Hello Beauty 🙂
Today lets look at the number one fear I have faced within myself, and that I encounter with pretty well everyone I speak with, when it comes to this journey of self love.
This fear that says
"What will become of me if I were to truly love myself?"
"Will I stop exercising, stop eating well, let myself go completely? Will I never start doing these things at all? If I do not have the driving force of inadequacy keeping me going, won't I give up all together? Won't I just let myself sit on the cough, eat and entire box of cookies for every meal, watch reality T.V and never try for anything ever again?"
"Will I become lazy in my job? Will I let go of all my ambitions, all my goals, all my desires?"
"Will I quit trying in my relationships? Will I simply let everyone around me just do whatever they are doing, and quit trying to help them? Quit working on myself so that I can be acceptable to others? Will I start saying whatever I think and whatever I feel and become terribly offensive and maybe even *gasp* rude?!"
Essentially, the question is - "If I were to love myself as I am, right here, right now, is that not me resigning to a life where I am this person that I hate so much, forever? If I give up this self improvement rampage, won't I be stuck in a life, a body, a job, a relationship that I hate and have no way of getting out of it? Won't I become lazy and give up on everything?"
You see, most people can understand that working from a place of self hate, from a place of fear, from a place of lack does not make sense on an intellectual level.
Most can see that to move from those places essentially guarantees that you will stay right where you are in your dissatisfaction, because energetically you cannot move from lack to abundance when you are hell bent on staying in a lack mentality - which is exactly what the 'I am not good enough' paradigm is. A lack mentality.
Lack Won't Get You Abundance
Even though you may understand this on a level, I am willing to bet that there is still a part of you that is afraid to step off the ledge into self love land, because you feel that without that constant awareness of how NOT good enough you are, how NOT where you want to be you are, how NOT thin enough/rich enough/successful enough/likeable enough/nice enough/ enough enough you are, you will just give up and stay in your not enough place forever.
I am willing to bet that you are afraid to give up your self hate, because you feel without that motivation, you will be who you do not want to be forever.
You most likely feel that even though this self hate and constant need to improve does not feel good right now, at least it is motivating you to do things for yourself that eventually WILL improve you. That will make you good enough one day, and thus at least happiness will be had - you don't know when - at the end of that self improvement path.
I am here now, to burst your bubble.
I am here to tell you that your lack of self love is never going to magically turn into an abundance of self love.
I am here to tell you that your constant quest for self improvement does not have an end. It is a hamster wheel that will keep turning so long as you keep walking on it.
I am here to tell you that self hate, self berating, self improvement NEVER turns into self love, self satisfaction or feeling like you have 'made it.'
In fact, the self improvement path that you are walking in the hopes that one day it will make you feel how you want to feel - that you are worthy, loveable, enough - is energetically and vibrationally in a totally different dimension from your goal.
Your self improvement path will only, and CAN only lead to more things to improve.
More things to be dissatisfied with.
More things to fix.
It will never become satisfaction, joy, love and peace - because it is not these things.
One path does not lead to the other.
The self improvement path and the self love path are two different paths. And they never intersect.
Fears In Love
Now, it is sort of funny, and possibly ironic, to talk about the 'fears' that surface on the self 'love' journey. This is because we know that fear is simply the absence of love.
Love is the salve that soothes all fears.
Love is the reminder that the fears were only ever illusions drawing us deeper into ourselves.
Love is the answer to the question that is fear.
So when you really invite love into any fear, when you invite love into any question, you tend to see how there was never really anything to fear in the first place.
When I look back on my own journey, there were so many things I feared about what life would look like once I loved myself. Now that I am on the other side, those fears make no sense. It is almost as though I was speaking one language before the path of self love, and now I speak a totally different language - and I have, for the most part, forgotten how to speak in 'fear.' Not to say that the fear voice never arrises and that I am never able to interpret its messages - it happens - but overall, especially when we are talking about what I thought this life of self love was going to lead me into, I have moved into a parallel reality where those fears simply do not exist.
They can't over here. Due to the fact that they are an absence of love, and love has now permeated those places.
So it is when I am working with my lovely One On Ones and they bring to me their fears of what lies ahead for them if they were to take this plunge into self love that I am reminded that love and fear are such drastically different states, and that getting from one to the other takes some coaxing.
Because at the end of the day, when you are in a fear state, you are going to perceive everything through those fear goggles - even love itself.
Which is why I would like to make you a promise today.
The Promise Of Self Love
Your fear that you will stay being dissatisfied with yourself when you start to love yourself is a lie.
The fear that you will sink into a sea of mediocrity, that you will let yourself go, that you will become fat, lazy, hopeless, without drive, dreamless, mean, inadequate, less than and all around worthless is a lie.
Your fear that when you stop pushing, stop pointing out all your flaws, stop determining your course of action after taking account of all that you are not and must become, that you will cease to take care of you, that you never accomplish anything important, that you will never become someone you want to be - is a big.fat.life.
The truth?
You, as a precious, perfect, human being, naturally take care of the things you love.
You have an innate ability to tend to, to nurture, to care for the things that matter to you.
You have the capacity for understanding deeply those things that are closest, nearest and dearest to your heart.
You cause those thing you love to flourish, because you create the fertile ground upon which those things can thrive with your loving attention and focus.
Pause and think for a moment about a thing/person/vocation that you LOVE. That you cherish. That you adore.
How do you treat this person/thing? Do you leave it/them to wither and die? Do you neglect them/it? Do you put it/them on the shelf of not needing anything? Do you sit there and focus on all that is wrong with this person/thing, OR do you tend to focus on all that is right within it/them, thus drawing these positive aspects to the surface for you to enjoy more often?
I am willing to bet that you are seeing my point now.
So let me give it to you straight:
When you decide you are going to love your body, two things are going to happen. First, you will realize that your body is awesome. That there was never actually any reason for you to hate it so much, that it IS acceptable, that it is not the cause of your inability to be confident or to feel worthy or loveable. You will stop pushing it so hard and will be able to actually ENJOY your body.
Second, you will find that eating healthfully, moving, resting and generally treating your body with love and respect - ie. doing all those healthy habits you have been working so hard to get yourself to do for all these years - becomes easy. Because you are moving from a place of your body being deserving of nourishment and love rather than from a place of lack.
If you start to tell yourself that you are good enough right here, right now, you will ease up on yourself. You will start to lean into the ideas, the inspirations, the work that feels exciting or that feels relaxing. You will stop stressing so much, you will stop looking for validation and approval outside of yourself, and you will start to find these things within. Then, from this empowered place you will go out and accomplish all your dreams - all the while knowing you are worthy even if you don't. Which will release you from all the unnecessary anxiety and striving you have been dealing with on your self improvement hamster wheel.
You will thrive in your relationships, because you will start to see that you do not need another person approval to feel good about yourself. With this, you will be more open and honest, but also more caring and compassionate, more able to see the people you are in relationship with, rather than seeing them through the lens of fear your needs wont be met or that you wont be seen or heard.
What I am saying here is:
When you start to love yourself, you will at the same time be so much more contented with who you are right now, which will make life feel SO much better. You will also be much more clear in what you ACTUALLY want out of this life - out of your jobs, your body, your relationships, and you will be able to follow your JOY in that direction, rather than running from your fear.
You will be who you have always wanted to be - and you will love the you that you are right now too.
SO that is the big secret of self love.
In self love, you won't feel the dramatic and relentless pull to improve yourself - which will make your current situation SO much less painful, and so much MORE enjoyable.
AND
You will naturally take care of yourself. You will still work towards goals, you will still grow, learn and change. The only difference is the energy behind your efforts will be from a place of knowing that you DESERVE this nourishment, growth and expansion because you are so loved.
Pop.
There goes your fear 😉
<3
