I have been raised by a narcistic mother, and it was hell on a daily basis.

But today, finally for the first time, I love myself.  I don't hate myself anymore, doubt or try to understand why.

I spent my life with this negative self-talk and shame. It was so present even as an adult.

And today, I am truly proud of myself.  I love myself.  And proud of loving myself.  

It's unreal for me write it, to feel it, when I think about the amount of shame I went through.

But I do.  

I know there will be bad days.  But today, writing this list of "What If" questions I wrote this morning, and listening to them at a 1-minute interval (you can do it too using the nudge clock).

It's a tool I have built initially to try to get rid of procrastination.  A way to get reminders, visual and auditory cues. 

But I have added a feature so I can listen to affirmations every day.

Both "I am" affirmations and "You Are" affirmations are good, but those "What If" questions I wrote today seemed to have helped me a lot.

Affirmations are good, but questions seems to trigger the brain, to chose something.  I definitely want to explore the topic more.

I sharing this tool and my story and hopefully we can help each other through our journeys.

It's not a magic tool, but I think it can be one tool in our toolbox.

Today I see the value of myself now, how great I am for just being a human, as imperfect as we all are.  

I see the possibility of connecting to other people.  

Here are some of the questions I wrote:

What if I love myself today?   How would life be?

What if I give myself permission to love myself?  How much better my life would be?

What if I am a human being, as valuable as every human being, and I demand respect from my mom?

What if I can build tools like I did on this website, and it can help other people that went through daily trauma as kids?

What if some people love me?  And I let myself be loved?  Not for what I do or what I did.  But just because I am a human being.  Worthy of respect, of having fun, of laughing, of loving, of living happy?

You can see the list I have written, I wrote over a hundred of those questions.

It felt good to write them, maybe everyone should do it.  Maybe I will continue to do it.

And it's great to hear it automatically every 1 minute during the day.

My mind did go into some negative thoughts at some point, but as I heard to those questions in this continuous loop, it brought me back to the reality: that I am a great guy worthy of loving myself.

I don't have to hide.  I can be proud of being a human being, finally.

Feel free to try the tool, and I would love to get any feedback, so we can all get better.