First Self Love Vlog 5/10/25

Hi friends, I'm Deb Merten from loveequalslove.org. This is where I write blogs on self-love, authentic living, and how to feel good as much as possible—because feeling good is how you create your authentic life. Now, I personally have been doing this for many years, but it isn't something that you can't accomplish very quickly. And what you need to do is start talking nicer to yourself. Give yourself a pat on the back once in a while, and a hug too—because you deserve it.

And right now, most people don't love their selves. And it's not because they don't want to. It's because it's hard, and people think that it's not okay to love yourself, or you should do things for other people instead of yourself or think of them first instead of yourself. But that's backwards. What you need to do is think of you first. Care about how you feel.

And if you ever have been on an airplane, you'll hear the stewardess—or attendant, flight attendant, whatever they call them now—uh, if the mask falls down, you put yours on first. If you don't, you can't help anybody. So that's the same principle in life. You need to take care of yourself first. No matter what anybody else thinks, what you care about is important. What you want to do is important. And it's never too late. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want—because we have the power inside us.

And that's another thing. People are always looking for something on the outside to make them happy. Bring one more thing home or go on this vacation—those are nice things, those are good things. But you have to start on the inside. You have to be happy first. You go on vacation, and you've been miserable up until then—you get on vacation and it's raining the whole time, or uh, you know, you trip and fall and break your leg or something like that, because you weren't prepared.

You have to pave the road ahead of you and make it what you want it to be. I'll give you an example: I drove—or flew—back to Oklahoma to bring my daughter and her family here. And it was going to be a three-day drive back. And for some reason, I just kept saying to myself, "This is going to be a great trip. We're going to have so much fun. We're going to stay at hotels. We're going to eat lots of good food. The baby's going to be great." He was only 8 months old at the time, and everything turned out exactly the way I imagined it.

Imagination is real. You have to imagine what you want and leave what you don't want out of it. Never say, "Oh, I really want more money, but I've never had enough, but I don't know anybody that has enough. But where am I going to get money?" That kind of stuff—you got to leave that out, because that's not real. What's real is, "I want more money." And more money starts coming to you.

When you start loving yourself, when you start saying nice things to yourself about yourself, things start changing. You can't change anyone else on the outside. The only person you can change is you.

So, what you need to do is something I did the very first time I realized I was so miserable, and I didn't know how to change it. So I went on the internet, and I found this little exercise: You write 10 things you love—truly love—about yourself. And you read that list every morning for seven days. Put it down. Go on with your day. In seven days, you make a new list, and that list will get even better. And you might do this two weeks, four weeks, six months—but as soon as you start doing it, you're going to see a difference in the way people treat you, in the way things come to you, in the way you feel about yourself.

You're going to want to dress up more. You're going to want to flaunt yourself because you're happy. Keeping yourself happy is the clue. It's the key to joy. If you don't keep yourself happy, how is anybody else going to make you happy? You can't expect anybody else to think for you, to feel for you, to give you what you need to be happy. You have to give it to yourself. And that's what I'm here to tell you about.

Making yourself happy is the most important thing. And what happens? Things start slowing down, and you don't ever feel late when you're going somewhere, and you don't feel stressed out as much. You don't, uh, care about what other people are doing—because it doesn't matter. It only matters what you think, what you do, and how you feel.

So next thing I'd like you to do is look in the mirror and say, "I love you." I do this every day. And anytime I come into contact with a mirror, I say, "I love you, Deb Merten." And I give myself a hug, and I pat myself on the back, and I thank the universe as much as possible—or God, or whoever you want to thank. It's all the same. It's all one source. We're all in the same soup. We're all one big soup of energy. And energy is what makes this world go 'round.

So, when you start looking in the mirror and saying how much you love yourself, you're going to start feeling it. But if you can't say it right out—"I love you"—say, "I'm willing to love you. I'm willing to love you, because that's what's going to change my life."

It doesn't matter what I look like. It doesn't matter how I dress. It doesn't matter how my hair is cut. I love you. And that's going to change you. And I mean it. You want to change from the inside, because the inside is where everything is. That's a whole different universe in there.

Meditation is another way. It relaxes your mind. It clears a way. It clears a path for you to find answers that you've been looking for. You know, meditation is not as hard as you think. And there's many, many guided meditations out there that will help you. And I like the ones that I get from Abraham Hicks.

Now, if you've never heard of Abraham, that's okay—because all you have to do is go on abrahamhicks.com and you'll come up with thousands of, uh, blogs and videos and exercises and meditations. Anything that you need is right there. Ask for what you want and you will get it. Ask and you shall receive.

That's the truth. That's the truth. When you start believing in yourself and believing that you have power, it comes. And no one else can stop you—only you. You're the only one that is stopping yourself right now. And believe me, I've been there. So I know.

When I started doing this, things started changing for me so rapidly. Even things like saying to my friend, "You know, I wish somebody would come to my door with a big bag of candy." Literally, someone knocked at my door—it was a big bag of candy. But it was those red and white peppermints, Christmas peppermints, and I hate those. I should have been more specific. I should have said, "I want a big bag of chocolate candy."

So be more specific when you ask for what you want. And never doubt. Doubt is not real. Fear is not real. I mean, if there's a tiger chasing you in the woods or whatever, yeah—that’s something to be fearful of. But just regular fear of everything is not real.

If you think about it, everything that you've feared—99.9% of it has never come true. And then you go on with your life and you think, Why did I even think that? That's not even real. So, stop thinking fear thoughts and start thinking what if thoughts. Instead of What if it doesn't happen? say, What if it does? What if it does happen the way I want it to?

That's real. That's coming from inside. And you're going to love yourself more when you do that. It's so much fun when you start realizing you have power. You have all the power in the universe to create your authentic life.

So I've given you three ideas of how to start, and I will be coming back again, and we'll go over some other things. But the first thing: write your 10 things. Say, "I love that I'm a good mother," or "I love that I'm a good golfer," or "I love that I skate on roller skates." Whatever it is—and you really believe it—write that on the list. Read it for seven days, just in the morning. Then go on with your day. You're going to see a difference.

Second thing is look in the mirror. Tell yourself that you love yourself—or you're willing to love yourself—and you'll see how you change from that too.

Third thing is start meditating. Even if it's 5 minutes in the morning. Wake up in the morning. Don't get out of bed yet. Lay there for five more minutes in quiet. Ask a question, or don't ask a question. Just let thoughts come to you. Don't push them away. Just let them come through you. And you'll see—it's going to change you. You're going to lift your spirit. You're going to be on a high vibration. And that's what counts.

Only what you think. Doesn't matter what husbands think, or kids think, or government thinks, or teachers think. Doesn't matter. Only what you think matters. And this is the truth.

So until we meet again and I get to tell you some more things, this is it for the day. And I hope that you get all these things started so that you can start feeling better.

And remember—there's great love here for you. Goodbye for now.

With love,

Deb Mertan