6 Ways to Love Yourself Deeper
Self-love is a big buzzword these days… We talk a lot about how important it is to love ourselves but do we actually embody it? Do bubble baths and spa days negate the ugly words we tell ourselves? Can we gua sha away our shame? Do we work out because we care for our body or because we believe we need to change ourselves to be worthy of love? What is self-love, really?
Self-love is the ability to see past the illusion of everything we are not to meet the truth of who we are. Self-love is a practice, a way of being, that deepens the more we evolve into the most authentic version of ourselves.
The saying we can not love someone until we love ourselves could not be more true. We can only meet someone at the depth we are willing to meet ourselves, and we can only love someone at the depth we are willing to love ourselves. I used to think I loved myself unconditionally until the conditions I placed my love upon were taken away from me. One thing I always remind myself and my clients is we are always being tested in our ability to love ourselves deeper.
I think it’s a beautiful thing to admire our external traits, our bodies, our smiles, our accomplishments… But is this type of love enough to love ourselves when we are met with our shadow? Can we still love ourselves when we unearth our guilt and shame? Can we still love ourselves when we fail, when the relationship didn’t work, when that person leaves us, when we don’t meet other people’s standards, when life feels out of our own control? These moments are when our love is tested. Moments when we meet our own shadow offer us two choices—we can run away from our pain, abandoning ourselves once again, or we can utilize these moments to cultivate a life-long and trusting relationship with ourselves. In choosing the latter, we heal our abandonment wound because we are no longer abandoning ourselves, we no longer live from shame because our light shines through it, we end self-sabotage because we finally realize that we are worthy, and we end the endless amount of self-punishment because we see our own innocence. Easier said than done. When we find ourselves in the same cycle of rock bottoms again and again it is because we are denying our own love. So how do we learn to love ourselves when it is not so easy?
Self-love is a lifelong journey. It doesn’t end, it only deepens—just like our own healing journey. In fact, self-love IS the healing journey. When we love ourselves, it is because we see who we truly are. Love never fades and is the only thing that is true, although our ego may tell us something different. But beneath all of the layers of shame, self-loathing, and guilt, there is love.
As painful as they were, the moments I found myself sobbing on my bedroom floor were the moments I was forced to love myself and surrender to my own healing. That is not to say one day I woke up and decided to love myself everything was perfect. But rather, I am only reminded to love myself deeper on the days where it is hardest. With love, we can always return back to the safety of our own essence. Here is how you can begin the journey of falling in love with yourself.
Meet your inner-child.
The inner-child is the purest version of you. It is you at your core, in your own innocence, before you picked up on the false beliefs that you’re not good enough. This is the part of you that is free, playful, unconditionally loving, creative, and innocent. The inner-child is the most authentic version of you. If you feel like you’ve lost yourself or forgotten who you are, look at a picture of yourself before age 7. Would you tell the child version of yourself the mean things you say to yourself when you look in the mirror as an adult? Would you tell them that they’re stupid, not enough, ugly, etc…? Every time you speak to yourself, you are speaking to your inner child.
Think back to when you were a child… what did you want to be when you grew up? A lot of us would say grand things like a princess, an astronaut, a baseball player, a doctor, a firefighter etc… We dreamed of being someone or something extraordinary. Intuitively as children, we knew we were capable of achieving greatness. When did we grow up and choose to believe that our dreams are no longer attainable? The pure mind of a child believes that anything is possible because it has yet to meet the lies and illusions that the world tells us. Our own innocence is what drives us to believe that anything is possible.
How can you reconnect with your own innocence? The dreams you had as a child are not so far off from what is actually possible for yourself today. Dare to envision your life through the eyes of your inner child. If your inner child saw you today, would they be proud? Disappointed? Excited? What does your inner child truly desire for yourself? What big dreams does your inner child love to see? What would your life be like if you arrived to make your inner child proud? When you learn to reconnect with this version of yourself, it becomes kind of hard not to love it.
Tend to your body.
The body holds energy–everything that makes up our own consciousness, memories, our trauma, our past… When we abandon our bodies, we are abandoning our pain, which only leaves it to fester and become the driver of our own lives. Our pain acts like a veil, shielding ourselves from anything that could possibly be good for us. The key to healing is not to change ourselves or get rid of our pain but rather tend to it and allow it to be a catalyst to know ourselves deeper. Our pain and our tactics to managing it, whether it is avoiding it or tending to it, show us where we are afraid.
The first step in addressing our pain is to become present in the vessel that contains it: the body. Stillness creates space for the body to speak and makes room for us to truly listen. Stillness will show us the parts of ourselves that are restless—the parts of ourselves we have not found peace with, whether it be our past, a truth we’ve avoided, our shadow… By teaching ourselves to be present with our bodies, we heal our abandonment wounds because we are no longer abandoning ourselves.
So how can we ease into this process with love? Begin by caring for the vessel that holds your energy. Go outside, get movement in, nourish your body, get some sleep, and take moments to recognize the incredible things your body does for you on a daily basis. It is pretty incredible what our bodies do to keep us alive. How many times have we neglected this miracle of life? By supporting your physical vessel, you create space to feel and move through your pain from a grounded and compassionate place. Furthermore, this allows you to develop a more trusting and loving relationship with yourself.
Build a relationship with your shadow.
Shadow work sounds pretty sexy these days until you actually do it. The shadow is part of ourselves we like to keep in the dark—it is that thing you do to cope with pain, it is encompassed by guilt, insecurities, perceived flaws, and is ultimately the part of yourself that can drive you into self-sabotage if you neglect it and decided that because of it, you are not worthy. Learning about this part of ourselves not only allows us to know ourselves deeper, but can bring a level of compassion to ourselves and others.
You don’t have to like your shadow at all, but you can learn to love yourself despite of it. Can you learn to meet your shadow with curiosity instead of fear? If we can learn to work with the darker sides of ourselves, we can also learn to work with our own light. The shadow isn’t going anywhere—it will always have a place in our subconscious. But as we bring loving awareness to it, our shadow becomes our strength. Ignoring it will only allow our shadow to sit in the driver seat of our lives. Having the willingness to face and work with this element of ourselves is an act of love. In return, it no longer drives our lives but becomes a passenger to lovingly remind us where we are still living from fear.
When we inevitably meet our shadow during our rock bottoms, we are faced with two choices: we can pretend to ignore our shadow and allow it to keep us small, or we can grow curious about our shadow and transmute it into our strength. Choosing the latter takes a great deal of love, yet it is what we choose when we know we are worthy of a beautiful life. We can not be in the light without facing our own darkness, because without light there is no darkness and without darkness there is no light. Who’s to say that these elements of ourselves are bad? What if they are just the catalyst to become something great?
Practice forgiveness.
Here’s a triggering phrase I once heard… your ability to forgive another person is your ability to forgive yourself. Resentment only hurts you and is mirroring the relationship you have with yourself. In A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, the author talks about how we can awaken to our own perfection through the desire to see perfection in someone else. Rather than condemning another person for not loving us the way we expect them to, we can turn inward and ask ourselves where we are denying ourselves our own love. That is not to say that you should allow people to treat you terribly or to settle for unloving relationships. Forgiveness does not mean to stay in a dynamic that is hurting you. Forgiveness rather it is an act of love that frees us from pain.
When we hold resentment towards another, it does nothing but fester within ourselves. Resentment only keeps us in a spiral of pain and hurt which will in turn cause us to create a wall that prevents any other love from coming in. Resentment keeps us in victim-mode, and does absolutely nothing to or for the other person. People are mirrors. Oftentimes the pain we experience in relationships is actually pain that was felt when we were children, only becoming pulled out of us through another person. This is an opportunity to heal and we can not heal by holding onto resentment.
Seeing yourself in your own innocence will allow you to see others in their own innocence. We all do hurtful things because there is part of us that is hurt, and therefore we are only acting out of a false perception that we need to protect ourselves. But forgiveness opens us up to receive and give love freely, it is what cleanses our spirit to return back to our natural state of love. When we learn to forgive ourselves, we willingly forgive others.
Celebrate your gifts.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” - Marianne Williamson, from A Return to Love
Remember that inner-child exercise? The thing you wanted to be when you grew up can actually say a lot about your innate gifts. You wanted to be a doctor or a vet? You’re probably a natural born healer. You wanted to be a firefighter? There is likely a great amount of courage within you and a drive to help others. You wanted to be the president? There’s a leader within you, one who wants to change the world. You wanted to be a princess? You recognized your own delicacy and beauty as a gift to the world.
We were all born with unique talents and gifts to be able to offer to the greater healing of our planet. The ability to accept ourselves for who we are opens us up to explore the realms of our own gifts. Many of us grew up under certain expectations of who we should become. So instead of choosing what our soul yearns for, we choose what we believe will make us lovable. But the truth is that when we explore our authentic self and gifts, we inevitably become the best version of ourselves.
Begin exploring this by moving towards the path of least resistance. What comes easy to you? What do you see that others don’t? Where does your heart lead you? This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to make a career out of these things. But at the very least, you can embody these qualities and bring them to any situation including your career.
By choosing to love ourselves, we drop any fear that keeps us from embodying our own gifts. We can first recognize and acknowledge them through gentle curiosity of ourselves. We then celebrate them by giving ourselves permission to fully embody them.
See yourself through the universe.
“Everything in the Universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.” - Rumi
Go outside and look up at the night sky. This is where you come from. We are all made from star dust, therefore everything we see is part of who we are. The beauty we see outside of ourselves is not in fact outside of ourselves at all.
Can you see yourself through the eyes of God? Can you choose to look past the illusions of not enough-ness? The beauty that you see in another is the beauty that you have within yourself. Separation is an illusion of the ego. I am you and you are me. What you love about another person is something within you that wants to emerge and be seen.
I think we struggle with understanding our own power more often than not, which causes us to seek false idols of power (money, fame, approval…) We easily give our power away everything outside of ourselves because we believe we are inadequate. But what if everything you ever needed is all within you? As human beings, we are magnificent creators because we are an extension of God. We have the ability to create, destroy, build, and rebuild. We have the power to choose love, to choose healing, to choose a life of happiness…
How often do you stop to recognize the miracle of your own life? What it took for you to read this post, form complex thoughts and ideas, all while your body unconsciously regulates itself is pretty miraculous.
We all play a role in a great ecosystem of synchronicities and healing on this planet, and the more we give ourselves permission to embody the miracle that we are, we say “yes” to our greater purpose and role to play on this planet. We then recognize our true worth and further understand the value and contribution we can have on those around us and the world at large.
You are the miracle in your own healing. You are the one who has the ability to create abundance in your life. Recognizing the miracle that you are is an act of love and all it takes a a place of acknowledgement. This is not something you have to chase after or look for. Is is right here, right now. You do not need to heal yourself to be lovable. You are lovable even in your worst moments.
Imagine a world where we all loved ourselves, there would be no war, no need to fight for power, no pain, no suffering… we wouldn't be wasting our time in the comment section on social media trying to prove ourselves right. We wouldn’t be ruminating over what he or she said or thinks. The world would be a much more peaceful place if we learned to love ourselves because we wouldn’t feel the need to power play over others to feel enough. We would seek our power from within—which comes from a loving place rather than fear. By choosing to heal, we choose love, and by choosing love, we heal not only ourselves, but everyone around us.