In my profession, I find that the process of teaching unconditional self-love, the most satisfying experience for me and my clients. There is no better feeling of achievement for me when I see the expression on my client’s face and feel the energy radiating in the room.
Why is it so difficult for us to love ourselves? The first stumbling block is that we are taught from a young age that it is wrong. We are told to share and to be humble and to give when you want to hold on and then we are told that we are selfish when we don’t do these things. But nobody explained self-love to us. It is not being arrogant, or selfish, or self-absorbed or narcissistic. All those characteristics has a different energy. Self-love is only the act of loving ourselves like you would love another. Doing the things that you would do for another if you love them. Be kind, be accepting and being considerate.
There is no channel for love to be poured into us.
We are taught to put other’s needs first and so the journey starts to where we end up losing all feeing of love for ourselves along the way. Then we think we will get it back by trying to please others, in order to get loved and accepted by the people in our lives. This is a futile exercise. Love only exists inside of us. There is no channel for love to be poured into us. We don’t get a pill for love from others, it is our own love rising up when we experience our loved one’s energy turned towards us. We experience it through their kindness, support, physical touch and words. However, it is our own love that rise up when the conditions are right. The less we love ourselves, the less likely we are to experience the love directed towards us. We constantly criticize ourselves for not being enough or doing enough or failing at something. We are talking to ourselves like an angry parent talking to a naughty child.
Discovering and reconnecting to our own inner being and experiencing unconditional self-love, fills our cup again and equip us to have all the love we need already available to us and then the act of loving others comes with effortless ease. We become less critical of other’s mistakes and we have a feeling of acceptance for the rest of the world.
Being a life partner and a parent becomes very difficult when we constantly have to be something or someone for our children, aging parents and partners, while we are juggling a career, household and parenting chores, add living up to expectations of our friends, society and social media and we have a constant drain on our source of love. We give it all away and we end up with nothing left to give and it feels as if our life is just one endless act of giving away what we lack ourselves.
Self-love vs Narcissism
What is the difference between self-love and narcissism? A narcissist is someone that is totally unaware of his/her own self love and constantly has to validate their self-worth through external sources. Narcissists usually experienced no love from one or both their parents. They constantly need to get feedback to feel better about themselves. The need external validation all the time. And their ego runs the show. The ego is the main driver and it is very adept at finding ways and means to support the subconscious mind to survive.
The subconscious mind has to be supported because it is responsible for the survival of the person. It runs the show. It has to regulate and keep the body healthy, but it also stores all our memories and emotions connected to the memories. When there is a feeling of lack, it will do everything in its power to find a way to fill the feeling of lack. A narcissist has a consistent feeling of lack of love and becomes obsessive in finding validation and love from others.
Children were made to feel guilty if they displayed any form of self-love.
It is not only narcissists that have this feeling. In actual fact, I find that most people I meet suffers from a lack of self-love. It is the result of old traditions and parenting norms that has developed over centuries. Children were made to feel guilty if they displayed any form of self-love. Children should be taught that self-love and self-care is important, then they would become free to share the abundance of love they have in their hearts. They need to understand that they have an unlimited source of love in their own heart center and that they are allowed to make mistakes. They need to understand that they can always do their best, but their best will not be the same every day. Some days they will be tired, hungry or sick and then their best is less than the days when they felt good. Mistakes are only lessons and if they don’t like to make mistakes, then that is only to help them to do things better next time, if they use the mistake to do things different.
We can only be truly at peace and experience joy and live in the moment when we truly love and accept ourselves in all our glory
Not getting it right in childhood and then through the education system, sets us up for constantly failing to feel the love inside our hearts and acceptance for who we are for the rest of our adulthood. We briefly feel it when we achieve a goal or get an accolade but soon, we fall back in the trap of not approving of ourselves which leads to the lack of self-love. We can only be truly at peace and experience joy and live in the moment when we truly love and accept ourselves in all our glory.