The Kindness of Positive Messages

"You are loved and cherished.
You have nothing to fear.
There is nothing you can do wrong."
― Eben Alexander, Proof of Heaven

Today in yoga class, our teacher read to us from Eben Alexander's bestselling book, Proof of Heaven.  The passage above is what Dr. Alexander says that he learned from his near-death experience.  Our yoga teacher challenged us to repeat those three sentences to ourselves as a mantra, a message to ourselves.  She said that we would feel differently in the poses if we did.  Not surprisingly, she was right.  Whenever I was having a hard time in a pose, I repeated the message to myself and it made me feel better both about me and about what I was doing.

There are so many messages that we give to ourselves on a daily basis and not all of them are positive.  In fact, I am guessing that we are harder on ourselves than we are on others.  So what happens if we decide to be kind to ourselves by reminding ourselves that we are loved?  It is the message that we give to the people we treasure most.  Why not include ourselves?