Self Love in Practice - From Awareness to Embodiment
“You can be the most beautiful person in the world and everybody sees light and rainbows when they look at you, but if you yourself don't know it, all of that doesn't even matter. Every second that you spend on doubting your worth, every moment that you use to criticise yourself; is a second of your life wasted, is a moment of your life thrown away.”
- C. JoyBell C.
I came across this quote during my journey of understanding and embodying Self Love, It was everything! It illuminated my understanding of Self love. My inner world, my thoughts and my beliefs determined my quality of life. It was so clear to me that everything was inside me, all that I was seeking - love, appreciation, everything was within me. It was for me to recognise and appreciate my own magnificence and wholeness - I didn’t need to seek anything outside of me.
If I needed love, I needed to love myself.
If I needed appreciation, I needed to appreciate myself.
All roads led within and here I could create a world in which I blossomed and bloomed. It was so liberating and at the same time, I had to do the work of really looking within with honesty and authenticity. I believed in the concept or agreed with it, like yes I do agree that self love is foundational to personal growth and yet it was just a concept, I was not embodying it. It was not in practice, in action.
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A gentle workbook with journal prompts, affirmations and simple daily practices to help you choose yourself, one day at a time.
As a concept Self-love is about loving yourself, putting yourself first, being aware of your needs, having your individuality and respecting that you are a Divine Sovereign Being. In my work with many women, I realised that they had stopped asking the question - What do I want? And sought validation and appreciation outside of themselves. I was there too.
The quest to embody self love led me to a basic question - Who AM I? I am more than this physical body, I am more than the limiting beliefs in my mind. I AM the Power in my Universe. I can let go of the beliefs that don’t serve me and I can create new beliefs that nurture me. I had two aspects - the Ego or personality and my Higher Self or simply that part of me that is always connected to the Divine. As a practice, I started connecting to this part of me. Here I found my own magnificence. These new beliefs started flowing in, I found the gold within - in this space authenticity flowed inviting myself to look at places where I was not being well, me! I was invited to introspect - was I aligned with myself?
Self love isn’t just about self care practices and nourishing rituals, to truly embody it, one must first know oneself and act from that sovereignty. I could find aspects of my life where I was not in alignment because I feared I wouldn't fit in or I will be judged or I didn’t want to rock the boat or I won’t be agreeable! This always created an inner conflict - I was not being myself! I wasn’t expressing my truth. Yes, it’s not always a comfortable experience but learning to express my truth and saying it with wisdom and discernment allowed me to let go of the inner conflict. I could say no with love, I could disagree with love, I could honour myself with love. At the same time, this allowed the other to be authentic and show up as they are.
I could fully appreciate that there is no right or wrong, no roles and moulds that I needed to fit in, I could be myself, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother in my own way honouring my Spirit and authenticity.
I found that I had so many “shoulds” for myself - the way I should look, the things that should’ve happened by now, how I should be in a relationship etc. These should flowed from cultural conditioning and expectations, beliefs that no longer served me and that needed reframing. When I let go of these "shoulds", I stopped judging people based on how “it should be” and understanding flowed in. When I understood and loved myself, I could love others better.
To cultivate a healthy sense of Self, I looked deeper at my beliefs and found that the core belief that everyone struggles with in different intensity is I am not good enough. It is one belief that needs to be looked at and reframed.
The other core belief that could block the flow of good in my life was my belief about how deserving I was. You will only allow what you believe you deserve into your life! If I believed that I didn’t deserve love I wouldn't allow it into my life.
I learned to discern the space was I coming from. What was my why for doing things? Was it coming from a space of lack where I wanted to fix something about myself? Or was it coming from the abundant space of self love because I wanted to honour myself and be healthy and happy and express myself into the world? From this space it was easy to make empowering choices and practice intentional rituals. I could create powerfully from this space and my creative energy flowed with ease and Grace.
In spiritual terms, we speak about the state of enlightenment - living in the moment and in surrender to the divine plan of goodness for my life. I could do this when my self awareness and self love flourished, I could live fully in this moment without anxiety about the future and the past, being present to myself and my unique life. When I fully appreciated that my life is unique and everything is unfolding with divine timing, I could focus on the present and live it fully. I could focus on the good that existed for me in the present rather than focus on the apparent lack created by my limiting beliefs, conditioning, societal norms etc. I could trust life, celebrate myself and live with joy.
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