I remember, about 15 years ago, having my first reiki session. This was when I began exploring the world of energy work, energy healing and spirituality from a non-religious place. It all felt so right and so true to the core of my being and I was like a wide-eyed child filled with wonder. In this session, when she was working on my solar plexus chakra, she told me that I needed to find love for myself. We are always told to love ourselves and at that time, I was so confused because I thought I did! I was so proud of the life I built for myself. I had a beautiful apartment, a wonderful job where I was on salary with all the benefits and continuously received promotions. I was in cosmetology school, pursuing my passion to become a hairstylist. I was engaged to man that, at that time, I thought was my knight in shining armor and had the best group of friends I could have asked for. I had a loving supportive family, how much more could I love myself? life was great! I asked her afterwards what she meant by that. It was then that my understanding of the difference between my internal world of self-love and my attachment of self-worth to my external world. I was blown wide open! It is so easy to fall victim to focusing on attaining the things that society tells us we should all want but when our internal vibration is not that of self-love, no amount of external attainment will feel satisfying. What we do, have and how we are being do not always resonate with our self-worth and the dissonance is undeniable when you tune in and listen. Fast forward less than a year and my life as I knew it, blew up in my face!
That relationship ended tragically to me, with him cheating on me, I took the leap to begin my career as a hairstylist once I completed school but in doing so, I left that comfortable, secure job with a fantastic company to take a 50% pay cut, no benefits and was an entry level assistant. To me, it seemed like I was moving backwards and that I had failed. Somehow, deep within my heart and soul, I knew this was the path that called to me and knew I had to listen, but my confidence and self-worth was at an all-time low. This period of my life was so challenging for me mentally and emotionally and I allowed what was happening in my life to feed into the limiting core belief that I wasn't worthy of that beautiful life and didn't deserve it. I had the pleasure of just "playing house" for that short time. That is when I began my long and ongoing journey to self-love and energy healing.
Within two years of that shift, I was thriving in a way that I couldn't have imagined. I could see in retrospect that the radical life shift and transition I went through was a blessing that I am SO grateful for. Back then, I would never have taken the time to begin to peel back the vulnerable layers of self-love, worth and discovery, if I hadn't been pushed to such despair. I didn't know it at the time but every step of the way, I was honoring myself and my authentic individual journey. This is the kind of perspective that honors and supports self-trust, self-respect and self-love.
To this day, I still struggle with moments of doubt, fear and unworthiness but because I have developed such an intimate relationship with myself, I quickly remind myself that self-worth is the internal sense of being good enough and worthy of love and belonging regardless of external factors. This one understanding is often enough to start the snowball rolling in the right direction.
Radical self-love involves accepting yourself, caring for yourself, and knowing you are more than enough, and inherently worthy of love, respect and compassion. There is a distinct connection between self-love and your overall health and well-being as well. When we love, honor and respect ourselves, we tend to make more healthy life choices that align with our personal values. When we connect to our authentic self and learn how make our own rules, we can begin to create the health, career, and relationships we desire. Awareness of how our thoughts and feelings can have a huge impact on our relationship with ourselves is often all we need to begin to make shifts. It can improve our feelings around self-worth when we choose positive, supportive and compassionate self-talk and stop ourselves when we begin falling down the rabbit hole of negative self-talk.
Our relationship with our thoughts and feelings shapes our perception of our reality. When we allow the opposite to be true and let the impermanent circumstances of our external world dictate our self-worth and self-love, we fall victim to the ego and an inevitable crash. Committing to self-love is a journey of continuously meeting ourselves where we are, with compassion and taking the time to work through our complex recurring thoughts and feelings while offering ourselves grace and acceptance.
“Language shapes our identity, and it’s time to make what’s unconscious conscious and declare who we now choose to be.”
~ In Memory of Patricia Moreno
Our body is only a vehicle for who we are. Our external lifestyle is the playground we play in. Placing our self-worth and self-love on external factors will inevitably leave us feeling unfulfilled.
When we take the time to invest in ourselves, just as we would with any other relationship that is meaningful to us, we can connect with and see ourselves as the beautiful souls we came to this world as and begin to accept the magic that is waiting for us.
What if we began scheduling dates with ourselves like we would with a romantic interest? What if we gave ourselves the foot massage that we long to receive? What if when we were having a hard day, we took a moment, sat in silence and asked ourselves what we needed for care and support in that moment just as we would for our friends? What if we took ourselves out for a special treat when we reached a goal we set for ourselves, just as we would for a child? When we take time to nurture our relationship with self, sit with ourselves just as we are in all the glorious mess, we can begin to chip away at the walls we have built to "protect" ourselves from the "hurt" out in the world. All we are doing is hiding ourselves away and blocking ourselves from the blessings that are waiting for us. When we begin to allow the veils to drop and we can meet the so called "less than desirable" parts of ourselves with the unconditional love and support that a doting mother would show her child, the level of balance, peace and equanimity that begins to surface is more valuable than any fancy car or house. Not that there's anything wrong with enjoying the material world, just so long as we aren't attaching our self-worth to it.
“My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to find peace with exactly who and what I am. To take pride in my thoughts, my appearance, my talents, my flaws and to stop this incessant worrying that I can’t be loved as I am.”
~ Anaïs Nin
We are all inherently worthy of love and came into this world as nothing more than love and light. Anything contrasting this, is just junk we picked up along the way. Isn't time we put down the bags of doubt and unworthiness and walked free, in all our glory, just as we are intended to do?
All the love,
Pamela
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