How can you reach the point of being able to let others be what they choose without insisting they meet your expectations? Very simple. By loving yourself. By feeling that you are important, worthy and beautiful. Once you recognize just how good you are, you won’t have to have others reinforce your value or values by making their behavior conform

But approval should not be contingent upon being proper, nor should a child have to get a parent’s sanction for everything he says, thinks, feels, or does.

Acceptance means no complaining, and happiness means no complaining about the things over which you can do nothing. Complaining is the refuge of those who have no self-reliance.

You get good at loving yourself, and suddenly you’re able to love others, to give to others, and do for others by giving and doing for yourself first.

Because she didn’t believe that she was worth being loved in the first place, and so the interminable cycle of renunciation was her way of reinforcing her notions of her lack of worth.

Your self is sacrificed to the opinions and predelictions of others.

Join an organization, or sign up for an activity that you will enjoy. Perhaps you’ve been putting this off because you have so many responsibilities that you just don’t have the time. By choosing to love yourself, and partaking of the slices of life that you want, those others that you serve will begin to learn some self-reliance of their own. And

you will need to apply the same kind of rigid application to the task of unlearning the self-defeating thinking you have learned up until now that

What is tough is unlearning all of the “shoulds” and “oughts” that you’ve digested in the past.