My first step to Harvest Life Gracefully is to examine your life. To examine your life happenings, events, relationships, careers, body, attitude and personality and your spirituality.

With examining your life you are getting to know who you are and admitting what you like and what you don't like about yourself. With this information you can use what you like to perk yourself up when you are feeling down, such as lacking in confidence, and self-worth. This information will help you to decide what you dislike about yourself and then when you are willing and ready you can begin to make necessary changes.

When you examine yourself it is important for you to be completely honest and to remember to be factual and not to judge good or bad to what you see. A helpful tip that I used when I look at myself, is to look at myself as if I was someone else. Reason for this is because we often hold intense emotions about ourselves, this would be a way to detach from those emotions, that could get in our way of being honest, judgmental and factual.

Here are some other tips that I used when I examined my life. Hopefully these tips may be helpful and useful to you.

A journal is a wonderful way to enhance your life. It is a tool that can help you to admit and accept who you are and what your life is all about. When keeping a journal you can write about events, activities, your relationships, your goals, your careers, how you feel about god and or any life happenings that seem important to you, starting from childhood until the present day, once you reach the present day, it would be a good idea to continue to journal whenever something seems to be of great importance. A journal is a positive way to understand and know yourself, it can help clarify your thoughts and feelings as well as gain knowledge about yourself and your life. A journal can help a person process any traumatic experience and move on peacefully; it is a good way to relieve stress and can benefit your health and well-being.

Find a mentor, a mentor could be a trusted friend, a counselor, a life coach, or a minister. I discover when I communicated to a trusted person about my struggles, problems, likes or dislikes was a excellent way for me to learn to accept and love myself. When I see that people can love and accept me in spite of my character defects allowed me to see the truth about myself. A mentor can help you to move on from a traumatic experience, encourage you to make amends where needed, help with problem solving, offer encouragement when changes are needed and offer praise when things are going fine.

Look in the mirror with your eyes wide open, look at yourself from head to toe, taking note of every aspect of your body. Practice this on a consistence basis, daily if possible. Take notice to what you like about your body and what you don't. Look into your eyes and praise yourself, tell yourself how you love yourself and what a good person you are.

All of these tips may seem difficult, time consuming, or embarrassing to do. At first, I wanted to make those same excuses and once I realize that it was shame that prevented me from completing these tips, I began to focus on the shame realizing this is what I want to get rid of, therefore it was important for me to learn how to harvest life gracefully and find my purpose in life. This is why I look at myself as if I was looking at somebody else this way I could be more factual and less detached from the intense emotions. It also help to tell yourself when you see something you don't like to say to yourself, "I don't like this, but it is O.K." You may need to repeat this mantra several times before you feel peace. This mantra is a excellent way to learn how to accept yourself.

When you are ready to make changes that you don't like about yourself. I found reading self-improvement books in the expert areas that I am struggling with is a helpful tool. Reading will help educate you on how to make the necessary changes. They will give you good ideas and can show you how to make the necessary changes.

I am a survivor of childhood abuse and I learn how to harvest life gracefully by following five steps, this article is only on the first step. To harvest life gracefully is not a overnight accomplishment, it takes time but when you start with the first step you will begin to feel better and better at each passing day

The first step is a very important part in learning how to harvest life gracefully.

I invite and welcome you to follow my blog as I write my life story on "My Story" page of my blog. I will also post articles and information about child abuse awareness, and positive parenting. You can follow my blog at this address. http://harvestlife-survivorjane.blogspot.com/