“YOU LOVE YOURSELF!”
When I was growing up, that statement was hurled around as an insult! To love yourself was regarded as vain, arrogant, over confident… Any signs of loving yourself, feeling confident or feeling good about yourself were soon shut down with the above comment, often followed by
“Who does she think she is?”
I was recently participating in an online visibility challenge, which involved videoing myself and watching it back and then having my inner critic comment on it. Then I had to watch it back again, but this time through the eyes of Love. I did 3 videos back to back and then watched them one after another.
I couldn’t believe it. My inner critic was almost silent!
There was not the usual picking apart of what I was saying and how I was saying it, that I had come to expect from this unhelpful aspect of myself. Instead I found that I was looking at myself with kind and loving eyes, feeling proud of the woman in front of me, the woman who now had the courage to speak on video and share her thoughts and feelings about topics that were personal to her.
I could see just how far this woman had come and that this would not have even been a possibility in my mind, let alone me actually doing it in the past. I felt love and compassion for myself and could not find the words to criticize and judge.
What a difference…!
So how did I get to this place in myself…?
Well, I can’t claim to it being something that happened overnight, like a huge epiphany whilst walking in nature, or meditating one day. There are so many stories out there, of other people having profound awakenings, or meeting an angel in their garden and then their lives dramatically change overnight!
For me, my path to healing, as it is for most of us, has been a long and challenging one and it continues to be, as I continue to learn and grow.
Here are some things that have helped…
- Trying lots of weird and wonderful therapies. These therapies have helped me heal on all levels, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. They have allowed me to look at parts of myself and my past that I may have wanted to stay hidden. They have released stuck trauma and pain that has been hiding out in my cells.
- Meditation and walking in nature has helped me to stay present and calm my busy mind.
- Those times when I felt so low and depressed, when grief felt like it would never go and would always follow me around; when the fear of abandonment and heartache was so overwhelming…
I started to acknowledge all parts of myself and brought love to those aspects, rather than feeling ashamed of them and wanting to deny them.
Things began to change…
- Too many self-help books… This became counter-productive… Being told to think positively, have positive thoughts and wait for the rewards to roll in, meant I often squashed down my ‘negative’ feelings and emotions. I tried to silence them in an attempt to be positive and send out positive happy vibes. I was living in fear that I would only attract misery and illness, unless I could pull myself out of the darkness.
I denied having these feelings, these emotions, pushed them away and didn’t let them have a voice… I was ashamed of them…
Believing that I ‘shouldn’t’ have them still. That if I had worked enough on myself I wouldn’t have them anymore… More judgement and shame, more squashing down…
And Now…
I know that I am all these parts, the light and the shade, the ups and the downs, they are me and I am them.
Today I am moving towards loving the whole of me, seeing myself through the eyes of love… When I falter that’s ok too, I pick myself up with love and try again.
So yes, today I can say ‘I do love myself’ and it feels really good.