 59
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 60
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 61
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).
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 62
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 63
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 64
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?
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 65
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 66
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 67
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 68
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 69
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 70
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 71
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 72
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 73
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 74
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 75
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 76
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
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 77
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 78
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-
autobiography, try to identify what is blocking you from meeting your
safety and security needs.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 79
Step Nine: Using personal history data gained from writing your mini-
autobiography, try to identify what is blocking you from meeting your
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 80
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 81
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.
How to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself By Sandra Dawson
© Copyright 2007 82
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.