Melody Beattie Quotes

You always have to remember to take care of yourself first and foremost, because when you stop taking care of yourself you get out of balance and you really forget how to take care of others.

You're able to love others, to give to others, and do for others by giving and doing for yourself first.

If you establish serenity and happiness inside yourself, you provide the world with a solid base of peace. If you do not give yourself peace, how can you share it with others? If you do not begin your peace work with yourself, where will you go to begin it?

I am now willing to forgive myself . . . for believing I could offer something to others before I have offered it to myself.

Make yourself a priority. Fill yourself up so that you can give more to others.

Women in particular need to keep an eye on their physical and mental health, because if we're scurrying to and from appointments and errands, we don't have a lot of time to take care of ourselves. We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own 'to do' list.

For a very long time now I've been saying to young women, 'You can have it all, but not all at the same time.' How important it is to take very good care of yourself, of your mental and physical and spiritual wellbeing; it's hard to do. It's easier to be a workaholic than to have a truly balanced life.

I want to tell women that you need to love yourself and make yourself a priority. It's only when you are happy yourself, can you make everyone else around you happy. I am still a dreamer and still believe in fairy tales, but there is only that much one should give another person. You need to keep something for yourself.

One of the things I realized is that if you do not take control over your time and your life, other people will gobble it up. If you don't prioritize yourself, you constantly start falling lower and lower on your list, your kids fall lower and lower on your list.

I admire how she protects her energy and understands her limitations.

The love and attention you always thought you wanted from someone else is the love and attention you first need to give to yourself.

The body must be properly taken care of. The people who torture their flesh are demoniacal.

The perfect man of old looked after himself first before looking to help others.

Whatever you want that others in your life can't give you, ask yourself how you can give it to yourself.

If people would treat themselves with the same kind of love they give to their friends, that would be such a great gift we could give ourselves.

I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me, if I do that well enough, then I'll be able to look after someone else -- the children or the husband or the elderly. But I have to look after myself first. I know that some people think that's being selfish, I think that's being self-full.

And so I have come to understand that strength, inner strength, comes from receiving love as much as it comes from giving it.

You set the standards for how you will be treated. People will treat you the exact way you treat yourself. So be good to you. Take time for yourself. Rest. Play. Shower yourself with affection, support, and gifts.

Take time off to give to yourself, in a sense to fill yourself up to fullness, to where now you can overflow in giving.

There is a connection between self-nurturing and self-respect.

It's only when we give to ourselves as passionately as we give of ourselves that we create the life we want and deserve.

First, all relationships are with yourself-and sometimes they involve other people. Second, the most important relationship in your life-the one you have, like it or not, until the day you die-is with yourself.

Nourished people, people who love and care for themselves, are also more efficient and nicer to be around. When you give yourself permission to relax, people will feel more relaxed around you; your environment will become more harmonious. Balance - between work and pleasure, giving and receiving, seriousness and levity - creates a happy healthy life.

We ourselves need love; it's not only society, the world outside, that needs love. But we can't expect that love to come from outside of us. We should ask the question whether we are capable of loving ourselves as well as others.

You can't hate/love others without loving/hating yourself first.