I  encourage  myself.                                                  Yes, there are times when others encourage me.
And I graciously accept their encouragement.
But I have discovered that if I am to have the encouragement I deserve I will have to encourage myself.

When no one else is encouraging me I look to myself for encouragement. And I get the encouragement that I need. Encouragement is my joy, inspiration, courage and enthusiasm.

This is my prescription for encouraging yourself:

1. Declare to yourself, "I am my own best friend."

2. Remember the good things that happened to you, including victories you have won, and simultaneously acknowledge the Source from which they came.

3. Create an encouragement file that contains the encouraging things people have said or written about you or did for you. Periodically, before leaving your encouragement file add to it other encouagement entrances, and thank those whose acts of kindness are recorded in this file. 

4. Affirm who you are and Whose you are by saying aloud "I am a child of the Universe! I have a right to be here!"                                   

5. Take a minute or two and meditate on "Presence" with a capital "P". Real presence is real love.  

Be here now and now here. That is what it means to be present.

When you are encouraging yourself you may feel like you are being stroked by someone else or yourself. Tenderly.

"...but David encouraged himself  in the Lord his God." (1 Sam. 30.6).

Copyright 2008 by Uriah J. Fields