Loving Yourself Through It All
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I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “love yourself”. But what does it even mean?
How do you actually love yourself – especially when you have so many years behind you without love?
Loving yourself means that you accept all of you – the good, the bad, the ugly. The ugly ugly. It means that you accept these parts of you instead of trying to push them away.
In my life, loving myself looks like accepting my postpartum depression. It’s choosing me, even when I’m at my lowest. It’s believing that I am the exact mom that my children need – me, exactly as I am.
In my client’s life, it looks like acknowledging feelings of jealousy and inadequacy. In another, it’s accepting who she is as a mom, even though it isn’t who she thought she’d be. It’s recognizing that these parts don’t define who they are.
Loving yourself doesn’t mean that you just let go of all expectations – which is some of our biggest resistance to the phrase. We think that if we just love ourselves, then everything will go right out the window.
The opposite happens though – when you stop resisting and telling yourself you shouldn’t be this way, that’s when you can move through it and become more of who you want to be. because these parts of us are here for us to learn from; they aren’t here by mistake.
This week, I want you to practice loving yourself when you feel messy. Instead of trying to push it away or sink deep down in the dark and forget about it all, do this instead:
Find your good reason for feeling how you feel. You have a good reason for everything you think and feel – find it before you try to change it or reframe it.
Be willing to hold yourself through any emotion. Your body is made to process it. just like going to the bathroom or feeling hungry – it isn’t something to be afraid of. The better you get at feeling your feels, the less scary they seem.
Let go of dirty pain. This is when you tell yourself you shouldn’t feel how you feel. This layers negative emotion on top of negative emotion. It doesn’t mean you’re a terrible human if you feel angry or hate. No, actually – it doesn’t.
Don’t abandon yourself. Be with you through whatever’s happening. One of my favorite ways to do this is to just put my hand on my heart, and breathe. Remind myself that I’ve got this. This is part of being a human.
When you’re ready, try again. Ask yourself what worked and what didn’t. If it’s important to you, find another way to try.
When you can learn the skill of loving yourself through any situation – even the deepest of the dark – there is nothing that can hold you back anymore.
Imagine with me for a moment – what would be possible in your life if you treated yourself with such care?
That, my friend, is what you were made for.
