What Is Self-Love

While enjoying my new favorite hobby, listening to MindLove on Apple Podcasts, one of the comments I heard really struck me. The host, Melissa, was talking about defining self-love. She gave an anecdote about times from her past when she thought she was practicing self love. She was doing all the “right” things, making new healthy habits, eating healthy, etc. The problem was, if she ever didn’t do those things one day or fell out of her new self love routine, her mean inner voice was waiting and ready to criticize and condemn her.

This is a story that really resonates with me. I feel like that is the kind of “self love” I’ve been practicing. She made the point that true self love is loving, accepting, and being kind to yourself even when you may not be at your best. Self love is about being there for yourself with love and compassion during the difficult moments as well as the easy moments. Self love isn’t: I’m a good person and I love myself. I’m healthy and I love myself. I’m beautiful and I love myself. I’m loved by others and I love myself. Self love is: I love myself. Period. Full stop. There are no caveats or exceptions to self love. We must learn to love all of ourselves, every single messy part of us. True healing self love is unconditional. We don’t need to do particular things, look a particular way, or have a certain lifestyle in order to earn our own love. We are inherently worthy of that love.

Self love is also something that can be difficult to fully comprehend at first. For a long time while practicing that somewhat toxic version of self love I mentioned earlier, if I had been asked: do you love yourself? I would have answered yes. I think a lot of us, especially in these trendy self improvement circles practice this type of self love. It’s an outward expression. If I behave and speak in alignment with the self love examples I’ve seen, then I must love myself. I do yoga. I meditate. I exercise. I eat a whole foods plant based diet. Of course I love myself! However, while these are all wonderful, healthy, even loving habits, they aren’t going to be enough to combat the way you truly feel about yourself inside.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a long, painful journey full of trial and error. At least that’s my experience with learning to love myself. I’m still not quite there yet. But I think I’m ready to take the next step. I’ve gotten used to all the outward self love tools. Now it’s time to really focus on that inner work I’ve been avoiding. It’s almost funny now that I think about how often I ask myself why I’m so anxious. It’s so irrational! The mystery has been one of my greatest frustrations each day. But when I step back and really look at the way I treat and talk to myself, I’d be amazed if I wasn’t anxious. If a friend or a partner spoke to me the way I speak to myself, it’d be so easy to recognize it as blatant abuse. I’m anxious because I’m in constant fear of my own abusive inner voice. My ego threatens me all day long. Not only does it tell me that I won’t be loved by others unless I do x, y, and z, it tells me that I won’t be able to love myself either. If I can work to take away that fear, I’m certain my anxiety will lessen. I’m ready to start confronting that inner voice, my ego. It’s simply amazing how much reassuring and reaffirming my own love for myself can open my heart.

One of the most moving parts of the MindLove podcast I listened to today was when the guest speaker said something along the lines of, “I finally decided that I would rather be abandoned by everyone else in my life than keep abandoning myself.” I actually teared up when I heard that. And as someone who is very rarely able to cry, that’s a big deal for me. I felt so in alignment with that brave sentiment. I think I’m finally ready to make that decision too. I hope you’ll do the same.

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Fighting Your Ego

As I drove home from my little mini vacation to go see my boyfriend, I started listening to a new podcast called Mindlove. I played it basically the entire drive back, so needless to say, I’d definitely recommend it. It got me thinking about all the ways my ego tries to hold me back. The ego is really good at convincing us it’s who we really are. For me I imagine my ego as that little inner voice that is always worrying, always bringing me down, always concerned with how I look or what other people think. When this voice speaks, I take it as gospel.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been taught that we should listen to our gut feelings. The problem with that is I’ve never quite felt able to trust those feelings. I have no idea how to distinguish between intuition and ego. Most of the time I’ve simply waited for “inspiration” to come to me. It rarely ever does. I just use the fact that I haven’t gotten inspiration as a sign that I should just keep waiting. I’ve been waiting for years though. Even when inspiration does strike me, it’s often not enough to get me very far.

I’m beginning to learn that things that are right for you aren’t always going to feel right. You’ve got to trust that your higher self knows what’s best for you and do it anyway. One interesting point I liked from Mindlove was that our natural instincts are always geared towards keeping us in the same place. We resist change even when it’s a good change. So when you’re feeling depressed the things that you feel like doing are going to be things that keep you feeling depressed. I’m sure we all know that feeling. We’re having a bad day so we “treat” ourselves. We eat a bunch of junk food, lie in bed, binge watch our favorite shows. I often think this is doing something kind for myself, when in reality, although it may feel good in the moment, it always leaves me ultimately feeling worse.

This is one reason why it’s so important to create a regular practice of positive things like yoga and meditation. It’s always easy to practice when you’re in the mood for it. But having that routine makes it easier to also lean on your practice when you’re not in the mood. Because that’s truly when we need our yoga the most.

The ego likes to get very loud when we try to do something we don’t feel like doing. It tries to distract us, convince us to stop or do something else. It tells us we’re just wasting time, that it’s all a futile effort. I’m still learning how to stop obeying that nagging little voice in my head. I’ve allowed it to guide my actions for most of my life. It’s the part of me that cringes away from positive affirmations and acts of kindness. Oddly enough, it’s also the part that harshly criticizes me for struggling to embrace these self love practices.

My fear of anything even mildly unpleasant keeps me from connecting with that place of inner peace and happiness. I keep waiting for everything to just fall into place, waiting for the perfect time to change my life. But the truth is that “perfect” time isn’t ever going to come. I’ve got to be brave and start doing the work even though it may feel useless at first.