I never thought about loving myself. Have you?
Not too long ago, my life started to take a nose-dive. We’re talking a downward spiral. I had this knowing that somehow, I was losing the lifestyle I’d been living for awhile. Like it was time to let it go. 😧
In a dark night of the soul, I could actually see more clearly than I’d been able to see in quite a while. I could see that everything I was doing was motivated to take care of others, first. I put everyone around me ahead of myself. It was: first take care of others, first make sure everyone else is good, first love others and then maybe me.
Man. What the heck happened? I fell in between the cracks.
How? I didn’t even notice. 😔
I realized that I was thinking, doing and going for everyone else and what they wanted. It never hit me that doing that was tipping me way over my edge, until it did hit me. I was losing my way. I hit a wall and got burned out.
The crazy thing is, before that time, I considered myself a pretty unlikely candidate for burnout. I mean, for nearly the last 20 years my mantra has been to “feel good and be wellâ€. It still is. How could this have happened?
As a healer, taking care of soul, mind, body and spirit is pretty much non-negotiable. Tending to these aspects of myself is just so integral to my purpose. Again, how could this have happened? The irony of it all is that despite being a wounded healer, I hadn’t considered my healing journey to be one of self love. Self care, maybe. But love? 🤷♀️ 🤔
Well, I guess that’s why they call it “Earth School”. Nowadays, loving myself is central to my spiritual wellness — my well-being.
It may have taken losing me (the ‘me’ I put last 🤨) to love me, but now I can clearly see how essential having self love is. Hooray! It’s as essential as pausing to breath. Feels. So. Good. I can now offer myself support the way I’ve done for others (and still do! 🙂)
In the current pandemic, we’ve all been forced to slow down our lives and re-evaluate what is essential to us. It’s made it feel easier and more apropos to love myself and give myself care. But there are still moments when I think, “ Is self love really that essential?†because right now people are suffering, people are dying, and the economy is entering a severe recession. ❔ 🙋
The answer I always get is: Yes! Self love is essential. Especially now.
Just in case you or I come down with momentary amnesia and think, 🤔 “Self love? Who needs it?†🤷 I offer you:
5 significant reasons why self love is essential.
1. Self love is essential because without it you can’t really grow; you stunt your own growth.
If you think of yourself like a garden, the love that we provide to ourselves is just like water to a garden. It’s the proper nourishment needed so the garden can thrive and bloom fully 🌻. Without the proper nourishment (water=self love) the garden is starved, working hard just to survive. The garden can’t grow to its potential. For the garden within us, our growth is stunted.
What is reflected in your garden?
Stop and consider how everything is about growth, creation and change. Then think about self love as the proper nourishment for those things. Self love is essential to us in order to fully bloom and thrive plus to keep things sustainable. Luckily, Self love is an expansive energy. Therefore, practicing it widens our stream. We stretch. We change. We grow. 🙌 😊
2. Self love is essential because it gives you a way to have a fulfilling life.
How?
There’s more acceptance in your life when you have love for yourself. This acceptance helps you act in ways that are being helpful to yourself.
You can find what’s good under any circumstance, because that is a favorable act towards yourself. You’re grateful for what is (not for what is not) and you trust things are naturally unfolding in your favor. You have a sense of trust and gratitude for where you’re at in life.
So, yeah maybe today did really suck and you know you fell short of where you wanted to be but then you lovingly say to yourself, “I’m gonna get this. Tomorrow is another day. †For today, you ease into letting it go.
You find what’s good, and there’s a lot of good there. It’s self love that lets your eyes see the gems!
This is why self love is essential to creating a fulfilling life. 😘
3. Self love is essential because you inspire others to self love, too.
Self love is an expansive energy, so within us it has the power to impact not only us but everyone we connect with.
The compassion we hold for ourselves gives us the ability to hold the energy for those who may need compassion in their lives (and that’s a lot of us)!
You’re someone who truly cares. You take care of yourself and in your own way, you take care of the people around you, too. You’re willing to be vulnerable but you also keep healthy boundaries.
You’re shining that self love ray of light, even if it’s subtle. Just like laughter and joy spreads, so does the love and compassion you have for yourself. You’re creating a ripple effect.
Self love, starting with you, is essential in order for it to expand beyond you. This is important because it’s creating a more loving and compassionate world. And the truth is, we all really need self love. (📢 Heyyy, shout out to my peeps — my empath and recovering codependent friends, 💓)
4. Self love is essential because it’s an aid to having healthy self-esteem and self worth.
Without self love, you’re prone to being a human doormat, a people-pleaser and a perfectionist.
None of that works out favorably 😞! Being those things is painful and wilting. They weaken your life force energy.
But here’s what is life force giving: 🌼 SELF LOVE
When you love yourself, you honor yourself. You won’t stand for people stepping on you. You don’t need to kiss so much ass just to people please and make them happy. You don’t need everyone to like you. You don’t need to be perfect. That’s not real.
What is real is how real you get when you love yourself enough to be who you are, brilliant and flawed. Love is an expansive energy. It creates the necessary room within our heart to love even our shadow side, right alongside our brilliance.
The ability to love our whole make-up, gives our self esteem and self worth a power boost. Meeting (and accepting) ourselves right where we are, flaws and all, builds on our self esteem and sense of value through the power of our own love.
How are you showing yourself real love?
5. Self love is essential because you need it to be able to restore and heal.
Having self love is like building a special reserve of life force energy. When you give yourself love that is kind, love that’s compassionate, love like the ‘BFF’ kind, you’ll be able to find love for your situation even in the dark times.
You’ll restore and heal because the love you rally for yourself will eventually illuminate the darkness.
The light from love will lead you out of the wilderness and restore and heal you.
Maybe your life is chaotic right now. Maybe you can feel things are going way off balance. Know this: the most sustainable way to get back to center is through self love.
It’s the acts of kindness toward yourself that will restore your balance. And loving yourself during challenging times provides healing space for you. Recognize that any act you take, intended to bring you back to center or strengthen your core, is an act of love.
The gifts of healing include rebirth, renewal, victory, wisdom and many other gifts. With self love you can be open to receive all these gifts. Who says ‘no’ to bountiful blessings?
So you see Courageous Ones, self love isn’t about being “full of yourself†or being selfishly into yourself. Self love is about personal growth, consciousness, awareness, mental health, well-being, healing, fulfillment, acceptance and so on. (This is some courageous stuff.) It’s an essential tool in your spiritual wellness medicine bag. 🙏
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Until next time … ⚡🌈 💜
Be you & Be true, Courageous Ones!
