Hello again!
In case you haven’t already, please do read:
Part One
Part Two
Now let’s wrap this up by looking at how TRUE self love is the path towards a new, better system for all of us.
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We Hurt Because We Are Separated From Our Humanity
The real reason we hurt is because we have been systematically disconnected from our humanity.
The real reason we are hurting is not because we aren’t consuming or producing enough - it’s because a) we’re human and there will always be pain involved in this, and we have been given very few tools for dealing with this reality and b) because our system drives us so far away from our humanity that it actually CAUSES the pain it then tries to tell us it can help us fix.
This is where TRUE self love comes in.
The true self love path is about reconnecting with all of the parts of our humanity we have been trained to deny, reject, get rid of, suppress and otherwise work to disengage from.
The true self love path is about learning to let go of all the ways we have been trained to be that actively go against what is actually nurturing, supportive and healthy for us.
The true self love path 100% takes us internal first - as I mentioned in the last post. We are going to start by learning how to reconnect to our emotions or to connect to them for the first time. We are going to learn how to question the thoughts we have that feel terrible in our bodies - that lead us to shame, blame and guilt, so that we can find the innocence in our being.
We will learn to start to HONOR our emotions, to HONOR our feelings, to stop seeing our anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, depression or other negative emotional states as ‘bad’ but rather as messengers to us.
We will start to understand that we have NEVER been broken, but rather we have always been RESPONDING to that which hurt, that which wasn’t true, that which wasn’t supportive and that which was harmful that was all deemed ‘normal’.
We will start that slow journey of unpacking all of our shame, blame and guilt so that we can find where we were let down, abandoned, rejected and made to be unsafe - and we will learn to support and love these parts of ourselves in our present, so that we no longer get trapped in the idea that our pain means there’s something wrong with us.
This will be the big, first step that helps us to start untangling ourselves from ‘the matrix’ that is our current culture and all the ways it’s convincing us that our problems are caused by something OTHER than what they are truly caused by.
We are going to learn how to see our coping, numbing, self sabotage and scapegoat behaviors for the helpful survival strategies that they actually are, and we are going to learn how these coping strategies are currently supporting us in getting needs met, expressing what we have no other way to express, suppressing what we feel we need to suppress, being ‘good’ so that we will be loved and approved of and we will start to realize where these aspects of self and behaviors can be MATURED via love, compassion and curiosity. It’s through this self compassion that we will learn new, better ways to get our needs met, that we will learn how to express ourselves without that childhood limiting belief that if we aren’t loved we won’t be ok, we will learn to embody what we are and to let go of what we aren’t - and in this we will find that we can release those old ways of being without ‘fixing’ ourselves - because there was nothing ‘wrong’ with us to begin with.
We will start to see how we have never been broken, but again, we have just been RESPONDING to all the ways that we have been hurt, harmed, confused, made vulnerable and all the ways we have been told that who and what we are isn’t ‘acceptable’ and how deeply fearful that made us. We will start to be able to see how we don’t need to be fixed, but rather we need to be UNDERSTOOD and that in that understanding we can start to move towards creating a life that actually SUPPORTS who and what we are, vs. trying to make ourselves INTO something - thinking that by becoming ‘good enough’ by societies/cultures/our families standards, we will then have happiness.
This deep, inner work will lead us down a path where we become less and less fearful of rejection, of being different, of not going along with the crowd, because we will start to develop a true internal sense of what is and isn’t working based on FEELING and based on actual OBSERVATION of cause and effect. This deep, inner work will help us to come OUT of the childhood/cultural way of thinking that tells us that to follow what ‘should’ work or what everyone else is doing is the safest thing, and it will take us TOWARDS a way of life where we are able to connect with true reality and to weigh results of actions based on that.
This deep inner work will help us to see the ways in which we have been conditioned - it will help us recognize where we have been trained that we MUST be this way or that we CAN’T be that way - and we will start to untangle what is really true about that and what isn’t. We will start to be able to really SEE where the ways we are coping, numbing, self sabotaging or simply feeling terrible in life aren’t rooted in an inherent flaw in us but rather are rooted in the fact that we have been trying to fit into a way of being that simply doesn’t feel good for us.
As we start to untangle from all of the shame we have been trained to be in, as we start to see ourselves as fundamentally good, as we start to learn how to support ourselves through our emotions, as we start to learn how to ask ourselves what we really want and need, as we start to learn how to ask ourselves how we are REALLY feeling if our pain is not actually coming from our inadequacy, as we start to learn how to get honest about what is and isn’t working in our lives - we will then start to be able to really SEE the systems we’re living in.
When We Trust Ourselves, We Become Conduits For Systemic Change
When we are able to trust ourselves, when we are able to connect to our emotions and feelings and rather than writing them off or trying to change/fix them, when we are able to honor our bodies and see our behaviors as reactions, when we are able to dive deep into our actual NEEDS - we will start to be able to really see what does and doesn’t work about the conditioning we’ve been handed.
We will start to see the systems for what they actually are - tools of manipulation that keep us stuck in self hate, abandonment and shame so that we will continue to play the games of exploitation and harm that keep the wheels of capitalism turning.
We will start to understand that as adults, we don’t have to be loved and approved of in order to be safe. We will start to understand that we can understand ourselves and we can meet our own needs in ways we thought could only happen through others loving and approving of us. We will start to learn how to validate our own experience and existence, thus becoming less reliant upon being ‘seen’ in culture. We will start to step into our adult perspective that allows us to face challenges and problems head on - rather than feeling like we need an expert to come save us or like if we don’t already know that we can’t know.
We will start to be able to say ‘it’s not that I am a failure that I can’t work this job - it’s that this job isn’t healthy for me! I am coping when I come home from work every night not because I’m weak, but because work HURTS. It’s not ME that’s broken, rather I need to find a new way of working that supports my system better than this job does.’
We will start to be able to see how it’s not that we suck at relationships, but rather it’s that we were never taught how to have truly AUTHENTIC connection. We will start to learn how to understand and assess our own wants, needs, feelings, triggers and preferences - and we will start to learn how to communicate these to the people around us, rather than expecting to be understood or trying to suppress ourselves so that we will ‘fit in.’ We will start to honor our actual personalities and what does and doesn’t feel good for us vs. feeling like we have to conform to be safe. We will start to recognize where we don’t need to be liked/approved of by certain people, and that it’s ok to be rejected if we are being rejected for doing or being something that’s actually healthy for us in true reality.
We will start to question all the ways we thought we had to conform and measure up - all the trends we thought we had to participate in, the social norms, the relationships styles, the jobs, the ways we thought we had to make money, the ways we thought we had to socialize - and we will start connecting with what is TRULY supportive of life, and what isn’t.
And we will start to make changes to the way we live due to all of these revelations.
We will start to see where we have enough, where we don’t need more - and we will begin to take less instead of constantly driving for expansion where that isn’t actually healthy for us.
We will start to recognize where we really DON’T have enough, and rather than blaming ourselves, we will start to understand where we can ask for more support, where we can utilize tools and resources that help us resource ourselves, and we will start to see where our systems are failing us with their ultra-individualism.
We will start to change how we relate to others as we learn to be our real selves - slowly but surely - learning how to create actual connection and true community that’s based on mutual care and respect, vs. creating these false communities that are based purely on either how we can ‘use’ one another to get ahead or on how they ‘look’ to the world around us.
We will start to live for how things ARE vs how they LOOK - and THIS will be the thing that takes us into our most empowered space possible.
As we shift from that childhood fear state that if we are not loved we can’t be safe, into the adult perspective that provides us with the ability to really see our autonomy and power we will also be stepping into our capacity to REALLY question what we’ve been told - and this is what starts to draw us into seeing where we can use our lives as a tool for supporting systemic change.
We will start to see how we can be a part of a larger change via shifting our own actions.
We will start to see that the more we disengage from the wheels of shame and manufactured discontent that run our society, the more HUMAN we become.
This will mean facing existential and complex realities that sometimes hurt and that sometimes don’t have a solution or a perfect solution. This will mean facing the systemic injustice of our society and not always being able to ‘do’ something about them. This will mean having to feel big emotions and having to work through past pain in ways that may be overwhelming and scary sometimes.
This will mean letting go of the fantasy that if we just become good enough, rich enough, beautiful enough, successful enough, loved enough or approved of enough that we will be happy forever and ever amen - and settling into the reality that life is simply a progression. That life will contain all sorts of experiences - some challenging and some great. It will mean opening to the fact that we will never ‘arrive’ - but that the more we learn how to support ourselves in our TRUE humanity the BETTER life can and WILL get.
This will mean being different. It will mean facing the fear of being rejected, and doing things that are true to reality anyway. It will mean going against our conditioning, feeling that fear, and having to learn how to support ourselves through that.
This will mean facing the areas of our lives where we really DO need help, and learning to ask for it.
It will mean learning to grieve all the ways we’ve been harmed and hurt, and possibly are still being harmed and hurt. It will mean slowly embracing the harsh realities of life that Do exist, and rather than running from them or blaming ourselves for them, we will learn how to emotionally support ourselves and ask for emotional support from others through that which we can’t change, and we will learn how to take the steps we CAN take to make things just a little better where those steps exist.
We will learn to live from our adult perspective - the one that opens us up to possibility, steps, progress, better, compassion, curiosity and the ability to do what’s in alignment with reality vs. feeling like we must always be doing what’s ‘good’ to others.
THIS will make us activists for a new world.
Even if we aren’t out in the streets or blasting on social media - when we start to live our lives from a place of self love, we will naturally be checking out of the painful systems that we all need to participate in in order for them to function.
We will become the ones who STOP feeding into our systems of continual manufactured discontent. We will withdraw our energy. We will learn to live in ways that support true life and this is how we will starve out the old system and work to build a new one.
As you learn to honor yourself, as you learn to open to your humanity and as you learn to SLOWLY form your life around your humanity, you WILL be causing a ripple effect out into the world around you.
It can be no other way.
So while this path will start by looking very internal, the longer you walk it, the more it will become a way of life that helps you make this world safer and healthier for all of us.
The more you will see the systems for how they are, and the more you will be a part of the change - by following what actually WORKS and what FEELS GOOD to your human self - the part of you that FEELS and that can weigh what the mind thinks ‘should’ happen against what’s ACTUALLY happening.
As you work your way towards being driven less by shame and guilt, you will be driven more and more by truth and reality.
And there’s no way that this won’t make you a change-maker.
So please know, this path is anything but selfish.
You connecting to your humanity IS the path to this world changing.
The more of us that do, the more of us will be demanding that the systems change - and THIS is what we need to see.
<3
