Exploring self-love: Awareness

It seems simple, but as I began writing this piece, it was interesting how much resistance came up for me. Why does self-love bring up so much emotion?

The more I delved into this topic, the more feelings rose to the surface to be explored.

I needed to objectively view all of the different facets of who I am, embrace them as a collective and become more aware of how resisting self-love is influencing my thought process and actions.

Each time I discussed this topic with people I noticed the same reactions. People became uncomfortable, teary and emotional. Why is it that we often feel this way?

Our Inner Self

In order to achieve awareness of self, I had to evaluate which parts of me enabled self-love and which parts of me were preventing it? By becoming more aware, I could identify how I was triggering certain thought patterns. Allowing me to better understand why I react in certain ways. I was beginning to find the clues toward how to achieve a better sense of self.

Exploring my mind

An exercise to help understand certain thought patterns is to make a list of positive attributes and self- sabotaging. When I did this, I noticed that each list triggered a different emotional response. This awareness of the impact they create allowed me to see how I could actively encourage a more positive outcome.

Negatives

As I moved through this list, I was aware of how these thoughts and feelings fed the inner critic. Thoughts like:

Am I good enough?

I could have done that better

I don’t deserve this.

All self-sabotaging and leading me away from self-love.

Positives

I preferred looking at this list 🙂 My thoughts instantly headed in a better direction and I noticed my dialogue change:

I’m a good person,

I did the best I could,

I deserve this!

I felt good about myself.

The stories you tell yourself, become your reality.

Acceptance

The key to self-love is accepting that we are not perfect. Embracing who we are fully leads to a much better understanding of ourselves. Being aware of which story we decide to listen to will make a significant difference to how we view and perceive ourselves.

I have realized that self-love is the single most important thing that I need to work on as it alone determines how my life unfolds.

Things I find useful:

•  Tell yourself “I love you” a lot!
•  Make a list of all your good qualities and focus on them
•  Don’t be too hard on yourself
•  You don’t need approval or recognition outside of yourself
•  Practice putting yourself first

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